1. ORGANIZATIONAL LIFECYCLES
Prof. Jintae Kim, PhD
Alliance Theological Seminary
(845) ext.6978
Website:

2. I owe the content of this presentation to the class notes of Dr
I owe the content of this presentation to the class notes of Dr. Martin Sanders at Alliance Theological Seminary.

3. ORGANIZATIONAL LIFECYCLES
1. Nature of Growth and Aging
2. Patterns of Growing
3. Patterns of Aging

4. NATURE OF GROWTH AND AGING

5. INTERPLAY OF 2 FACTORS 1. Flexibility  Controllability: Continuum
2. As organizations grow and age, their relative deficiency in either flexibility or controllability create predictable, often repetitive problems.
3. Growing means the ability to deal with bigger, more complex problems.
4. Aging means there is a decreasing ability to deal with problems.

6. PATTERNS OF GROWING
Courtship
Infancy
Youth
Adolescence
Prime

7. COURTSHIP
1. The organization is not born yet, it exists only as an idea.
2. It is only a potential, and does not exist until the building of commitment culminates in the understanding of risk.
3. The task of the leader at this stage is to build commitment.

8. INFANCY (유아기)
Once risk has been undertaken, the nature of the organization changes dramatically.
1. The focus:
Ideas & Possibility  Achieving the results for which the organization was developed.
2. Leadership:
Dreamer or visionary  No nonsense, result oriented leader who is realistic and “now-centered.”

9. CHARACTERISTICS OF INFANCY
1. Action-oriented, opportunity driven
2. Few structure
3. Performance is inconsistent
4. Vulnerable; a problem can become a crisis quickly.
5. Management is by crisis.
6. Management involves little delegation.
7. Commitment of the founder is constantly tested.
8. To survive, it needs periodic infusion of milk (resources) and parent’s love (commitment by the founder).

10. YOUTH
1. Courtship (idea)  Infancy  Youth (the idea is working and achieving success)
2. Characteristics of toddler: fearless and into everything.
3. Focus: a Narrow, no nonsense perspective  a Panorama of endless possibilities that may be tangential or outside of the founder’s original vision and/or beyond the capacities provided by the organization.
4. Task of the leader: Adequate distance without losing all influence.
5. Required leadership shift for further growth: “Ownership” orientation  “Professional” orientation.

11. 2 TRAPS (함정) THE FOUNDER TRAP 1) His loving embrace  Stifling factor
2) Diminishing level of challenge and fulfillment in the founder
3) Desire to control  fatigue or a need for new challenge  Founder leaves  Death
THE FAMILY TRAP
1) Transference of leadership based not upon competence, but upon ownership.
2) Ownership mentality
3) Their commitment to their investment rather than to the idea.

12. ADOLESCENCE (사춘기) 2 MAJOR CRISES 3 TASKS REQUIRED
1) External crisis created by fearlessness and being into everything.
2) Internal crisis involving the establishment of the company apart from the founder
3 TASKS REQUIRED
1) Delegation
2) Leadership change: entrepreneurship
 management (structure).
3) Goal displacement: Doing more  Doing better

13. TRANSITION IN CONFLICT (ADOLESCENCE)
Old-timers vs. newcomers
Founder vs. professional manager
Founder vs. adolescent organization

14. PRIME (전성기) 1. Definition
The optimum point on the life cycle curve where the organization achieves a balance of control and flexibility.
2. The prime organization has the energy, inertia, and flexibility of a youth, but with the controllability learned in adolescence.
3. Prime does not mean an organization has “arrived,” it is the process of mature growing.

15. CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIME
1. The functional systems and organizational structure
2. Institutionalized vision and organizational structure
3. Results orientation
4. The capacity to “spin-off” new infant organization

16. PATTERNS OF AGING
Stable
Aristocracy
Early Bureaucracy
Death

17. STABLE

18. STABLE
1. The organization maintains much of the strengths that allowed it to become prime, but it is beginning to lose its flexibility.
2. As flexibility declines, the organization mellows: Less urgency, less creativity.
3. Resources previously assigned to developing new initiatives may be shifted toward maintaining existing programs.

19. CHARACTERISTICS OF A STABLE ORGANIZATION
1. It has lower expectation for growth and fewer expectations to try new frontiers
2. It starts to focus on past achievements instead of future visions.
3. It is suspicious of change
4. It rewards those who do what they are told to do.
5. It is more interested in interpersonal harmony than risks.

20. IN STABILITY Change decreases.  Conflict diminishes.
 Interpersonal accord is valued.
 A network of agreeable individuals emerges.
 If this network is established over time, creativity and flexibility wanes further.
 The organization ages into the next stage of the life cycle.

21. ARISTOCRACY

22. IDENTIFICATION MARKS OF ARISTOCRACY: BEHAVIOR PATTERN
1. Resources focus on control systems, benefits and facilities.
2. Emphasis on how things are done, rather than what is done and why it is done.
3. Formality in dress, address and tradition.
4. While individuals may be concerned about the organization’s vitality, as a group the operating motto is “don’t make waves.”
5. Low internal innovation: New ideas come only from outside.
6. Resources are hoarded, not invested.

23. CHAIN REACTION IN ARISTOCRACY
Organizational change challenges established turf.
 The organization becomes inflexible.
 It cannot adapt to changes in the external environment.
 It ceases to effectively fulfill its mission.
 Resources begin to flow away from the organization.
 Internal “shareholders” are threatened and the organization ages into the next stage of the life cycle.

24. EARLY BUREAUCRACY

25. IDENTIFICATION MARKS OF EARLY BUREAUCRACY
1. Emphasis on who caused the problem, rather than what to do about it.
2. Rampant conflict, backstabbing, and in-fighting.
3. Paranoia freezes the organization, everyone is “flying low.”
4. Focus is on internal turf, the “customer” is annoyance.
5. Systems abound, but with little functional results.

26. CHAIN REACTION OF DISASSOCIATION
The organization distances itself from its public.
 Divisions of the organization distance themselves from one another.
 When organizations operate in isolation from their environment, they are, in a sense, dead.

27. 2 WRONG WAYS TO STAY ALIVE IN BUREAUCRACY
Monopoly they have certain activities, but as the organization disassociates itself from its public, the public devises bypass systems to access the activities apart from the organization.
The conscious efforts of the members of the organization who utilize personal and political influence to generate “business” for the organization.

28. DEATH
Death occurs when no one is committed to the organization anymore.