The lifecycle of businesses

[radind]

The Adizes Corporate Lifecycle model looks good and provides a place to start discussion. One of my concerns is the large number of  government agencies in the bureaucratic stage. Until we find a way to overcome the bureaucratic tendencies, I would like to see old agencies abolished on some reasonable timeline( 25 to 30 years). New agencies could be started as needed to provide a totally fresh start(clean out the barnacles).
One example that comes to mind are the multiple national laboratories that were started in WWII era. They may each be doing wonderful work, but I think we could do with fewer of them  and don’t see the necessity for eternal life for such government agencies.

I did find a company with a different management structure. It will be interesting to see if this approach works long term and also see if this concept can be migrated to other organizations.

Quote:https://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-...e-managers
First, Let’s Fire All the Managers

… "For decades the assumption has been that the work of managing is best performed by a superior caste of formally designated managers, but Morning Star’s long-running experiment suggests it is both possible and profitable to syndicate the task to just about everyone. When individuals have the right information, incentives, tools, and accountabilities, they can mostly manage themselves.”…

… "In most companies the hierarchy is neither natural nor dynamic. Leaders don’t emerge from below; they are appointed from above. Maddeningly, key jobs often go to the most politically astute rather than the most competent. Further, because power is vested in positions, it doesn’t automatically flow from those who are less capable to those who are more so. All too often managers lose their power only when they’re fired. Until then they can keep mucking things up. No one at Morning Star believes that everyone should have an equal vote on every decision, but neither does anyone believe that one person should have the last word simply because he or she is the boss. While management’s future has yet to be written, the folks at Morning Star have penned a provocative prologue. Questions remain. Can the company’s self-management model work in a company of 10,000 or 100,000 employees? Can it be exported to other cultures? Can it cope with a serious threat, such as a low-cost offshore competitor? These questions keep Rufer and his colleagues up at night. They readily admit that self-management is a work in progress. “Ideologically, we’re about 90% of the way there,” says Rufer. “Practically, maybe only 70%.”
I believe Morning Star’s model could work in companies of any size. Most big corporations are collections of teams, departments, and functions, not all of which are equally interdependent. However large the company, most units would have to contract with only a few others. With $700 million a year in revenues, Morning Star certainly isn’t a small business, but it’s not a humongous one, either. There’s no reason why its self-management model wouldn’t work in a much larger company”….