Part 2

 

                                                                                                         Adizes via Greiner
The LifeCycle depicted on the previous page is derived from the Corporate LifeCycles model developed by Dr Ichak Adizes from over 40 years research as a practical 'hands-on' management consultant. (Adizes' blue chip' clients have included the likes of Domino's Pizzas; and he is often cited as being the man behind the 'Mexican Miracle' of the 1990s - ie: sustainable economic growth.) Adizes' model provides the most complete 'map' of how organisations grow, sometimes lose their way and fold, restructure, peak and then all too often go into decline.

 

However, the LifeCycle depicted, especially with regard to the growing and peak stages, also reflects the work of Adizes' forebear, Dr Larry E Greiner - the pioneering nature of whose work Adizes only too readily recognizes. (Greiner has been closely associated with the Harvard Business School for more years than probably either chooses to remember willingly!)

 

Adizes' model also considers how 4 key structural roles influence an organisation's development:-

• Production - short-term effectiveness (what do we need to do now?)
• Administration - short-term efficiency (how do we do it now?)
• Entrepreneurship - long-term effectiveness (what could/should we be doing?)
• Integration - long-term-efficiency (how should we be doing things for sustainability?)

- and the natural tensions between the 4 roles!

 

The graphic below depicts the typical ebb, flow and influence of the the 4 roles over the LifeCycle...

 

Capital letters - eg 'P' (Production) in Infancy - indicate the capitalised role could normally be expected to be dominant at that given stage while roles shown in lower case play a lesser part. In advanced stages of ageing, some roles are effectively missing.

 

From his earliest findings that Entrepreneurship was the dominant role in the Courtship stage, Adizes has come to the view that Founders who also take an Integration perpective have much more idea of how their business is likely to develop and are able to plan and use the other roles to accelerate and control growth as appropriate.

 

By considering how the vMEMES (of Spiral Dynamics) are functioning in an organisation, the 'health' of the thinking underpinning the 4 roles can be investigated and the management of their inter-relationships improved. From a 4Q/8L view of an organisation, we are matching the thinking in the Left Quadrants to the structure roles of the institution in the Lower Right. This facet makes the LifeCycle the premier tool for applying an integrated approach to organisational development.

 

Click here to take a basic test to get you thinking about which roles are most important in your organisation at this time.

Further information on the considering the inter-relationships between vMEMES and the 4 Roles can be found in the Article, 'The SME Spiral'.

 

                                                                                         The Value of the LifeCycle Approach
By using the Organisation LifeCycle in an integrated approach - taking into account other factors such as motivation (vMEMES), dynamics across the neurological levels and the temperamental dimensions of key players - we can map where an organisation is, what its problems are, where it needs to go (including the option of staying pretty much where it is) and what it needs to do, relative to both what is happening to it internally and what is happening externally (the markets), With this breadth and depth of information, it is then possible to avoid the one-size-fits-all solutions offered by most consultants and business support agencies and develop strategies which really do make a difference.

 

Not every organisation goes through the LifeCycle in the same way and Adizes has acknowledged many variations - some of them critical - and laid different emphases at times in his writings to make different points. Greiner has made much of the kind of industry an organisation is in and the opportunities for and constrictions on growth intrinsic in the very nature of the industry. Nonetheless, the LifeCycle provides a comprehensive and cohesive schematic with which to map structure, roles and natural tensions in any organisation.

A case study of applying the LifeCycle and Spiral Dynamics in a commercial company can be viewed here.

Whilst the Organisation LifeCycle is most commonly used to map commercial organisations, it can be used to great effect in both the public and voluntary sectors. A case study of a local government department using the LifeCycle and Spiral Dynamics to effect a partial redesign is available here.

 

Adizes himself has even used the broad concepts of the LifeCycle in personal relationship counselling!