The Evolution of Adaptivity

Our world appears to be suspended in a permanent state of multiple, simultaneously occurring crises. The French complexity theorist, Edgar Morin, referred to this condition as ‘polycrisis’.[1] Polycrisis leads to long-term instability, often referred to as ‘permacrisis’. Managing the chaos created by a non-linear world steeped in this permacrisis makes it imperative for organisations to develop and execute their ability to adapt. Organisations across industries and geographies have now started to conduct the word adaptability into their lingua franca, in reference to the transformational change that they are now undertaking.

The process by which organisations can build this critical ‘adaptive capacity’, however, is not clearly articulated in traditional management literature, most of which was derived from a world that was more stable, certain, and linear. The scientific disciplines, by contrast, have long developed a much more visceral understanding of the phenomenon of adaptability over the course of the past 2,500 years.

The word adapt, commonly used when referring to the need to change, originates from the Latin root adaptare, which means ‘to bind’ or ‘to attach’. The verb form of the word adaptare was adaptare, which was also used in French and meant ‘to adjust’. The word adaptare then eventually emerged in English as adapt, meaning ‘to apply’.[2]

The concept of adaptation was debated in classical discussions from 400 BCE by the Greek philosophers Anaximander and Empedocles, who described life as evolution through the process of adaptation.[3] The Roman philosopher, Titus Lucretius in his poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), written around the 1st century CE, argued that all organisms are part of a filtering system that selects those best adapted, to survive.[4] The legendary Greek philosopher Aristotle, around 350 CE was among the first to compile a descriptive list of species in an attempt to identify nature’s underlying code.[5]

In the medieval era, a natural historian Benoit de Maillet wrote a book called Telliamed in 1697. The speculative theory he developed claimed that all life forms on earth originated from the oceans and the ocean’s tides and currents moulded their forms.[6] The French naturalist, Jean Baptiste de Lamarck in the early 1800s, also attempted to explain how species change over time, with his theory of ‘transformation’.[7]

Then arrived the famous naturalist, Charles Darwin who was invited to join the voyage of the ship Beagle in 1831, a five-year journey that travelled from South America, the Galapagos Islands and the Pacific Oceanic Islands. Darwin’s observations on this voyage formed the bedrock on which he shaped his theory of evolution by natural selection. On his return to England in 1836, Darwin developed insights that helped unravel the hidden riddles in his observations, to piece together a theory of how species evolved. Darwin’s lecture at the Linnean Society in 1858 and the subsequent publication of his landmark book, On the Origin of Species, finally gave the world a clear, compelling narrative on the story of evolution and adaptation. Darwin’s sheer genius was that he revealed nature as a process and was able to explain how evolution took place through the mechanism of adaptation and natural selection, giving rise to new species, or new traits within species.[6][7] He concluded that nature selects those organisms whose traits are most adapted to their existing environment, which in turn drives the process of evolution, thus gradually increasing the diversity of species.

The modern organisation has much to learn from the scientific world’s characterisation of the process of adaptation. The phenomenon of evolution, through the mechanism of natural selection and adaptation is also mirrored in the emergence of new technologies, new products and new business models in ever-evolving business ecosystems. One of the characteristics of the process of natural evolution is its remarkable ability to conserve energy by re-using, refining and re-combining physiological and anatomical attributes of species. This process is clearly visible in the evolution of our organisations, as prevailing structures and strategies are often re-used as building blocks during the process of transformational change.

Quite unlike what we see in nature though, business organisations have the unique ability to artificially pre-select those organisational structures, operating processes and business strategies that better allow them to adapt to any planned, or even unplanned disruptions. Adaptability, therefore, whether by accident or by design, whether by natural selection or by artificial selection and whether proactive or reactive, is the primary driving force behind the evolution of organisations and business ecosystems. Adaptability is the heartbeat of both natural and business evolution. The greatest opportunity for organisations over these turbulent years of ‘perma-polycrisis’ will emerge by managing and demonstrating their ability to adapt, the singular competency critical to managing disruption. Nature has been silently whispering the tune of adaptivity for eons; business organisations will have no option but to participate in this chorus to drive their own evolution.

References

[1] Torres, Adam. 2022. “Welcome to the World of the Polycrisis.” Financial Times, 20 October 2022. https://www.ft.com/content/4039fdd0-711b-41b0-bc5d-3b9c0f0c5dcb

[2] Sommer, Guillaume. 2010. The Concept of Adaptation: Interdisciplinary Scope and Involvement in Climate Change. Nature Science Society.

[3] Zillgitt, Beno. 2019. “Was Evolution Invented by Greek Philosophers?” Journal of Creation 65–78.

[4] Solé, Ricard V. 2019. Evolutionary Thinking Before Darwin. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2019 Edition.

[5] Zillgitt, Beno. 2019. Plato and Aristotle: Evolution Before Darwin. University of Cambridge.

[6] Scott, Robert. 2012. Darwin’s Ghost: The Secret History of Evolution. United States: Spiegel & Grau.

[7] Darwin, Charles. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. London: John Murray.