REPLY Society Strategy Development (SD7070)

[SDMAIL John Gunkler]

Posted by  "John Gunkler" <johngunkler at comcast.net>

There is a theory, well supported by data, that organizations go through
predictable phases as they grow successfully (or, as they fail.)

Different authors in Harvard Business Review, and in books, divide the
"growth curve" (a logistic curve with bifurcation points) into different
numbers of phases, but it is typically three to five.

The transitions between phases are true "phase changes" not just linear
progressions to more or less of the same -- the significance being that what
strategy works best in Phase N is NOT what works best in Phase N+1.

All of these models of organizational growth have an initial stage during
which the strategy is to "find a pattern of behavior that works."  This
means figuring out what your "market" (constituency, audience, etc.) wants
and how you can provide it to them in a way that allows you to continue to
provide it (i.e., "profitably.")

Phase 2, then, requires that you stop fiddling around with the basics of
what you do and how you provide your products/services, and instead work
very hard at perfecting your offering -- becoming more and more efficient,
and standardized, in how you deliver what you deliver.  The efforts that pay
off in Phase 2 are those that remove variation from the ways you work and
from the outcomes that you deliver.  This is a stage that academics usually
detest -- because it's not as "creative" or "free" as Phase 1 -- but it is
essential to success.  [I suspect that this is one reason why so few
academics venture out successfully into business.]  

The good news in this phase is twofold:

1.  Success is driven by a positive feedback loop -- exponential growth is
the norm (if you do the hard work of becoming efficient.) 2.  Success in
this phase creates the opportunity for the next phase -- where freedom and
creativity are once again the driving forces.

I suspect that SD, as a field, is stuck in Phase 1.  We are reluctant to
stop acting as if we were founding a new field and to begin the hard work of
making it efficient and more effective at producing results.  And, although
I said that Phase 2 is not as creative or free, that's not really true.
It's just that the creativity required is of a more practical kind and must
be applied within limits.  My friends who perform improvisational theater
say those conditions (of having to perform under tight constraints) provoke
their highest levels of creativity.

John Gunkler
Posted by  "John Gunkler" <johngunkler at comcast.net>
posting date  Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:08:57 -0400