“I am an organisational healer, providing and working with change management for companies, organisations and governments. But not all listen to my advices,” said Dr. Ichak Adizes when we sat down at a lunch table in Trakai Saturday, using the former Serb leader Milosevic and the Greek Government as examples of exactly that.

The annual ‘Adizes International Convention’ took place in Vilnius this weekend. It was the 33rd annual convention for the global organisation that Dr. Adizes started three decades ago. And on Saturday all the convention delegates from around the world were bussed to Trakai for an ‘almost self-baked lunch’, a visit to the castle; plus a little glimpse into the past of the Karaim people who came to Trakai from Crimea 600 years ago, still today representing a huge surprise to most visitors meeting these colourful, Turkic people in far north Lithuania.

My conversation with Dr. Adizes this Saturday afternoon was rather brief and superficial. There were simply too many people and too much noise around us. I will therefore leave it up to his own articles/blogs (below) to speak for him this time.

We did, however, get the opportunity to touch several aspects of what he has experienced during his long life as a consultant and advisor for businesses, organizations and governments around the world. His story about his talks with Milosevic in 1991 follows below.

The fact that his advice to the Greek government, about 20 years ago, regarding the country's way to plan their finances, were not listened to or followed, is a topic we will try to return to at a later date. Just sad to see how much it now costs the country to have been bad listeners when it still was plenty of time to choose another course...

Maybe it’s time now for Lithuania to seek professional advice?

Aage Myhre, Editor-in-Chief

Nurit and Ichak Adizes, Shimon M. Rojany and Gad Mizrahi from the global Adezis organisation were all deeply impressed by the story about the Trakai Karaims. Here in front of the Karaim temple in Trakai, the ‘Kenasa’.

Dr. Ichak Adezis

Dr, Ichak Adizes was born in Skopje, Macedonia, the 22nd of October 1937. In 1948, his family moved to Israel, where he completed his undergraduate studies. In addition to attending college, he also applied for the army.

Dr. Adizes has a Ph.D. and M.B.A. from Columbia University and a B.A. from Hebrew University. He works in English, Spanish, Hebrew, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Macedonian languages.

His works are carried out through the Adizes Institute, a consulting company he founded with offices in 15 countries. The Adizes programme for leading organizations to prime performance, has been used successfully by over 1,000 organizations worldwide, ranging in size from Fortune 100's and non-profits to start-ups and mid-sized companies. As an advisor to foreign governments, Dr. Adizes has consulted with the Prime Ministers and cabinets of Israel, Sweden, Greece, Brazil, Ghana, Iceland, Mexico, Macedonia and others.

Dr. Adizes' work has been featured in Inc. Magazine, Fortune, The New York Times, London Financial Times, Investor Relations Daily, Nation's Business, World Digest and others. He is the author of 13 books that have been published in more than 50 editions and 26 languages. His Corporate Lifecycles: How Organizations Grow and Die and What to Do About It is regarded as a classic in management theory. Executive Excellence, one of the most prestigious business magazines in the United States, ranked Dr. Adizes 28th on its 2008-2009 list of 100 Top Leadership Consultants. He has lectured in more than 40 countries.

Adizes' simple ten-stage corporate life cycle model is an elegant way to learn and understand the typical life-cycle stages that many businesses pass through, from conception to cessation, and is an example of the fine work and thinking of the Adizes Institute and its founder, which extend considerably beyond this model.

There is no pre-set timescale for this corporate life-cycle, and many organisations do not fit this model. However the life-cycle stages that Ichak Adizes describes in his model provide a useful basis for understanding a fundamental perspective of organisational change, and the principle that organisational ageing, with all that this implies, is inevitable.

One of the main challenges for mature corporations is therefore to seek reinvention through new business development, before it's too late, often through acquisition of other businesses in infancy stage, or by developing new 'infant' business divisions within the parent corporation.

The model also provides a basis for useful team training activities, for teaching people about organisational development stages, which is helpful for selling, management and understanding organisational cultures and systems.

The Adizes Institute is headquartered in Carpinteria, 12 miles south of Santa Barbara, California, being the home of the Adizes Methodology. The Institute serves as the central hub for the training and certification of Adizes Associates. Individuals from Adizes Offices around the world, as well as clients who have licensed and adopted the Adizes Methodology for use within their own organizations.

The institute is focused on creating an integrated network of professionals who practice structural, systemic and participative change in everything from micro systems (individuals and families) to macro systems (organizations and societies). In their promotional material they claim to be committed to being a world leader in developing a unifying theory and practice of change based on mutual trust and respect. 

The Institute is also the centre for the development of all Adizes products and services. These include books, audio and video recordings, and software applications of the Adizes Methodology.