Growth Phases model
(Greiner)
Over a million managers and consultants are working together on management issues via 12manage each month...
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Growth Phases model
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Over a million managers and consultants are working together on management issues via 12manage each month... |
Adjusting the strategy and structure of organizations while they develop. Explanation of Growth Phases of Greiner. ('72) |
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| Ameer - United Kingdom | Alternative Forms of Organization Development | "Hi everyone.. Can anybody give me some ideas regarding alternative forms of organizational development. Please I tried everyway but hope to get from this community. Thnx with regards..." |
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| Marcio Jarros - Brazil | Greiner Chart should be a Circle | "While reading about Greiner's Growth Phases model, I realized that after reaching phase 6, it's clearly impossible to increase a company value level only by growing trough alliances. It is necessary to regularly review all the previously 5 phases, to keep the company's competitive strategy. Thus, it would be more accurate to consider this chart in a circle manner." |
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| Dr.P.L.Narasimhan - India | Add Learning and Innovation | "There must be one more step - Learning and Innovation - which will generate internal growth and will be similar to the other growth curves." |
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| Mithilesh kumar Srivastava - India | Input parameters for each phase of growth? | "Thinking about each phase of growth, what are the required parameters to be mandatorily considered as inputs to make the growth phase an absolute success?" |
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| Robson Chiambiro - UAE | Limitations of the model by Greiner | "Given that the model has been shown in a continuous single line against time suggests that all the levels are at a higher level after each level. Instead I suggest that there need to be 5 or 6 lines representing the phases from start as the organisation grows. I think the model should be a multi-linear model showing the level of organisational development against time. This will clearly show the changes of the phases as time moves on. The use of one line shows as if the following phase is already developed by the end of the previous phase." |
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| Emmanuel - Tanzania | Growth of Communities | "Does this apply to community organizations as well, or are these growth phases only specified for business organizations?" |
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| Dr.Duraipandi Mavoothu - India | Length of Greiner Phases | "Is there any typical time frame for each Phase?" |
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| Germaine - US | Organizational Death... A Taboo? | "Another approach is to take a broader and cyclic view and see an organization as a human or organism going through a full Organizational Life Cycle. Organizational Life Cycles typically describe the following 6 phases or stages: 1. Birth (introduction, founding) 2. Growth 3. Maturity (formalization) 4. Renewal (revitalization) 5. Decline 6. Death. A problem with all models is the death stage, which seems hard to define for organizations (unlike biological death). Interestingly, by focusing on the growth stages only, Greiner entirely leaves out the Birth AND the Decline AND the Death stages (1, 5 and 6). Organizational death is not a very popular concept..." |
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| Anita - Netherlands | Greiner Five Phases of growth | "1. The Five(six) Phases of growth is a measure of influence of age and size on the organizational structure. The cycle may not necessarily be followed step wise as suggested. 2. Reading the Greiner Curve and interpreting it with strategic relatedness, gives further and a somewhat diagnostic insight into the Administrative Format of a business. The analysis provides clues to where the organisation is, whether the organisations objective and strategy are in consonance with the design, if there is a possibility for restructuring and if yes what is the scope and expanse of such engineering. 3. I also evaluate the model as a lead indicator of probable Leadership needs as opposed to management style alone." |
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| George - Canada | Is a crisis a must for growth? | "It is typical for Greiner's thinking that the growth phases are seperated from each other by organizational crises. Without a crisis a firm can not enter the next stage. Personally, I doubt if this is always the case?" |
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| Eddie - UK | Leadership style in Greiner phase 6? | "What Leadership style is needed for the newly added 6th phase?" |
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| Cris - Romania | Greiner after phase 6 | "I wonder what's beyond phase 6? Should't the entire Greiner Curve go further with "ex-organizations" split up (divide, sell) or just reinvent the organization? Maybe it's a circle (with a dotted line unifying the ends) and not just a linear growth?" |
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| Pete - France | Greiner vs. Mintzberg? | "What's the main difference with Mintzbergs model?" |
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| └► Hans Holmquist (Sweden) | All Talk About Innovation | "Interesting response. I find that most big organizations talk about innovation as the key strategy for the future. Mostly because the industry is changing rapidly and a new approach is needed to compete. There are probably more reasons. Anyway, I always thought that innovation is an attempt to move left on the Greiner curve - which is difficult (especially considering McKinsey 7S model). But how do large organizations actually become more innovative? Isn't it so that all aspects of the organizations (influence by innovation/agility/learning) to achieve the strategy?" |
| └► Stan Heard (USA) | Parameters of growth phase success | "The growth phase is a success when it creates the crisis that must be solved by going to the next phase. Each phase sets up the crisis that ends it." |
| └► Frair (France) | Add a Third Axis To Greiner Model | "This model is based on the time where there is no end for the time. How a company knows the moment for it to move from a phase to another? The Greiner's model can be enhanced by adding a "Z" axis defining the organization evolution over the time. In others terms, we could have the "X" for the time, the "Y" for the organization size and the "Z" for the organization evolution over the time (1 year for instance) I think that this will allow the company to fine-tune with their strategy." |
