Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow
by Larry E. Greiner
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Book Summary Information
Author: Larry E. GreinerEdition: Digital
Format: Download: PDF
Published: 1998-05-01
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 12
Publisher: Harvard Business Review
Book Reviews of Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow
Book Review: Greiner's ideas reviewed
Summary: 5 Stars
it haved helped me by setting a point of view by starting writing mine theses.
Summary of Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow
The influence of history on an organization is a powerful but often overlooked force. Managers, in their haste to build companies, frequently fail to ask such critical developmental questions as, Where has our organization been? Where is it now? and What do the answers to these questions mean for where it is going? Instead, when confronted with problems, managers fix their gaze outward on the environment and toward the future, as if more precise market projections will provide the organization with a new identity. In this HBR Classic, Larry Greiner (professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business) identifies a series of developmental phases that companies tend to pass through as they grow. He distinguishes the phases by their dominant themes: creativity, direction, delegation, coordination, and collaboration. Each phase begins with a period of evolution, steady growth, and stability, and ends with a revolutionary period of organizational turmoil and change. The critical task for management in each revolutionary period is to find a new set of organizational practices that will become the basis for managing the next period of evolutionary growth. Those new practices eventually outlast their usefulness and lead to another period of revolution. Managers therefore experience the irony of seeing a major solution in one period become a major problem in a later period. Originally published in 1972, the article's argument and insights remain relevant to managers today. Accompanying the original article is a commentary by the author updating his earlier observations.The influence of history on an organization is a powerful but often overlooked force. Managers, in their haste to build companies, frequently fail to ask such critical developmental questions as, Where has our organization been? Where is it now? and What do the answers to these questions mean for where it is going? Instead, when confronted with problems, managers fix their gaze outward on the environment and toward the future, as if more precise market projections will provide the organization with a new identity. In this HBR Classic, Larry Greiner (professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business) identifies a series of developmental phases that companies tend to pass through as they grow. He distinguishes the phases by their dominant themes: creativity, direction, delegation, coordination, and collaboration. Each phase begins with a period of evolution, steady growth, and stability, and ends with a revolutionary period of organizational turmoil and change. The critical task for management in each revolutionary period is to find a new set of organizational practices that will become the basis for managing the next period of evolutionary growth. Those new practices eventually outlast their usefulness and lead to another period of revolution. Managers therefore experience the irony of seeing a major solution in one period become a major problem in a later period. Originally published in 1972, the article's argument and insights remain relevant to managers today. Accompanying the original article is a commentary by the author updating his earlier observations.
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