Microsoft's Growth Led to Control Problems the Essay

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Microsoft's Growth Led to Control Problems

The objective of this work in writing is to relate Microsoft's problems with its control and evaluation systems to each of the stages of growth in Greiner's model and to consider with Microsoft being most likely in the growth through collaboration stage how it could be recommended to changes in its structure, culture, and control systems to solve its problems at this stage.

Greiner's Model for Organizational Development

The work of Greiner holds that there are five key dimensions that are essential for constructing a model of organizational development. Those five key dimensions are: (1) the organization's age; (2) the organization's size; (3) stages of evolution; (4) stages of revolution; and (5) growth rate of the industry. (Mainiero and Tromley, 1994, p. 1) According to Greiner, there are also five phases of growth: (1) creativity; (2) direction; (3) delegation; (4) coordination; and (5) collaboration. (Mainiero and Tromley, 1994, p.2-7)

Microsoft's Growth and Control Problems

The software engineers at Microsoft were organized from the start into small groups and teams to enable cooperation, learning and assisting one another and to drive the pace in developing innovative software. In the first ten years, the reward system of Microsoft was based on the performance of teams although there were rewards for individuals who performed exceptionally. By 2006, Microsoft experienced problems developing Vista, which experienced delays that had not been foreseen, and this was blamed by some of the new focus on performance of individuals since individuals were watching out for themselves rather than for the team as a whole.

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Not only were salaries a secret in the organization the evaluation methods used by team managers was kept secret. This resulted in high team evaluations for those who were liked by their managers. What had begun as a collaborative system became instead, a very political system. This has resulted in a decline in performance across the organization.

Use of Greiner's Model in Microsoft Organization

Greiner's model for organizational development offers a method that can be utilized by Microsoft Corporation to manage its organizational growth. The first phase, or that of creativity is the stage when the organization is born and the emphasis is on the creation of the product and a market for that product. During this phase, there is only frequent and informal communication among the organization's employees and long hours of hard work result in the receipt of salaries that are of a modest nature and the promise of the benefits of shared ownership in the organization. Immediate feedback from the marketplace controls activities and management acts upon the reaction of customers. During this phase those who have founded the company find that responsibilities of management are becoming burdensome so a strong business manager is sought who is able to pull the organization together. During phase two, or that of 'Direction' the business manager is installed and a period marked by sustained growth ensues. This phase is characterized by a functional organizational structure being….....

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