The stages of the human life cycle include childhood, adulthood, middle age, and the old age. Proper care is required to ensure health and wellness at each stage of the human life cycle. Similarly, organisations also have stages in their life cycle and require proper inputs at each stage for their life cycle. Five phases of organisational development are alternatively marked by evolution and revolution stages. An organisation evolves or grows for some time and then it comes to a revolution stage requiring care or inputs to enable it to evolve to the next stage. These phases are:
1. creativity and leadership leading to
2. direction and autonomy leading to
3. delegation and control leading to
4. coordination and red tape leading to
5. collaboration for new platforms for growth.

Characteristics of the first phase of evolution – creativity stage:
• Founders are entrepreneurially oriented, they disdain management activities; they use their potential in making and selling the new product.
• Communication among small number of employees is frequent and informal.
• Long hours of work are rewarded by modest salaries and the promise of ownership benefits.
• Decisions and motivation are highly sensitive to marketplace feedback; management acts as customers react.
This stage is essential to get off the ground but as the organisation grows, problems develop: a revolution or crisis of leadership occurs. To install a strong leader who can steer the organization is a challenge of the first phase of revolution – leadership stage. Once the leadership is in place, the organisation starts evolving for the second phase.

Characteristics of the second phase of evolution – direction stage:
• Functional job assignments come in force.
• Budgeting, accounting and purchasing systems are introduced.
• Employees grow in numbers, communication becomes formal and a hierarchy of titles and positions takes place.
As the organisation evolves in its second phase, decision making becomes complex and the revolution emerges for a crisis of autonomy. The organisation starts evolving for the third phase – to move toward more delegation of powers.

Characteristics of the third phase of evolution – delegation stage:
• Greater responsibility to the managers of plants and market territories.
• Profit centers and bonuses to motivate employees.
• Top-level executives limit themselves to managing on periodic reports from the field.
• Management concentrates on acquiring outside resources.
• Communication from the top is infrequent and usually occurs by correspondence.
As the organisation evolves in its third phase, top executives feel loss of control and the organization falls into a crisis of control – the revolution stage of phase three. The organisation starts moving for the fourth phase – coordination.

Characteristics of the fourth phase of evolution – coordination stage:
• Planning procedures are reviewed and decentralized units are merged.
• More people are hired to initiate companywide programs of control and review for line managers.
• Capital expenditures are carefully weighed and spread out across the organization.
• Product groups are treated as an investment centres where return on invested capital is an important criterion used in allocating funds.
• Stock options and companywide profit sharing are used to encourage employees to identify with the organization as a whole.
As the organisation evolves in its fourth phase, a red-tape revolution occurs. Groups criticize the bureaucratic system that has evolved. Procedures take precedence over problem solving and innovation dims. In short, the organization has become too large and complex to be managed through formal programs and rigid systems. The organisation starts moving for the fifth phase – collaboration.

Characteristics of the fifth phase of evolution – collaboration stage:
• Teams are combined across functions to handle specific tasks for quickly solving problems.
• Staff experts are reduced, reassigned and combined into interdisciplinary teams that consult with field units.
• Formal control systems are simplified.
• Conferences of key managers are held frequently to focus on major problems.
• Managers are trained in behavioural skills for achieving better teamwork and conflict resolution.
• Real-time information systems are integrated into daily decision-making processes.
• Economic rewards are geared more to team performance than to individual achievement.
• Experimenting with new practices is encouraged throughout the organization.
In each revolutionary stage, it becomes evident that the stage has come to a close only by means of certain specific solutions; moreover, these solutions are different from those that were applied to the problems of the preceding revolution. It may be tempting to choose solutions that were tried before but that actually make it impossible for the new phase of growth to evolve.
The top management of all organizations at different stages of development should be aware of the stages; otherwise, it may not recognize when the time for change has come, or it may act to impose the wrong solution.
Leaders at the top should be ready to work with the flow of the tide rather than against it. Each phase produces certain strengths and learning experiences in the organization that will be essential for success in subsequent phases.
Organisations should not act to avoid revolutions. Rather, these periods of tension provide the pressure, ideas and awareness that afford a platform for change and the introduction of new practices.