Growing Pains Building Sustainably Building Sustainably Successful Organizations

Since the first edition of this book appeared more than thirty years ago, it has become the classic reference for understanding the theory and process of organizational success and failure at different stages of growth.

Fully revised and updated, the fifth edition of Growing Pains offers business leaders, potential entrepreneurs, and investors a definitive guide to the lifecycle of an organization, and the optimization strategies that can make a company stronger and ultimately, sustainable. Whether a company's growth is rapid, slow, or not occurring at all, Eric G. Flamholtz and Yvonne Randle provide a wealth of effective tools and suggestions for an organization to get things right.

This new edition puts the spotlight on all stages of growth, not just the transition stage, from start-up to a well-established company. It includes new ideas, concepts, and comprehensive case studies of the applications of the frameworks and tools presented including the results of those applications in various international organizations. It also contains new empirical research and recent data on strategic organizational development.

Growing Pains outlines three proven frameworks for understanding organizational efficiency and transitions: an organizational effectiveness model, an organizational life-cycle model, and a model to explain the origin and underlying causes of "growing pains." The authors include a detailed explanation of the seven stages of organizational growth, the challenges common to each stage, and a method for determining when a company is in a particular stage. They also reveal the most significant managerial tools for building sustainable successful business enterprises and offer a tool to measure and understand the severity of an organization's growing pains. Designed to be practical, the text includes a "leadership molecule" with advice for CEOs on the vital transitions to be employed throughout the business lifecycle as well as a set of organizational development tools that leaders can put in motion.

Based on feedback from the previous editions, if the ideas and methods described in this book are conscientiously applied, organizations will have a significantly improved likelihood of attaining sustainable success.