| └► Germaine (USA) | Growth Stages of Virtual Organizations | "Good question. My answer would be: YES. I think even virtual organizations are going through similar growth stages, although often quicker than traditional ones." |
| └► Annetol Griskov (Holland) | Nooo | "You can not put a time frame on it. In most cases a company will stick to a crisis and will never overcome it. Look at many small companies. Why do they not grow any further? Because they do not overcome the crisis of leadership and direction. " |
| └► JC (Sinagpore) | Not sure | "Not sure about any taboo ... anything with a beginning shall have an ending. As a natural phenomenon, there doesn't have to be any significant issue on the death of organizations. Strictly business sense will be the "costs and benefits" of each stage and the ultimate gain of the entire cycle." | |
| └► Jimk (USA) | Cycles | "Enron had a long tail on its last phase. The back side of the "bell curve" can be rather sharp. The S&L crisis pointed that out. Many times the company doesn't die but should. Rather it gets broken up, sold off and then shattered into unrecognizable pieces through M&A, etc." | |
| └► Will Mason (Australia) | Death Myth | "I think Germaine needs to read Griener's original article, and the follow up article HBR. The Greiner model is like human maturity. It is a quasi-psychological analogue. There's no "death" in that cycle. The Dali Lama for example suggests we reincarnate and continue to mature. OK reincarnation is a bit left field -- Is it really? Look at Edison Electric - GEC - GE; BHP - BHP Billiton. Organisations mature to different stages. Death is not part of the model it is a physical state, or a crisis as correctly pointed out. Cheers... Will" |
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| └► Mamta Wasan (India) | Human Resources | "Very interesting model. Would be interesting to know what kind of leadership traits exist at each level. How can each stage's stengths be maximised and what can HR professionals do to better handle each stage" | |
| └► Melissa Breger (USA) | Org. Life Cycle (maturity Model) Vs. Greiner's | "I always wondered about this... how Greiner's model doesn't have the 'decline' curve which is illustrated more distinctly on the product (industry) life cycle or Org. life cycle maturity model. My thinking is that either way if an organization doesn't address it's crisis in development wherever than perhaps it's implied really that it would only fall backwards, which would connect these two models together. Therefore they both only imply that an organization needs to keep thinking ahead on it's next development stage or it stagnates or even falls to it's own demise... Great question and post! :)" |
| └► Charlie (USA) | Greiner's Growth Curve is accurate | "This model is amazingly accurate in terms of growth stages and the change drivers that trigger decisions for companies and organizations, particularly since it was developed in the early 1970's. My experience is that organizations encounter thresholds during growth that require changes in management models to successfully pass through, like a shift from "family-managed" to "professionally-managed". Of interest to me is how to retain the drive and creativity of Start-ups as a company grows. I've seen this happen in larger companies and attribute most of it to enlightened leadership that breaks down silos and encourages certain amounts of risk-taking." | |
| └► Dr.P.L.Narasimhan (India) | Growth in Delegation and Coordination Phases | "The growth in steps 3 & 4 - delegation, coordination and direction will be flat and horizontal since the efforts will be to concentrate on maintaining the efficiency in the growth stage when the organization becomes big." | |
| └► Francis Lenne (France) | End in crisis | "After the 6th step, we now can add: "Ending by a “failure in ethics and confidence” crisis, needing a public management solution." ... Come back to basic." | |
| └► Frances (USA) | Greiner 6 phases | "You should know throughout the course of the implementation or process of the phases whether or not a business is working or if you have the right stakeholders for the company/business to gel without having to wait for the failure. I would panic if we had "failed ethics or confidence" as Francis mentioned. I would stop and measure the progress along the way....." |
| └► Aditi (India) | Crisis and Growth | "Not necessarily..." | |
| └► Annetol Griskov (Holland) | Crisis | "It should not be a crisis. But it will become a crisis if you do not pay attention to the growth 'problem'. If you are not aware of the situation and act on it, it will become a problem." | |
| └► Michael Hargis (USA) | Crisis | ""Crisis" in the model means "change" rather than a typical definition of "problem"." |
| └► Maikel (NL) | Leadership in 6th fase | "Example of Leadership in phase 6: managers from different business units try to reach the same goal: continue the business. But at the same time they try to reach their own unique goals (opportunities en circumstances) for their business unit. The crisis in phase 6 should be: clash of the managers; the goal of 1 or certain managers, is dominating the other managers with their goals." |
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| └► DD Gupta (India) | Growth Fundament | "Growth considering alliances with others is the best option. One has to trust on other for exponential growth. No single can do much. As we say: one and one is eleven not two." |
| └► DC (USA) | After Greiner phase 6 | "I agree its a perpetual cycle where you can no longer get true organic growth without an injection of entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity - which takes you back to phase one and you do it all over again. You then have a staircase of inflection points that represent the end (or beginning) of a cycle." | |
| └► Karl (China) | Phase 7 in Growth Model | "Basicly, I agree with the model. What will happen in the phase 7, the 3 big car companies may give the answer to us in the near future." | |
| └► Pat O Reilly (Ireland) | Greiner After Phase 6 | "Greiner is about survival and growth. He is keen to avoid the death of the organisation. Maybe the next phase could be growth through shared organisational values and continuous learning. He sees the crisis as an opportunity and trigger for change for the leader to create a new vision and future pull path for the organisation." |
| └► Maikel (NL) | Mintzberg and Greiner | "What is the difference was between the model of Mintzberg and the one of Greiner? You can't really compare these. Mintzberg gives you certain way's to define your organizational configurations. It's meant for typing your company. Greiner is specificly interested in growth of organizations, without being interested in the characteristics...." |
What
is the Growth Phases model? Description 
