Understanding Organizational Evolution: Its Impact on Management and Performance

As the size and complexity of a company change in the course of its evolution it experiences predictable stages of growth. During these stages, a company discovers that what worked in the past no longer works. At such times, managers have to juggle the three variables of organizational evolution--the firm's purpose, its business and management processes, and its human resource issues--and keep them in balance as they reinvent new ways of structuring the firm. Typically, tension develops as one variable is stressed at the expense of the others. Managers need to know how to delegate decision making without abdicating overall control of the organization. The model developed here derives from the authors' understanding of how successful firms have managed these tensions. Fletcher and Taplin deal with teamwork, leadership, and the nature of dynamic change while successfully avoiding the cliches to which many experts in those areas are prone. They discuss teamwork in the context of wider performance and process issues. They address leadership not by talking about personality traits but by examining the tensions within authority structures as senior managers attempt to reconcile organizational logics (history and past practices that have sustained the firm) and their own definition of the challenges that face the firm. The authors argue that such contradictions follow a predictable pattern. Managers can either ignore the underlying instability or confront it in ways that will ease the transition and sustain the organization's dynamic growth.

Table of Contents:
Preface Evolution of the Organization The Early Phases The Corridor of Crisis The Transition to Teams and Alliances Maturing Societies and Nations An Issue of Control Historical Perspectives & Trends The Changing Perception of Work A History of Teamwork - Driving Environment From Compliance to Commitment: A Case Study When Span of Control Becomes Span of Communication The Functioning of Performance Management Today Establishing a Performance Management System The Art of Delegation The Art of Leadership -- The Human Side of Enterprise Making It Happen Why Change Programs Fail Strategies and Structures for the 21st Century Appendices Index

About the Author :
DOUGLAS SCOTT FLETCHER is Principle and Senior Consultant at Performex in Newport Beach, California. He has done extensive consulting in the areas of performance management, cross-functional teams, and personal performance improvement. IAN M. TAPLIN is Professor of Sociology, Management, and International Studies at Wake Forest University. He has done extensive research on work reorganization and restructuring in the American and British garment industries.

Review :
"Understanding Organizational Evolution has a winning combination of serious academic approach and readability that is necessary for the practical application of innovative techniques. More than a 'how to' manual, this book also explains 'why' and wraps it all neatly together with a written style that is both informative and engaging. The best account I have read so far of performance management, this book will appeal to reflective practitioners everywhere, whether they be managers, consultants or scholars."-Jonathan Winterton Director of Research and Professor of Human Resource Development Groupe ESC Toulouse (Toulouse Business School), France "Understanding Organizational Evolution is a unique combination of practical management advice and deep insight into the underlying reasons for organizational problems. Fletcher and Taplin provide concrete lessons and symptoms of the need for organizational change from their evolutionary model of organizations that help managers understand exactly what particular problems mean and how to address them. What is more, their inclusion of a history of teamwork's success and failures sheds insight and explanation that is all too rare in practical management books. Their use of numerous specific cases and examples, and emphasis on using information technology for performance management make this book ideal for MBA and Executive Education courses in management and leadership."-Jone L. Pearce Professor of Management University of California, Irvine "Without having read this book, I would not have grasped the big picture; lacking an understanding of the concepts expressed herein, I would have focused on my MBO's and the tasks at hand. Now, I believe I understand centralization and decentralization, how to push decision making down to the lowest level, and how not to get caught up in the data. I also learned how to put data in the form of information applied against the results I'm getting or not getting! These efficiencies have given me the ability to operate in a large corporate environment with all of the agility and values of a small business."-John Petas Senior Vice President Automobile Service Operations American Honda Motor Co., Inc.