Natural Selection: Adapt Now Or Fail

Natural selection is a fundamental mechanism of the survival and reproduction of individuals, and thereby evolution. It determines the heritable traits of a population over generations. First proposed by Charles Darwin, the concept exists within all organisms. Since some traits are more likely to facilitate survival and reproductive success, they are passed onto the next generation, and so on.

The likelihood of traits being “selected” is a multifactorial process. Some might be passed down to save energy, others because it enhances the organism’s ability to adapt to it’s environment, and still others because the traits are preferred by mating partners. Aristotle observed this, illustrating it with teeth: “as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food…”

Outside of biology, the mental model of natural selection highlights competitiveness and adaptability in areas like business, technology, culture, and personal growth. As the diversity of life is the outcome of simple competition and adaptation, so is the evolution of many fields of life. Natural selection is just one example of the same pattern. Compete, adapt, select, win. To evolve, you must: (a) replicate, or create effective copies; (b) mutate, or change the copies slightly; and (c) fit, or prioritize the best copies to repeat the cycle.

What evolves are not the business or technologies themselves, but the culture and individuals nested within those businesses and technologies. Apple does not evolve. Apple’s teams do, replicating effective and eliminating ineffective processes over time. Language, tools, routines, habits, and rituals can evolve. That’s how you apply natural selection to your systems. What is being replicated? What might mutate that would be better fit for further replication? Think of a bunch of approaches to something, and pick out the winners—”selection”.

The key principles of natural selection need be understood to effectively employ it as a model. Variation has to be present, as systems without any diversity have no potential for change; it’s like raw material for evolution to take place. Pressure from external forces is yet another thing to consider, as it determines what trait or strategy is advantageous. From there it’s a matter of surviving and thriving under that pressure. Those which survive can be kept, those which thrive must be selected and further honed.

Real life implications of natural selection:

• Business: companies compete in markets where only the most effective, innovative, cost-efficient, and consumer-focused firms survive; an inability to adapt will mean you get replaced by a better-suited competitor—take the example of Blockbuster versus Netflix;

• Technology: various technologies have undergone survival-of-the-fittest scenarios, such as smartphones where touchscreens outcompeted physical keyboards and pushed them out of markets;

• Personal: individuals who adapt to circumstances by acquiring skills or shifting careers will be likely to thrive long-term;

• Education: use up-to-date teaching methods with your students to address modern challenges and business demands;

• Creativity: creators who adapt quickly to the desires of their audiences will grow way faster than their non-adaptive counterparts.

How you might use natural selection as a mental model: (1) embrace diversity, variating in your ideas, strategies, and systems to see where superior alternatives might be “selected”; (2) analyze pressures, finding out what actually defines success or failure in the market or with your audience instead of just using your horse sense; (3) iterate, refining repeatedly to evolve your systems because environments are changing at ever-faster rates; (4) monitor any changes you make to see whether your “selection” was utile or futile.

Thought-provoking insights. “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” coming from the man himself, Charles Darwin, reflects the importance of valuing not only competitiveness but adaptability and fit to the environment. “Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” screams roughly the same message, though this time stressing that failure to change does imply lethal consequences. “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” by Sun Tzu clearly highlights how you can always “select” better traits and your progress, no matter how chaotic, can be ensured. Use natural selection to navigate complex systems to assess just how they perceive and receive adversity. It might just make you survive and thrive whilst your competitors wither and die.

Questions to reflect on:

1. How can you apply the principle of natural selection to continuously test and eliminate ("select") less effective ideas in your life?

2. In what ways does career competition mirror the survival-of-the-fittest dynamics observed in nature?

3. What processes can you implement to regularly review and discard underperforming elements in your craft?

4. When encountering failure, how can you reframe them as experiments that contribute to the iterative improvement of strategies long-term?

5. What indicators can you use to measure the "fitness" of an idea or product?

Quotes that reflect natural selection:

1. "In nature, the most adaptable survive; in business, the most adaptable thrive." - Unknown author.

2. "Innovation is the process of trial, error, and selection." - Unknown author.

3. "Continuous improvement is evolution in action." - Unknown author.

Example use cases:

1. Product: iterative design processes where prototypes are tested in the market and feedback acts as selective pressure helps refine and/or discard features that do not meet genuine user needs.

2. Content: using audience engagement metrics to evaluate various topics and iterating based on which content resonates most, similar to how favorable traits survive in nature.

3. Business: encouraging a startup to run multiple pilot projects and analyzing which ventures attract the most customer interest, scaling those while discontinuing others.

4. Market; monitoring competitors' successes and failures as a natural-selection-like process to guide your strategy and brand identity.