Adizes Organizational Lifecycle
Leading an organization through lifecycle transitions is not easy, or obvious. The same methods that produce success in one stage can create failure in the next. Fundamental changes in leadership and management are all required, with an approach that delicately balances the amount of control and flexibility needed for each stage. Leaders who fail to understand what is needed (and not needed) can inhibit the development of their companies or plunge them into premature aging.
The challenges that every organization must overcome at each stage of development first manifest themselves as problems that arise from the growth and success of the company and from external changes in markets, competitors, technology and the general business and political environment. This simple, unavoidable reality leads to the following five important insights about the nature of problems in organizations.
Find out what stage you are in
Lifecycle Location
Courtship
Courtship is the first stage of an organization's development. At this stage, the company is not yet born. It exists as a gleam in the Founder(s) eye. The focus of Courtship is necessarily on dreams and possibilities.
The Fall
The Fall is positioned at the top of the Lifecycle curve, but it is not the place to be. That position is Prime, where organizational vitality is at its maximum.
Go-Go
A Go-Go organization is a company that has a successful product or service, rapidly growing sales and strong cash flow. The company is not only surviving, it's flourishing.
Recrimination
When an Aristocracy is unable to reverse its downward spiral and the artificial repairs finally stop working, management's mutual admiration society abruptly ends. The good-old-buddy days of the Aristocracy are gone, and the witch-hunts of Recrimination begin.
Adolescence
During the Adolescent stage of the organizational lifecycle, the company is reborn. This second birth is an emotional time where the company must find a life apart from that provided by its Founder. This critical transition is much like the rebirth a teenager goes through to establish independence from their parents.
Bureaucracy
Although it should be dead, the company in Bureaucracy is kept alive by artificial life support. The company was born the first time in Infancy, it was reborn in Adolescence, and its third "birth" is in Bureaucracy when it gets an artificial continuance on its life.