Wrong Turns In Life

[pbrower2a]

Choosing the wrong sort of firm, or settling for the wrong sort of firm for short0term objectives,  in which to start a career is one of the most common errors in life. Here's where you may want to get a start:



The Adizes Corporate Lifecycle: Adolescence


Go Back to the Lifecycles Page

Quote:During the Adolescent stage of the organizational lifecycle, the company is reborn. This second birth is an emotional time where the company must find a life apart from that provided by its Founder. This critical transition is much like the rebirth a teenager goes through to establish independence from their parents.

The Adolescent company teeters on the brink of both success and disaster. So long as the Adolescent company does well, investors and the Board regard the Founder as a genius with a golden touch. However, when the infrastructure collapses, sales slow down, costs mushroom or profits decline, the finger pointing begins in earnest. The Founder, accustomed to the magic of adoration, is instantly transformed into a goat who is no longer up to the task of leadership.

Adolescence is an especially stormy time characterized by internal conflicts and turf wars. Everyone seems at odds with everything. Sales fall short or exceed production's estimates, quality is not up to customer expectations, and old timers plot against the new hires. Emotions are volatile and organizational morale traces a jagged line: ecstasy in one quarter, depression and dejection in another. Throughout the organization, people are busy tracking the real and imagined injustices they have suffered, which they nurse with great care. The Founder's safe conduct through this tempest is by no means guaranteed. If these conflicts are not resolved, Adolescent companies can find themselves in Premature Aging that can lead to the early departure of entrepreneurial leadership, or the professional managers leading to pathologies called Divorce or Premature Aging.

Comment: this might be the wrong sort of company to join if you want a personal or family life quickly. You might do well in getting ahead, but that will be at the cost of nights and weekends. But if you are 22 years old and fresh out of college, what will you do with a near-average pay for people of all ages? Watch lots of TV? Blow money in nightclubs? Attend lots of sporting events or rock concerts?

Sweating to create wealth for an employer with real potential growth isn't the worst situation in life. It's not easy, but it can be well worth it if everyone else seems to be doing much the same.


The Adizes Corporate Lifecycle: The Fall
Go Back to the Lifecycles Page

Quote:The Fall is positioned at the top of the Lifecycle curve, but it is not the place to be. That position is Prime, where organizational vitality is at its maximum. Companies that are in the The Fall phase have started to lose their vitality and are aging. When an organization first begins to age, the symptoms won't show up on its financial reports. In fact, the opposite is true. The Fall companies are often cash rich and have strong financial statements. Like medical tests, financial statements reveal a problem only when abnormal symptoms finally surface late in the Aristocracy stage. If you wait until the signs of aging appear in the numbers, the company will already be significantly aged. If you want to catch aging early, you must look elsewhere.

When people begin to age, the initial signs aren't apparent in their actions or bodies. Aging starts in their minds with subtle changes in attitude, goals, and their outlook on life. This is also true for companies. When an organization starts to age, the first place the symptoms appear is in the attitudes, outlook and behaviors of its leaders.

The leaders of The Fall companies are starting to feel content and somewhat complacent. This attitude has been developing for some time. The company is strong, but it is starting to lose flexibility. It is at the top of its lifecycle curve, but it has expended nearly all of the "developmental momentum" it amassed during its growing stages. The rocket is slowing down and starting to change direction and head down the lifecycle curve. The organization suffers from an attitude that says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The company is losing the spirit of creativity, innovation, and the desire to change that brought it to Prime. It has sown the seeds of mediocrity. As the desire to change lessens, the organization mellows. There is less contention than in previous stages. More and more, people are adhering to precedence and relying on what has worked in the past. The company's dominant position in the marketplace has given it a sense of security. From time to time, creativity and a push for change surface, but such eruptions become less and less frequent. Order and predictability prevail. To avoid endangering success, people opt for conservative approaches.

But this zone of corporate life has its attractions. The financial statements look as good as they ever will be. (They will weaken as the firm loses its edges in innovation and flexibility and younger corporations fill niches that this firm neglects because it refuses to fill them -- "we just don't do that"). Organizational life will even be collegial so long as one does not shake things up. The setting may be plush, and people generally seem to have lives off the job. They need them. Personal growth? That's over.

Going into real decline, a firm goes through what Adizes calls "aristocracy" and then a really-nasty phase of recrimination. (Examine the website). Maybe the firm survives because its customers need it as a supplier for which there are no alternatives, or creditors  recognize the fixed assets (real estate) or aging intellectual property as desirable items to sell off at the appropriate time for fit terms. The firm may have a rising share in a dying industry, may have monopoly power that allows the company to survive another couple of cycles by simply raising prices just high enough to stay alive but not high enough to create opportunities for competition. The company is full of 'survivors'
... OK, your condition is not as good after surviving a heart attack or cancer  as it was before the calamity, and a relapse in your weakened state may be fatal.

Montgomery-Ward went through this stage in the 1990s. Radio Shack effectively died a couple years ago. Does either JC Penney or Sears look like a place to get a start?

The Adizes Corporate Lifecycle: Bureaucracy
Go Back to the Lifecycles Page

Quote:Although it should be dead, the company in Bureaucracy is kept alive by artificial life support. The company was born the first time in Infancy, it was reborn in Adolescence, and its third "birth" is in Bureaucracy when it gets an artificial continuance on its life. Death occurs when no one remains committed to keeping the organization alive. If there is no business or government commitment to supporting a company in Recrimination, death can occur instead of bureaucratization.

In the Bureaucratic stage, a company is largely incapable of generating sufficient resources to sustain itself. It justifies its existence by the simple fact that the organization serves a purpose that is of interest to another political and business entity willing to support it.

 The Bureaucratic organization:

• Has many systems and rules and runs on ritual, not reason.
  
• Has leaders who feel little sense of control.
  
• Is internally disassociated.
  
• Creates obstacles to reduce disruptions from its external environment.
  
• Forces its customers to develop elaborate approaches to bypass roadblocks.