Lifecycle Location | Courtship

Courtship is the first stage of an organization's development. At this stage, the company is not yet born. It exists as a gleam in the Founder(s) eye. The focus of Courtship is necessarily on dreams and possibilities.

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<p style='text-align: left;'><span class='gmail-s1'>Courtship is the first stage of an organization’s development. At this stage, the company is not yet born. It exists as a gleam in the Founder(s) eye. The focus of Courtship is necessarily on dreams and possibilities.</span></p> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Problems of Courtship</strong></p> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Normal problems</strong></p> <ul style='text-align: left;'> <li>Over-excitement, possibly unwarranted.</li> <li>Fuzzy on many details.</li> <li>Fear, uncertainty and doubts.</li> </ul> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Abnormal problems</strong></p> <ul style='text-align: left;'> <li>Low commitment (“try it and see” attitude).</li> <li>Over-thinking the details, stalling.</li> <li>Lack of fear.</li> </ul> <p style='text-align: left;'><a href='http://lifecycle.adizes.com/' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'><strong>Take the test</strong></a></p> <p><a href='https://adizes.lv/lifecycle-2/lifecycle-courtship/'>Learn more about Courtship</a>
</p> <p style='text-align: left;'>Infancy begins the moment financial risk has been undertaken and the Founder quits her paying job, signs the loan documents or promises 40% of the company to outside investors.</p> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Problems of Infancy</strong></p> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Normal </strong><b>problems</b></p> <ul style='text-align: left;'> <li>Customers experience problems with the product or service.</li> <li>Struggle to complete product or service.</li> <li>Chasing sales to generate cash that are not related to core business.</li> </ul> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Abnormal problems</strong></p> <ul style='text-align: left;'> <li>Product or service is rushed into the market before it is ready.</li> <li>Caught up an “excess perfection” syndrome making endless product improvements without market validation.</li> <li>Unable to close reference accounts and obtain key footholds in marketplace.</li> </ul> <p style='text-align: left;'><a href='http://lifecycle.adizes.com/' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'><strong>Take the test</strong></a></p> <p><a href='https://adizes.lv/lifecycle-2/347-2/'>Learn more about Infancy</a>
</p> <p style='text-align: left;'>A Go-Go organization is a company that has a successful product or service, rapidly growing sales and strong cash flow. The company is not only surviving, it’s flourishing. Key customers are raving about the products and ordering more. Even the investors are starting to get excited. With this success, everyone quickly forgets about the trials and tribulations of Infancy.</p> <div style='text-align: left;'><strong>Problems of Go-Go</strong></div> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Normal problems</strong></p> <ul style='text-align: left;'> <li>Self-confidence, eagerness.</li> <li>Everything is a priority</li> <li>No consistent human resources management.</li> <li>Confusion in roles and responsibilities.</li> </ul> <div style='text-align: left;'> <p><strong>Abnormal problems</strong></p> <ul> <li>Blind arrogance.</li> <li>EVERYTHING is a priority! Sustained lack of focus.</li> <li>Continued pursuit of non-core or unprofitable business.</li> </ul> <p><a href='http://lifecycle.adizes.com/' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'><strong>Take the test</strong></a></p> <p><a href='https://adizes.lv/lifecycle-2/gogo/'>Learn more about Go-Go</a></p> </div> <p>
</p> <p style='text-align: left;'>During the Adolescent stage of the organizational lifecycle, the company is reborn. This second birth is an emotional time where the company must find a life apart from that provided by its Founder. This critical transition is much like the rebirth a teenager goes through to establish independence from their parents.</p> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Why is the transition from Go-Go to Adolescence so difficult? There are three principal challenges:</strong></p> <ol style='text-align: left;'> <li>Decentralization of authority.</li> <li>Change in leadership from entrepreneurship to professional management.</li> <li>Goal displacement.</li> </ol> <p style='text-align: left;'><a href='http://lifecycle.adizes.com/' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'><strong>Take the test</strong></a></p> <p><a href='https://adizes.lv/lifecycle-2/adolescence/'>Learn more about Adolescence</a>
</p> <p style='text-align: left;'>Prime is the optimal position on the lifecycle, where the organization finally achieves a balance between control and flexibility. Prime is actually not a single point on the lifecycle curve. Instead, it is best represented by a segment of the curve that includes both growing and aging conditions.</p> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>These are the characteristics of an organization in Prime:</strong></p> <ul style='text-align: left;'> <li>The organization is guided by the vision of its reason for being. There is a clear purpose and people know what they will do, and will not do, “they walk their talk”.</li> <li>The company operates in a focused, energized and predictable manner.</li> <li>Stretch goals are set, aligned and consistently achieved.</li> </ul> <p style='text-align: left;'><a href='http://lifecycle.adizes.com/' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'><strong>Take the test</strong></a></p> <p><a href='https://adizes.lv/lifecycle-2/360-2/'>Learn more about Prime</a>
</p> <p style='text-align: left;'>When an Aristocracy is unable to reverse its downward spiral and the artificial repairs finally stop working, management’s mutual admiration society abruptly ends. The good-old-buddy days of the Aristocracy are gone, and the witch-hunts of Recrimination begin.</p> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>Companies in this stage exhibit the following behaviors:</strong></p> <ul> <li style='text-align: left;'>People focus on who caused the problems, rather than on what to do about the problems.</li> <li style='text-align: left;'>Problems get personalized. Rather than dealing with the organization’s problems, people are involved in interpersonal conflicts, backstabbing, and discrediting each other.</li> <li style='text-align: left;'>Paranoia freezes the organization.</li> </ul> <p><a href='http://adizes.com/lifecycle'>Take the Test</a></p> <p><a href='https://adizes.lv/lifecycle-2/lifecycle-recrimination/'>Learn about Recrimination</a>
</p> <p style='text-align: left;'>In the Bureaucratic stage, a company is largely incapable of generating sufficient resources to sustain itself. It justifies its existence by the simple fact that the organization serves a purpose that is of interest to another political and business entity willing to support it.</p> <p style='text-align: left;'><strong>The Bureaucratic organization:</strong></p> <ul style='text-align: left;'> <li>Has many systems and rules and runs on ritual, not reason.</li> <li>Has leaders who feel little sense of control.</li> <li>Is internally disassociated.</li> </ul> <p style='text-align: left;'><a href='http://lifecycle.adizes.com/' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'><strong>Take the test</strong></a></p> <p><a href='https://adizes.lv/lifecycle-2/lifecycle-bureaucracy/'>Learn about Bureaucracy</a>

