Dear Readers,
This time, I am putting together many ideas I have not developed fully yet. The reason: I want to develop them with you.

The disadvantage is that in order to follow some of these insights, you need to know the Adizes Symbergetic™ Management Theory. The minimum to study are three books: Mastering Change, the new edition, The Power of Collaborative Leadership and Managing Corporate Lifecycles all available on Amazon.

I look forward to your comments.

Strategy Defined
In discussions, it is quite confusing whether a decision is a strategic decision or not. This impacts the level at which the decision should be made in the organizational hierarchy.

Also, without a workable definition, a low-level person in the hierarchy might make a decision without realizing it is strategic—and all hell might break loose.

Here is a definition:
A strategic decision is a decision that will take more than XYZ months to implement, or more than ABC months to correct once proven to be a mistake.

How many months ABC or XYZ represent depends on the industry and the position in the lifecycle. In the satellite business, a strategic decision is one that will impact the organization for many years to come—say ten—and it will also take ten years to fix a problem with a satellite. In the fashion industry one year is strategic while in the satellite business it is less than tactical.

This definition should help top management avoid micromanagement. They should not deal with any issue that can be fixed in less than XYZ months.

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The Deficiency of Democracy as a System
Every organic system has subsystems performing the PAEI functions.

In a democracy, the legislative branch performs the (E) function—they legislate laws that cause change. The judicial system performs the (A) function. And the executive branch carries out the (P) role.

But who performs the (I) role?

It used to be the Church, which had huge influence on the king as to what to do.

Modern society relies on the Constitution to provide the (I) function. But the Constitution is an (A) system.

The higher the rate of change, the more disintegration occurs—because subsystems (legal, social, economic, technological) do not change in unison.

Who ends up providing the integration function since (I) is missing?

It is the (A) that deals with efficiency as well—and no wonder that the role of government is growing. The machinery of government is mushrooming, suffocating the entrepreneurial (E) function.

Lifecycle Illuminations
In my book Managing Corporate Lifecycles (and its earlier edition Corporate Lifecycles), I had a problem describing the transition from Go-Go to Adolescence.

I said (A) should grow and (E) should decline.

But when I attempted to implement this prescription, companies by and large refused to do so. What they did instead was reduce the (P) function.

I realized, with time, that I was confusing what happens with what should happen.

What normally happens is that for (A) to grow, (P) has to go down—to free time to develop (A).

But growing (A) with a high (E) is very problematic. It causes a fight between the founder and whoever is trying to replace him or her. It can lead to a divorce—the partners split.

What to do?
The latest prescription is in moving from PE to AE, you first need to increase (I) before you start building the (A).

So the sequence should be:
PaEi → paEI → pAEI → PAEI