Greiner's Curve Model of Organizational Growth

Using the Greiner Curve

Phase 2:

Growth Through Direction

Phase 3:

Growth Through Delegation

• Surviving the crises that come with growth

• A useful instrument for solving crises that organizations experience as they grow

• More formal communication

• Budgeting

• Focus on separate activities e.g. production or marketing

Control Crisis

Impossible to hande all tasks for one person: New structures based on delegation are needed.

• Mid-level managers - opportunities for new products and markets

• Top-level managers - big issues (mergers, acquisitions and strategies)

Autonomy Crisis

Top-level managers can't let go of their old responsibilities, mid-level managers are overwhelmed with new tasks

Phase 1:

Growth Through Creativity

Phase 4:

Growth Through Coordination and Monitoring

Strategic Growth

Model for Organizations

• Reorganization into product groups or service practices

Red-Tape Crisis

Work becomes submerged under increasing amounts of bureaucracy: A new culture and structure must be introduced.

• Creating products and opening up markets

• Few employees

• Informal communication

Leadership Crisis

As more staff join, more formal communication is needed

Greiner's Curve Model of Organizational Growth

How to use

the Greiner Curve

Phase 5:

Growth Through Collaboration

Think about where your organization is now

Is your organization near to a crisis?

What will the transition mean for you personally and your team?

Plan and take preparatory actions to make the transition as smooth as possible

Revisit Greiner's model again every 6-12 months

• Controls of phases 2-4 are replaced by professional sense as staff group and regroup flexibly in teams to deliver projects in a matrix structure

• Supported by a information system

Internal Growth

Further growth can come by developing partnerships with complementary organizations

Phase 6:

Growth Through Extra-Organizational Solutions

• 1972 - original article in the Harvard Business Review

• Explains why company's mechanisms work or do not work

• Descriptive framework consisting of growth and 'crisis' phases

• Helps to anticipate problems before they occur

• In 1998 - added the sixth phase

• It suggests that growth can continue through:

Merger, outsourcing, networks and other solutions involving other companies

The "S" Curve

Dr. Larry E.Greiner

The "S" Curve

by Will Phillips

Causality and Viscosity: Concepts For Understanding Organization

• Professor Emeritus of Management and Organization at the University of Southern California

• Lecturer at: Harvard Business School, University of Oxford, the University of Kansas and INSEAD in Fontainebleau

• Independent consultant (Coca Cola, Pacific Bell, Olivetti etc.)

1st assumption about the world is to have a link between cause and effect.

2nd assumption is a hysteresis (period of time) in cause and effect relationships.

The "S" curve depicts a paradox of growth, - a paradox, which sets a

trap for the unwary.

Knowing When Your Organization Needs to Rethink Itself

Brainstorming

• Emphasis on content (what we do)
• Marketing and sales departments carry power
• Success comes from seeking risk

• Emphasis on package (how we do)
• Power transferred to accounting

• Success comes from avoiding risk

Sources

Lukas Linsenmann

Robin Orler

Anastasia Chistyakova

Kristina Grishina

2013

• Larry Greiner <http://ru.scribd.com/doc/59928445/Larry-Greiner>
• Organizational Growth and Crisis <http://disc-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/OrganizationalGrowthCrisisEDS5-8.pdf>