Every framework in the MS Playbook traces back to one question: why do some organizations scale successfully, and why do others break under their own growth?
That question has driven over 45 years of published research by Eric Flamholtz, Ph.D. and Yvonne Randle, Ph.D. — research that didn’t stay just in academic journals. It became the empirical foundation for how we diagnose what’s underbuilt in an organization and what to strengthen next.
Where it started: growth doesn’t scale on its own
Dr. Flamholtz, a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Anderson School of Management, and Dr. Randle began by studying a specific failure pattern: companies that grew fast on strong products and strong founders, but then hit significant organizational issues, that were making their sustainable success impossible.
That research became the bestselling book Growing Pains, now in its fifth edition (Wiley, 2016) and translated into more than a dozen languages, including Bulgarian, Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean, and Russian. The book introduces the core frameworks and concepts, foundational for the Playbook.
Four bodies of research, one integrated system
The Playbook’s core layers each rest on their own dedicated research line:
Culture as a financial asset, not a soft metric. Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Strategic Asset (Stanford University Press, 2011) and a series of empirical studies in the European Management Journal tested whether culture actually predicts financial performance — not just employee sentiment.
Leadership as a measurable system. The Inner Game of Management (AMACOM, 1987) broke new ground by arguing that management effectiveness isn’t just about skill — it’s shaped also by how a manager understands their role and how they handle the psychological aspect of the role: control, self-esteem, and the need to be liked. Later research on the „Leadership Molecule“ extended this into how organizational leaders and leadership teams need to evolve as their organization’s grow.
Strategic change as a discipline. Leading Strategic and Organizational Change: Bridging Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Changing the Game: Organizational Transformations of the First, Second, and Third Kinds (Oxford University Press, 1998) examined how organizations navigate major transitions without losing operational control.
Performance management as infrastructure. Effective Management Control (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996) laid out the theory behind and provided a roadmap for building performance systems that actually change day-to-day behavior.
Tested, not just theorized
The underlying frameworks and methodologies upon which the MS Playbook is based have been empirically tested, repeatedly, in peer-reviewed journals — including multiple studies in the European Management Journal examining the statistical link between organizational infrastructure and financial results. This is the research base the Organizational Health Check™ draws on today.
Why this matters for the Playbook?
The MS Playbook isn’t a set of opinions about what makes organizations work. It’s the practical application of a research program that’s been tested across thousands of organizations in variety of industries, on four continents, and refined over four decades. When we tell a client what’s underbuilt and what to strengthen first, that diagnosis is grounded in this body of work — not in a framework we invented last year.
List of our books and articles:
Flamholtz, E. G. (1996). “Effective Management Control: Theory and Practice”. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Flamholtz, E. G. (2001). “Corporate Culture and the Bottom Line.” European Management Journal, 19(3), 268–275.
Flamholtz, E. G., & Narasimhan-Kannan, R. (2005). “Differential Impact of Culture upon Financial Performance: An Empirical Investigation.” European Management Journal, 23(1), 50–64.
Flamholtz, E. G., & Randle, Y. (1987). “The Inner Game of Management”, AMACOM.
Flamholtz, E. G., & Randle, Y. (1998). “Changing the Game: Organizational Transformations of the First, Second, and Third Kinds.” Oxford University Press.
Flamholtz, E. G., & Randle, Y. (2008). “Leading Strategic and Organizational Change: Bridging Theory and Practice.” Cambridge University Press.
Flamholtz, E. G., & Randle, Y. (2011). “Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Strategic Asset.” Stanford Business Books.
Flamholtz, E. G., & Randle, Y. (2016). “Growing Pains: Building Sustainably Successful Organizations®” (5th ed.). Wiley.