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How Can Business be Like Nature? |
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Why ‘Great’ Business is Like
Nature |
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Genes
define the blueprint of nature. A gene,
a length of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid),
consists of a long list of instructions on how to put the
organism together and keep it working.
Genes
determine traits or characteristics such as the capability
for vision, hearing, and agility. |
Have we an equivalent to
genes in business?
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In
business your genes can be thought of as the snippets of
knowledge skills rules and processes – your capability which
you use to operate your business. Your ‘business genome’
decides your business characteristics or capability.
Do your ‘business genes’ exhibit the ‘great’ business
traits detailed earlier? |
Nature’s
environment – competition for food, shelter, mates, the
prevalence of disease, and predation, dictates the fittest
genes.
The fittest displaces the
less fit in the population. This is natural selection or the
‘survival of the fittest’.
A business
could be compared to a species in a competitive environment.
Each species has distinct capabilities as does a business. The
traits and capabilities of your genes determine your survival
advantage over other individuals or species in the current
environment.
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Your
‘business genes’ predict your future or survival fate. |
In business we have competition for the market,
but also we can suffer from major ‘diseases’ such as
complacency,
over ambition, acquisition frenzy, corruption, fear
of failure, and perfection paralysis.
You need a
diversity of genes to be able to adapt and cope with the
ever-changing environment.
The same is true in business but its environment changes so much
faster than in nature.
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This
diversity or variety of genes in nature comes from the
cumulative effect of genetic reproduction mistakes or
mutations over millions of years—a slow process.
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You also need to keep the genes that are
currently the fittest and doing well in the current environment.
The
structure or construction of
genes enables this
capacity for
diversity as well
as offer simultaneous
stability or continuity.
Nature produces complex, powerful, elegant,
awe-inspiring, incredibly capable organisms and species. They
evolved, thrived, and survived for millions of years but had no
grand plan, vision or mission statement.
You do not know how the environment is really
going to move and whether you will have favourable or the
fittest capabilities. So how does nature do it? Nature spots
opportunities where it has the capabilities to succeed or
thrive. You could describe nature’s
process as a "Luck" Process.
Luck can
be described as when "capability matches opportunity."
If your genes have the capability that is now
favoured by the environment you will flourish.
So to use
nature as a model or metaphor for business, you need to
constantly sense out opportunities in the environment and keep
building your capabilities to maximise your chances of continued
success.
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An Evolutionary Business Handbook |
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