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“It is not the strongest nor the most intelligent of species that survives, but the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin
Have you heard this quote from Charles Darwin?
Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science.
Because of this, it makes sense to listen when Charles Darwin says something about survivorship – after all, he studied the reasons behind species surviving or perishing, and the same can be said of people, civilizations, and even companies.
The World Changes – So Must We
Is the world the same as it was fifty years ago? Certainly not. There were no iPhones, no internet, limited globalisation, no social media, among many other things. If the world constantly changes it is folly to think that we can remain the same and still survive, or even thrive.
Charles Darwin saw this in the mid-to-late 1800s, and the same is true today, because the one true constant is change itself. Things are always evolving, things are always changing.
Kodak film and cameras saw the digital revolution coming early on – they even wrote a paper on the coming digital revolution in the early 1980s – fully twenty years before it happened. And yet, they still went bust because they were unable to change. Middle management in-fighting and bickering over organisational turf took priority over actually changing the company toward something profitable, even until the end when the writing was truly on the wall. Eventually, Kodak went bankrupt.
Meanwhile, Amazon always does business like it’s “day one” – in other words, the most vulnerable time for a business. They are constantly moving, constantly evolving, and its CEO Jeff Bezos is consequently the richest man in the world. Is he smarter than everyone else? No, not everyone. Is Jeff Bezos stronger than everyone else? No. But it is not the strongest nor the most intelligent of species that survives, it is the one that is most adaptable to change.
– David McLachlan
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