Every individual and organization goes through stages of growth.

Organizations go through 5 stages of growth

Stage 1 – (Start up) is the phase where someone starts the organization and handles everything. They are close to all of their people and know everything that is happening.

Stage 2 (2 person show) occurs when the organization grows to the point that a single person cannot manage all of the details and they bring in someone to help manage.

Stage 3 (unbalance informal organization) is an organization with department managers. New people are brought into manage the various functional areas of the company. Generally the level of experience and authority are not at the same level. This allows some managers to be out of sync with others in the organization because they have more power.

Stage 4 (top driven formal organization) occurs when the managers are balanced in their authority and experience and generally are process managers. Decision are made from the top.

Stage 5 (balanced organization) is formal, driven from within and is written process oriented.

Organizations grow from “controlling, problem-solvers and tactical” to “influencing, process managers, and strategic”.

It is extremely important that the managers are able to make the transition to process management and become process managers because every stage of growth is depending on process as the floor to manage risk at that level.