Organizations too have a life cycle and each stage of its life has a distinct characteristic

Everytime I have moved jobs....the shift feels like moving marraige's. The work profile might be ditto. But the new partner has a uniqe personality, distinct quirks, a different style, a characteristic mood and its own brand of expectations! As the personal equation evolves, one adapt's to the rhythm and falls into the pattern. But does that pattern mirror our style or is it a reflection of the organization's characteristic motivation? Chapter 4 of the book `ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT: A Framework for Improving Performance´, explores this issue. But how come each organization and the people within it are motivated to behave in ways that are predictable within that organization? What are the forces that drive performance? [Some of the answers lie in Organizational Motivation]

So organizations are also like people. And have a life cycle too. As Bonnie J. Monte, artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (Madison), found through the life cycle analysis that the turmoil she sensed in her organization were the inevitable growing-up pains of adolescence....experienced by almost all nonprofit groups at similar stages of growth. [Getting Over Growing Pains]

If curious about the life stage of your organization, you can try the Nonprofit Life Stage Assessment and explore the typical features of each stage. The Advocacy Institute site, has a table which traces the subtle changes and complexities of leadership at each stage of the organization lifecycle. Spin Project's document `Communications Capacity Building - Throughout the Organizational Life Cycle´provides an interesting perspective on how the communication capacities, styles and needs also vary at each stage. And there is the important question of The Organizational Lifecycle and How It Affects Your Board. As the key tenet of sucessfully surviving partnerships spell out - it is crucial to know your partner better.

Drawing from the law of nature, the ecocycle concept draws parallels between the phases of evolution in biological systems and the lifecycle of an organization. Very thought provoking....especially when one considers the centuries old organizations that still continue to exist and evolve through a continous loop of change and renewal. Destruction and renewal are natural and unavoidable in the organization world too! [From Lifecycle to Ecocycle:Renewal via Destruction and Encouraging Diversity for Sustainability]