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The Pyramid of Organizational Development

As a new venture begins to grow, the CEO and other members of senior management must simultaneously cope with endless day-to-day problems and keep an eye on the future. Making this even more difficult is that many managers of growing entrepreneurships are going through the process of building an organization for the first time. This is about as easy as navigating uncharted waters in a leaky rowboat with an inexperienced crew while surrounded by a school of sharks. The sea is unfamiliar, the boat is clumsy, the skills needed are not readily apparent or not fully developed, and there is a constant reminder of the high costs of an error in judgment.

Just as the crew of such a boat might wish urgently for a guide to help them with navigation, training, and ship repair, the senior managers of a growing enterprise may frequently wish for a guide to help them build their organization. The crew might also be glad to know that others before them have made the voyage successfully and to hear some of the lessons that the other voyagers learned in the process.

This chapter attempts to provide a guide for senior managers who are faced with the special challenge of building a sustainably successful company. It gives a framework or “lens” for understanding and managing the critical tasks that an organization must perform at each stage of its growth. The framework for organizational development that is presented in this chapter is an outgrowth of nearly four decades of research and consulting experience with organizations who have faced and dealt with the need to make a transition from one stage of growth to the next.