Fundamentals of Level Three Leadership

115. Organizational Life Cycles

Concept

Observers notice the development of humans through largely predictable life stages.⁸³ We have outlined above the common phases that groups-toteams go through. Typically, product life cycles are viewed in terms of four phases: introduction, growth, maturation, and decline. This simple model is usually based on a calculus-oriented analysis of sales curves by identifying the inflection points.

Larry Greiner of HBS and USC business schools proposed a theory of phases in a typical organizational life cycle.⁸⁴ Greiner’s insight was that each chapter in an organization’s growth produced answers to predictable questions, which in turn create a crisis that fomented movement or birth into the next chapter.

Greiner’s ...