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Is organization excellence an end state or a journey? Or better still a journey of cycles and seasons? A book that took the world by storm in the seventies was Tom Peter’s “In Search of Excellence”. It was a book of the histories of companies that have lasted over one hundred years and their continuing saga of excellence. Yet after 20 years, a number of these companies that have been cited as excellent have folded up.

Having worked with hundreds of enterprises and organizations, have made our company rethink our definition of organizational excellence. It is “the ability of the enterprise to effectively flex its organization and  achieve business profitability by proactively engaging its ever changing external environment.”  Organizational effectiveness therefore is the ability to adroitly respond to the demands of its external (customers, suppliers, regulators etc.) and internal stakeholders (people, owners)  in a competitive yet caring manner.

Today, we see the Philippine economy picking up from slow growth 2009. We see most companies gearing up for growth. So what actions should we, as managers, pursue as we strive for organizational excellence   Understanding corporate cycles can provide insights on the range of interventions open to us.

Theodore Modis, a strategic analyst, futurist and business consultant provides an understanding of predictability, explaining how companies grow and change. In search of effective decision making techniques, he discovered that businesses go through seasons or cycles allowing business people to position and decide actions with a certain level of certainty.

His essential idea is to view a business as a living entity, that grows and changes in certain predictable ways. In other words, it goes through cycles and seasons. Analyzing business cycles enhances the chances of making the right decisions at the appropriate time. Business and organizational actions have to adapt to seasonal changes in business. His framework may guide leaders make decisions in the face of the improving business climate.

Leaders can start asking themselves, what season are their businesses in? To find the answer they have to ask what businesses are their core customers in? Then reflect on the season of their enterprise.  What makes the ideas of Modis attractive is the fact that he uses the analogy of nature. For indeed, organizations are living entities that have the capability to assess what is happening around them and find the best adaptive response to the season. Following the winter, spring, summer, winter and fall season analogy, Modis proposes sets of appropriate organizational responses to particular seasons.

Winter: Period of Depression

Winter for instance is the beginning and the end, the period of depression. It is characterized by low profits but it is also the start of new ideas. Everything is in chaos, survival becomes the name of the game. Early winter is time for risk taking and finding new ideas and ways of thinking. Late winter is the time to choose among new directions and realize growth potentials.

How can an enterprise live excellence in a seemingly dreary season?  The enterprise in this season is open to more fundamental change. It can focus on building its core competencies and valuing multi-disciplinary generalists.  It can reorganize towards strategic business units moving towards more decentralized, horizontal and flat structures. It is the best time to undertake business process reengineering. It is also a call for more intense entrepreneurship and innovation. It demands centering on niche markets, greater market segmentation and more short term strategies.

Spring: Season of Excitement

After economic slowdown comes spring. Spring is the season of progressive growth and new opportunities. It brings much hope and excitement.  It is time for building capacity and driving greater product innovation.  Continuous improvement on the processes is the order of the day. It is time for learning and setting up leadership schools to prepare for the expansion of the business.  People concentrate on the work ethic to enhance profitability and prosperity. It is time to hire specialists.

Summer: Season of Rapid Growth

Summer is marked by flowers in full bloom. The company experiences high profits but may experience low creativity. It is the time to harvest. The company concentrates of reaping and harvesting on existing products. It stops or reduces new investments, moving towards greater conservatism in management style. It is time for leaders to drive the vision, increase centralized control and vertical integration. It is fine tuning processes towards excellence and total quality management. It is time for long term alliances and strategies. Specialists, in this season start to put systems in place and expand their skills. 

Fall: Season of Slow Growth

Fall is the time when the organization bears fruit but also ages. Profits fall, products mature. The typical internal reaction ranges from denial, to blame to panic. Recession is in the air, there is high inflation and tight credit.

It is time for belt tightening and once again back to the basics. It is benchmarking time finding out what others are doing better. It means once again reviewing what processes and products to innovate. It is time for a face lift. The company withdraws investment from aging products and goes for optimum efficiencies through key accounts management. Intense competition is felt. The company has to be strong and creative.

In conclusion, life cycles (some use the S – Curve analogy) reveal how growth potential is realized over time. The “four seasons” metaphor guides decision making throughout the life cycle. Success and failure, order and chaos, creativity and stability come with seasonality. The key to winning strategy is anticipating the season and developing the corresponding organization development actions to suit the season.

Excellence today is best described as sustainable development. It is not driving recklessly growth, forgetting that organizations are living organisms driven by people. As Stephen Covey writes, “Nature is the perfect metaphor for sustaining successful, sustainable organizations in the New Economy.”

[Tita Datu Puangco is the President and CEO of Ancilla Enterprise Development Consulting, an innovative provider of Organization Development and Training solutions in the ASEAN region. These solutions include strategy development and execution, managing change breakthroughs, brand management, innovation and human resource systems. For your letters/ feedback, kindly email: tita.datu76@gmail.com, For other inquiries, please call 8810-3129/0920-9218332/0917-8348176]

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