Organizational Life-Cycles and Management Styles

Based on the book "Barbarians to Bureaucrats"
by Lawrence Miller, published by C.N. Potter: New York.
Edited by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD

(This document is referenced from Life Cycles of Organizations.)

In this very enlightening book, Miller suggests there is a strong relationship between the life-cycle stage of an organization and the nature of its leadership. He asserts this evolutionary life-cycle is typical to cultures as well as organizations. His work shows powerful insights to the nature of organizations and their management and matches the experiences of many practitioners. His work can be referenced to explain much of the wide variation in management styles, yet close association between styles of management and stages of an organization's life.

Miller suggests that the life of an organization is similar to the shape of a bell curve, that is, the organization experiences a rise of health, it peaks, and then gradually declines. The life-cycle stages of Prophet, Barbarian, Builder, Explorer stages are on the way up the curve of health, the Synergist is at the peak, and the Administrator, Bureaucrat, and Aristocrat stages are on the way back down the curve of health.

Life-cycle stage
Business Environment
Beliefs
Mission/Tasks
Management Style
Nature of Organization

Prophet visionary, one product, debt passionate faith in product get organization started! single leader, many ideas, not listen well, not like details no organization!

Barbarian ideas to actions; broaden customer base success lies in faith in Prophet get product to market high control and direct action; no delegation simple, few if any systems

Builder and Explorers now showing a profit focus on efficiency; expand market and products create means to production of product; conquer market focus on detail; few focus on long-term plans; based on interpersonal relationships organization is growing rapidly

Synergist (note 1) (see list after this table)

Administrator mastered market, much profit focus on efficiency and quality maximize efficiency and full use of profit not effective dealing with people; decisions based on facts and studies very efficient and smooth; additional staff functions added

Bureaucrat now diversified; generate profit; slow growth; cost cutting professional management efficiency; less focus on customers and more on profit impersonal; like reports overly organized

Aristocrat declining; loss of creativity and investment cynical prevent further erosion aloof excessive layers of management; is an informal, underground organization

Synergist: Miller says a synergist is "... a leader who has escaped his or her own conditioned tendencies toward one style and incorporated, appreciated and unified each of the styles of leadership on the life-cycle curve. The best managed companies are synergistic." Miller asserts that the synergist is a synergy of the other management styles, and therefore, is best described by a set of principles.
1. Spirit - Corporations are both spiritual and material in nature. In their youth, they possess spiritual rather than material assets. In decline, this is reverse. Health is maintained by unifying the spiritual and material assets.
2. Purpose - The purpose of the business organization is to create real wealth by serving its [stakeholder!]. It is a function of leadership to instill and reinforce social purpose.
3. Creativity - The first and most important act of business is the creative act: the creation of new and improve products, services, selling and means of production. Change, youthfulness and energy are requirements until death. (Those who lean toward creativity will be required to sacrifice for the sake of administrative sanity.)
4. Challenge and response - The task of leaders is to create or recognize the current challenge, respond creatively, and avoid a condition of ease. Reliance on yesterday's successful response in the face of new challenges leads to decline. (It is an irony of life that satisfaction and security are the enemies of excellence.)
5. Planned urgency - The urgency to decide and act promptly leads to expansion and advance. Prompt action must be balanced by deliberate planning. There will always be conflict between promptness and planning.
6. Unity and diversity - Advancing cultures are socially unifying and become diverse in character. Leaders must act to unify diverse talents and traits. Leaders must actively resist the tendency to attract and promote like personalities and skills.
7. Specialized competence - Specialized knowledge and skills and the integration of those competencies must be pursued vigorously. Efficient methods are derived from specialized competence; however, specialized competence leads to inefficient methods.
8. Efficient administration - Efficient administration is required to achieve integration and performance as differentiation increases. Unchecked administration inevitably leads to bureaucracy and the decline of creativity and wealth creation.
9. On-the-Spot Decisions - Decisions should be made by those on-the-spot, close to the customer, product or service. The further decisions are removed from the point of action and knowledge, the worse the quality and the higher the cost. Consensus is a sign of maturity and health.

Additional Online Reading
Management Styles

For the Category of Organizational Development:

Recommended Books

Managing Organizational Change

Growing Your Organization

Managing Organizational Change

Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development: by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Provides complete, step-by-step guidelines to identify complex issues in for-profit or government organizations and successfully resolve each of them. This book is also helpful to organizations that are doing fine now, but want to evolve to the next level of performance. This is one of the truly comprehensive, yet practical, books about this complex subject! Includes online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library's topic about guiding change are adapted from this comprehensive book.

Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development With Nonprofits: by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Provides complete, step-by-step guidelines to identify complex issues in nonprofit organizations and successfully resolve each of them. This book is also helpful to organizations that are doing fine now, but want to evolve to the next level of performance. This is one of the truly comprehensive, yet practical, books about this complex subject! Includes online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library's topic about guiding change are adapted from this comprehensive book.

The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.