Understanding Organizational Evolution: Its Impact on Management and Performance

Citation

Seal, C.R. (2002), "Understanding Organizational Evolution: Its Impact on Management and Performance", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 432-436. https://doi.org/10.1108/jocm.2002.15.4.432.3

We are in a unique time in organizational development; technology is pushing the envelope of what is possible; change is the operative word; and there is a new group of “knowledge workers” who are not satisfied with traditional management techniques. Interesting work, growth and upward mobility, participative decision making, and increased learning motivate this new breed of worker. In addition, the knowledge worker is part of a new transitional workforce; he or she will change jobs every two to three years and is committed to the field, not to the firm. Fletcher and Taplin’s contribution to organizational behavior and development takes on greater significance when understood within this new framework. To embrace this challenge they provide a refinement of organizational theory, present a historical overview, and offer techniques to create the participative management firm of the next century.

In reviewing Understanding Organizational Evolution I will focus on its three core sections as laid out by the authors. The first, “Evolution of the organization,” evaluates their linear and predictive theory of development, building on Larry E. Greiner’s work and proposing “evolutionary stages that organizations go through as the size and complexity of the firm increases” (p. 2). The second, “Historical perspective and trends”, summarizes their historical overview of basic organizational trends from the last century. The final section, “The functioning of performance management systems”, assesses their techniques for incorporating participative management within a firm.

Evolution of the organization

Fletcher and Taplin propose a life cycle, organism model with six distinct, separate and predictive phases, taking an organization through three development stages: pre‐adolescence (entrepreneurial and directive), adolescence (coordinative and delegative), and adulthood (teamwork and alliance). Each phase has a tension point between managerial control and what workers want that must be negotiated in order to advance to the next stage of development.

1. 1.

   (1) The entrepreneurial phase is characterized by start‐up and survival. The leadership style encompasses a vision for the future and the technical expertise to get the job done. The major tension is between profitability and survival of the organization versus the need for employees to maintain their own creativity and the start‐up mentality.

2. 2.

   (2) The directive phase is similar to the entrepreneurial phase, but the difference is focus, moving toward operational leadership rather than creative and technical leadership. The tension is between the ego of the leader and the autonomy of the employees. This phase is characterized as getting the operations under control and centralizing decision‐making.

3. 3.

   (3) The coordination phase attempts to manage the size and complexity of the organization by instituting policies and procedures administered by a growing corporate staff. The tension point is between the red tape of the developing bureaucracy and the desire for flexibility on behalf of the workers.

4. 4.

   (4) The delegative phase continues the tensions between centralized versus decentralized control, with the key issue being abdication of responsibility by management and the desire for trust by the employees. This and the coordination phase are dubbed the “corridor of crisis” by the authors and are characterized by “cycling through systems of tight and loose controls” (p. 22).

5. 5.

   (5) The teamwork phase is a milestone for a company, as it has survived the corridor of crisis characteristic of adolescence and has matured to the adult stage of development. As teams develop within the company, the tension focuses on the alignment of company goals against the often‐separate directions teams may take.

6. 6.

   (6) The alliance phase is the pinnacle of organizational evolution and is characterized by establishing outside relationships with suppliers, customers, vendors and even competitors. The tension is between collaboration for common goals and the self‐interests of alliance partners.

In terms of organizational theory, the evolutionary model presented falls short of the authors’ goal of establishing “the life cycle of any organizational form, be it business, the family unit, or society itself” (p. 44). The theory itself is not novel or overly interesting and empirical evidence presented is anecdotal at best, using selected examples without conveying the required details to make their case. Additionally, as will be seen in the next section on history, the authors often confuse technological advances with inherent characteristics of organizational development. In order to make the claim that the theory holds for all types of organizations, then the development must be distinct and separate from changes in technology.

Another area of concern is the authors’ implicit assumption that firms have reached the pinnacle of organizational development with no thought as to what the future holds. Failure to address what the next phase of development may encompass leaves open the most fascinating and intriguing question. They set the stage for a predictive theory but pull back from the brink by failing to discuss the next logical step in organizational evolution.

Built into any organism metaphor is the inevitable decline of organizations, which the authors fail to adequately address, suggesting that decline only occurs when an organization “loses as common purpose or direction and does not find a way to reinvent itself” (p. 56). This proposition has two problems:

1. 1.

   (1) organisms have the potential to live forever, which history proves is false; and

2. 2.

   (2) even if we accept the first point, then their evolutionary model fails to take into account further changes and developments beyond the alliance phase as mentioned above.

While each stage is robust and well defined, the need to go through one phase before moving to the next takes the linear model too far. Organizational management may go through several phases often more than once through their history as a company develops. The lack of a more circular, interactive approach to understanding organizations is perhaps the greatest weakness to the theory, assuming that a teamwork company will never fall back to the directive phase or that an entrepreneurial company cannot create workable alliances.

Historical perspective and trends

Fletcher and Taplin do an excellent job, albeit within limited space, in providing a cursory overview of the history of organizations in the USA over the last century. Particularly insightful was the change from craft workers to factory workers to knowledge workers and the “legacy of fear and distrust” (p. 84) between employees and management that fostered the development of business unionism.

The book would have benefited from a more comprehensive historical account and greater detail on how the evolution of organizations mirrored their own development theory. The history and theory appeared separate rather than intertwined. Although the authors link the settlement of the West to the adolescent stage, they fail to provide the ongoing comparative analysis for each phase of their theory.

Finally, the focus on technological advances actually undermines their theory of organizational evolution, confusing technological breakthroughs with inherent qualities of the theory. If taken at face value, then all other organizations in history could never have advanced beyond the adolescent stage, and it is only with today’s technology that organizations could maximize control and efficiency while still empowering workers. The alliance phase would be a novel phenomenon of the twenty‐first century, brought about by enterprise resource planning software.

The functioning of performance management systems

The final chapters of the book focus on the actual techniques for creating a performance management system. Fletcher and Taplin provide a prescriptive system that includes strategic planning (where the organization is going), position planning (what the employee’s job is), period planning (what the expectations of the employee are), operations review meeting (how the organization is doing), personal performance review (how the employee is doing), and rewards systems (what is in it for the employee).

As with evolutionary theory of organizational development, the techniques presented, while valuable, are not novel. Any competent off‐the‐shelf project management text would provide a similar framework for success. In addition, while the authors list some of the pitfalls of implementing organizational change (imposing changes from the top down, insufficient investment of time or resources, structural and cultural impediments, etc.), they do not provide a means of overcoming these objections. Finally, while they caution against establishing a management system that is too far ahead of the organization’s development level, they do not provide adequate evaluation of how and when to implement their performance management system.

Conclusion

While organizational theorists will find the text lacking, management consultants and MBA students may find the theory, history, and techniques of interest. The main issue for me was the insightful relation of change from craft workers to factory workers to knowledge workers. I would have enjoyed the text more and felt it stronger theoretically if Fletcher and Taplin had made the obvious connection between today’s knowledge workers and turn‐of‐the‐century craft workers, developing a more circular rather than linear approach to understanding organizations.

I believe Fletcher and Taplin have more experience and empirical results to bring to the table than the text allowed. In short, the authors tried to do too much. It is perhaps too ambitious to update a development theory, provide a historical overview, and present a set of modern management techniques all in one book. In addition, the authors’ choice of language was specifically geared to appeal to both business managers and academic scholars. In the end, the book failed precisely due to its lack of focus and overly broad appeal.