Organizational Culture & Change

The culture of the organization will become one of self-renewal. Self-renewal means building innovation and commitment to change into the organization's values. Change is the only constant in today's world, and leaders need to find continuing ways to renew and revitalize their teams, departments, and organizations. Change is not a one-time event that gets checked off of a "to-do" list (Brown, 2011).

Organizational development follows a defined life cycle, from inception to maturity to eventual decay if operations cease. Forty-six percent of organizations generally fold within a year-and-a-half of opening. The ones that remain in business generally average a median lifespan of seven years. So how can organizations beat the survival odds (Brown, 2011)?
However, there is wisdom in understanding the life cycle of organizations, particularly the renewal stage. Life cycles define the mental models that drive organizations throughout their development. There does not seem to be an escape from these developmental stages much like humans cannot avoid going through childhood or adolescence (Brown, 2011). There are many stages that organization must go through to properly evaluate their self-renewal process.

Organization and social scientists tells us that life cycles are unavoidable. Organizations need to survive their infant stage to be in business. The go-go years are necessary to establish a market presence. Adolescence is indispensable in providing stability and support the customer installed base. Stable products and services require the mental models that come with the prime and maturity stages; however, a company runs the risk of becoming irrelevant to the social systems it serves if it gets stuck in these two latter stages (Brown, 2011).

The renewal stage is what we humans do not have, but organizations do: the ability to be young again, even to be born into a different context. This is what is available to organizations as an emergent process. The challenge for organizations is knowing when and how to tap into this process. Because it is emergent, there is no known and repeatable path; however, understanding organizational life cycles is a start, particularly the conditions necessary for the renewal stage (Brown, 2011).

Reference:

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.