RE-ENERGIZING THE MATURE ORGANIZATION

Beatty, R.W. and Ulrich, D.O. (1991). Re-energizing the Mature Organization. Organizational Dynamics, Vol.20(1). 16-30

Organizations evolve through a life cycle with each evolving phase raising change challenges. The challenge for mature organizations is to renew the mind sets on which it has based its past success to meet the demand of the dynamic environment and recreate its culture consistent with changing customer requirements.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how mature firms can be re-energized; unique challenges of creating change in mature firms; detailed principles that can guide the change; identifying the leadership and work activities required to accomplish change. Here, hourglass analogy has been used to portray the organizational life cycle and challenges associated with each life stage.

The study focuses on the organizations in their maturity stage. These mature organizations face significant renewal change challenge where competitors offer similar products and services at comparable costs. The greatest effort involved is to replace the long established norms of stability and security with new values- speed, simplicity, unparalleled customer-service, self- confident and empowered workforce. These efforts at the renewal stage, still under way, will determine which firms will survive. The organization that fails this renewal change challenge enters the decline stage in which it loses its market share to firms that have renewed.

This study entails four broad principles, which if managers adhere to, the probability of renewal increases. These principles are based upon customer-centred activity, changing capacity, organizational activities- hardware and software, and empowered employees who act as leaders at all levels of the organization. Sooner or later organizations will have to face the renewal change challenge and then managers and leaders will have to help employees accept change in culture; shared vision and values and to enable them to be more customer-centric, cost conscious, adaptable and teamwork-oriented. The organization that overcomes the renewal change challenge moves to the other side of the hourglass where there is the ability to be re-energized.

The study proposes five steps of re-energizing mature organizations based on the proposed four principles. In the re-energised organization, the leader must be an encouraging model to commit energy and accept changed culture. The study advocates that leaders must also learn that sharing power enables employee empowerment, a salient demand of the changing environment where power and authority doesn’t come from position and status but from relationships, trust and expertise.

Submitted by: Angel Lakra, OBD group