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The primary goal of this stage is to build the Founder’s enthusiasm and commitment to his dream. The higher the risk, the deeper the commitment needed. As Conrad Hilton said, “If you wish to launch big ships, you have to go where the water is deep.”

In Courtship, it is normal to experience fear, uncertainty and doubts. What exactly are we going to do? How is it going to be done? When should it be done? Who is going to buy this and why? Now is the time to wind-tunnel test the brilliance of the Founder’s vision.

The goal of the fledgling business should be to add value and satisfy market needs. Founders who are in it solely for the money, often don’t have the fortitude to sustain their companies over the rocky road they will encounter in Infancy and Go-Go. A useful definition of a Founder is someone with; “unreasonable conviction in the face of insufficient evidence.” By definition, most will think that the idea for the new business is risky, and probably won’t work. It is not important that everyone else believes it will work. It is crucial that the Founder(s) believe it will, and are committed to doing whatever it takes to make the new company succeed.

Problems of Courtship

Normal problems
  • Over-excitement, possibly unwarranted.
  • Fuzzy on many details.
  • Fear, uncertainty and doubts.
  • Mixed goals. Change the world and make money
Abnormal problems
  • Low commitment (“try it and see” attitude).
  • Over-thinking the details, stalling.
  • Lack of fear.
  • Exclusive focus on making money.
Pathologies of Courtship: The Affair

A Courtship which has no testing of the harsh realities that face any new business can easily degrade into an Affair where the Founder’s commitment evaporates at the first sign of difficulty. What is an affair but lots of enthusiasm with no real commitment?

Prescription for Success

When the Founder(s) makes the bold decision to quit their day job, mortgage their house and/or accept the seed capital, the organization is born and instantly moves into Infancy. With this simple act of faith, the Founder(s) cast off on a wonderful, and largely uncontrollable, journey of triumph and tragedy.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness, concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is an elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, 195

Managing Corporate Life Cycles, 2nd Edition by Dr. Ichak Adizes.Published by the Adizes Institute. © 2004, Ichak Adizes.

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