This is part 2 in an ongoing discussion.

Previously… we discussed the three functions necessary for evolution:

• Replication

• Variation

• Selection

From these simple functions evolution has created everything from bacteria to redwood trees, from viruses to people. Evolution is pretty powerful stuff. We raised the question of how evolution can apply to business.

Today’s featured evolutionary function is replication. How does evolution get clean copies, and how can that apply to business?

Replication – The Foundation of Every Business Operation

On any typical day, most businesses generate products and services that satisfy customers and generate a profit for the business. Therefore the single most effective action a business can take is to do today exactly what it did yesterday. In the short term, that’s the best bet a business can make.  But before we go any deeper with an exploration of business operation, let’s investigate how evolution handles replication.

Just like a business, the best bet evolution can make for survival of a species is to reproduce exactly the individual members who survived in the last generation. Now, when we talk about evolution, we understand that evolution itself is not alive and has no intent. Indeed, it does not even have a physical existence. However, because evolution appears to have intention and desire to survive, it’s easy, almost unavoidable to discuss evolution as an entity with a goal and intent. So we will use that shorthand to refer to evoution, but periodically we should remind ourselves that evolution is a natural process with no desire, no intent, and indeed not even any goal—long-term or even short-term. Evolution is simply an undirected, random, statistical  process. While the best short-term bet for survival is to do today exactly what the species did yesterday, that bet guarantees extinction in the long-term. The reason is simple: over time the selection criteria for survival will change.

Change – that word hangs over life—and business—like a dark cloud looming in the distance. The storm is coming, but it may miss us, or it may not be so bad. Our ability to forecast the future is not all that good. Sometimes, change is truly cataclysmic but usually not. How does a business prepare for uncertain, sudden, cataclysmic change even while assuring survival in the (relatively) static environment of right now? Evolution can provide some insight.

Evolution is very careful about how it allows changes in the genetic code. Evolution has even developed (evolved) specific processes to mix genes. Presumably, evolution tried other methods to mix genes but those methods simply did not work. So now we can explore the methods which have survived with the presumption that they actually work, and others don’t.

Evolution has developed techniques to accommodate three different types of change:

• No change at all – most common, almost all the time.

• Gradual change

• Sudden, cataclysmic change

Over any stretch of a thousand-year millennium, the best bet for genetic survival is to make no change. As a result, evolution is extremely cautious about how it allows changes in the genetic code. In fact, genetic code “error checkers” have developed specifically to find and fix errors in the DNA. Since almost all organisms have these genetic code checkers, we can safely assume that they are necessary and important to survival.

The best survival strategy, at least in the short-term:

Assure that the organism (or business) can do today exactly what it did yesterday.

Evolution has an instruction manual (genetic code) approximately the size of a large encyclopedia. And it has extensive tools for checking, correcting, and copying that encyclopedia. That’s replication!

How does your business replicate itself? Fundamentally, a business replicates its operation using tools similar to evolution:

• Documentation

• Training

• Error correction

• Redundancy through Distribution (Cross-training)

Come back next week for a detailed discussion of these four tools.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 5:50 am and is filed under Business info, Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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