Replying to LO25144 --
> There's an interesting article at
> http://www.fibersource.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=Coyt5WcObzM90A that
> discusses the evolution of startup companies, particularly in today's "web
> time" world. The author presents a 3-stage model, characterized by
> "commandos", "infantry", and "police" as the driving forces.
>
> Clearly, in the evolution from startup to successful (at least initially)
> competitor, the organization has to learn. Does that make it a kind of LO
> as envisioned by Senge? Or is this a different kind of learning? In
> either case, are there patterns and/or principles that can be abstracted
> from the experiences of these companies, that would be useful to more than
> just startups?
Don,
There's an interesting book (Winfried may know it) called _Management der
Unternehmensentwicklung: Phasengerechte Fuehrung und der Umgang mit
Krisen_ by Cuno Puempin and Juergen Prange (Campus Verlag, 1991) that
categorizes organizations into 4 groups: pioneers, growth, maturity, and
transition, all using the St. Gallen management model. The postulated
desired path is from pioneer to growth back to pioneer, at most grazing
the mature phase.
Puempin and Prange write about the characteristics of each, their
strengths and weaknesses, the crises each typically faces, and strategies
to move forward. They give a checklist to help evaluate an organization's
phase. It's IMHO quite a good book, and I think it answers your question
about patterns and principles.
One interesting point from the book: if you start in the pioneer phase
and grow heavily, by the time you cycle back to the pioneer phase, you've
grown enough so that you need more than one new pioneer activity. Those
will grow at slightly different rates, so that they won't be in sync at
the start of the next cycle, and they'll have to spawn even more. By the
time a few cycles have passed, different parts of the company will be
scattered in different parts of the cycle, necessitating a culture that
supports the presence of all types at once.
Geoffrey Moore's work seems related, too.
Bill
> Don Dwiggins "Experience is what you get when
> SEI Information Technology you were expecting something else."
> d.l.dwiggins@computer.org -- Seen on an office wall
--Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541
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