Organisational behaviourFramework / modelModelIntermediate

Greiner’s growth model

How can greiner’s growth model support strategic choice or positioning?

IntermediateStrategicTeam4 min read

Contents

Recognize and transition through different phases of company growth.

Greiner’s growth model describes how management practices that support one period of organisational expansion can create the crisis that ends it. The model helps leaders anticipate changes in leadership, delegation, coordination and collaboration as size and complexity increase.

Growth is not automatically desirable or inevitable. It can improve opportunity and capability, but it also consumes cash, changes roles, increases coordination demands and can destabilise culture. The framework is most useful when those trade-offs are explicit.

When to use it

To recognise organisational pressures associated with different phases of growth and prepare a transition.
To diagnose the business situations described here without assuming every organisation follows the same path.

Origins

Larry Greiner introduced “Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow” in 1972. He proposed that relatively stable evolutionary periods are interrupted when the dominant management approach no longer fits the organisation’s size and age.

Phase 1 is usually easiest to recognise; distinctions among phases 4, 5 and 6 are less clear because mature organisations often combine several coordination mechanisms. Greiner initially described five phases and later considered a further phase involving external relationships. The model was a conceptual framework informed by organisational observation, not a universal law.

The original sequence can be summarised as follows:

Phase 1: Growth through creativity. Informal, founder-led work supports product creation and selling until leadership and administration become constraints.

Phase 2: Growth through direction. Functional structure, budgets and standards create discipline until central control restricts local autonomy.

Phase 3: Growth through delegation

Decentralised responsibility enables geographic or divisional growth until senior leaders feel they have lost strategic and operational control.

Phase 4: Growth through coordination. Business units, formal planning and shared systems restore alignment until procedures become burdensome.

Phase 5: Growth through collaboration. Cross-functional problem solving and team-based work reduce red tape until internal collaboration alone no longer supplies growth or identity.

What it is

Phase 1: growth through creativity (crisis of leadership)

Founders and a small team concentrate on customers, products and survival. Communication is direct and roles overlap. As hiring and workload expand, decisions, people management and operational discipline exceed what informal coordination can sustain.

The leadership crisis asks whether the organisation can add management capability without destroying entrepreneurial learning. The answer may involve founders developing new skills, sharing leadership or hiring experienced managers.

Phase 2: growth through direction (crisis of autonomy)

Functions, budgets, standards and clearer authority bring order. This directive style helps a growing organisation repeat work and allocate resources, but eventually concentrates too many decisions at the top.

The autonomy crisis appears when capable managers close to customers or operations cannot act. The response is not the absence of control; it is delegated authority with clear outcomes, capability and escalation boundaries.

Phase 3: growth through delegation (crisis of control)

Divisional or regional managers receive authority and can pursue local opportunity. Senior leaders focus more on portfolio and strategy.

The control crisis emerges when units diverge, duplicate work, accept inconsistent risk or optimise local results against enterprise value. Leaders may need shared information, strategic boundaries and selective coordination rather than recentralising every decision.

Phase 4: growth through coordination (crisis of red tape)

Formal planning, investment review, common systems and stronger staff functions align the expanding portfolio. Profit centres and enterprise incentives make performance more comparable.

The same mechanisms can multiply approvals, slow decisions and shift attention from customers to internal process. The red-tape crisis calls for simplification, clearer decision rights and trust-based collaboration.

Phase 5: growth through collaboration and cooperation

As growth continues in phase 5, cross-functional teams, matrix relationships and shared purpose replace some hierarchical coordination. Information systems connect work and rewards may emphasise collective results.

Collaboration can become meeting-heavy, blur accountability and weaken identity. The challenge is to preserve fast decisions and customer orientation while working across boundaries.

Phase 6: growth through alliances

Partnerships, acquisitions, outsourcing and ecosystems may extend capability or reach beyond what internal expansion can deliver. External growth also creates integration, dependency and governance risk.

An alliance is not an automatic solution to internal complexity. The organisation must protect its core capabilities, customer accountability and ability to exit or adapt the relationship.

Developments of the model

Greiner’s original model contained five phases; the sixth was added in 1998 to reflect growth through mergers, acquisitions and partnerships in a more global economy.

Age and size influence organisational problems, but they do not determine them alone. Technology, industry growth, regulation, ownership and business model can accelerate, delay or combine phases. The framework should identify emerging tensions, not predict a fixed timetable.

How to use it

Diagnose behaviour before choosing a phase. Interview people across levels and units, review decision delays, customer effects, duplicated work, risk events, turnover and financial capacity.

In phase 1, ask whether informal leadership and cash can support the next scale of operation. In phase 2, test whether decision concentration is delaying local action; a business with up to 250 employees can still exhibit either informal or bureaucratic coordination, so headcount is not a diagnosis.

In phase 3, examine whether delegated units have sufficient capability and whether strategic boundaries are clear. In phase 4, map approvals and shared processes to distinguish essential control from accumulated red tape. A founder leaving after 20 or 30 years may be related to succession, preference or ownership—not simply the phase.

In phase 5, measure whether collaboration improves outcomes or merely increases meetings. In phase 6, assess partner fit, integration, dependency and value creation before pursuing external expansion.

Build a transition plan around the observed constraint. State what must change in leadership, decision rights, structure, systems, capability and incentives; what must be preserved; and which signals will show whether the intervention works.

Some things to think about

Growth creates tensions, but pain is a warning to investigate rather than something employees should be expected to embrace.

Leadership style and control are recurring themes. Collaboration and communication matter, but so do accountability, capacity and clear decisions.

Several phases may coexist across one group. Diagnose each material unit and the interfaces between them.

Top practical tip

Collect evidence from founders, frontline employees, middle managers and central functions before naming a phase. Identify the management practice that once helped growth but now constrains it, then design a transition that preserves its remaining value while changing the bottleneck.

Top pitfall

Do not fit the organisation retrospectively to a deterministic sequence or blame people for a “natural” crisis. Age does not automatically make managers rigid, alliances do not guarantee renewed growth and more control is not always the cure for delegation. Test alternative explanations and local context.