I wrote this article a long time ago. It’s about the management changes needed when growing an organization. As I thought about it, I realised there wasn’t one article but several – one for each stage of development.
In 1972 Larry Greiner placed an article with this title in the Harvard Business Review. He wrote about the different management requirements as the organization grew. In fact, he went further and said the different skills needed at each stage, carried the seeds of their own destruction. As the organization succeeded and grew, the skills that made that possible poisoned the body corporate.
Greiner illustrated it excellently in a diagram like this.
Each phase has its own needs to create growth, but that management style eventually strangles growth.
The Spiral
My experience made me aware that the management and leadership approach must change as an organization grows. This means the same situation needs a different approach in organizations of differing sizes.
I came to think of this as ascending a spiral staircase. Each circuit shows you the same view just more distant.
The Faraway Tree
I wrote about Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree. You didn’t know she wrote management texts? I don’t know what her experiences were but the model of reality she invented fits very well.
As the children climb the Faraway Tree, they enter different worlds with, if you’ll forgive the non-childlike language, different physics, and inhabitants.
There we have the three over-arching concepts: The Crises of Growth, The Spiral Staircase and The Farway Tree.
An idea strikes me though. We have discussed Crises of Growth, but what about Crises of Contraction?
Do shrinking organizations follow the same downward spiral they ascended? Or do they come down the Tree entering different worlds from the route up?
One thing is certain. The management and leadership style of contracting organizations needs to change to match the new demands; otherwise, renewed growth will prove elusive.
Find a time that suits you to talk