Transformating towards a firm of the future

Organizations are increasingly exposed to dynamic change: change upon change upon change. This dynamic change upsets the traditional business paradigm.

Paradoxically, inspiration to overcome the current challenges is all around us. Nature has been dealing with dynamic change for more than 3.8 billion years, and the more we explore nature’s ways the more we find inspiration for operating in a dynamically changing business environment.

Our understanding of nature has evolved over the last few decades. We once viewed it as a battleground of competition to one of dynamic non-equilibrium, where an order within chaos prevails due to unwritten natural patterns, feedback loops, behavioural qualities, interdependencies and collaboration within and throughout ecosystems. But the more we grapple with the challenges our businesses now face, the more we realize that nature’s patterns and qualities inspire approaches and qualities for our own evolutionary success in business and beyond.

Case in point: Biomimicry for Creative Innovation (BCI), a collaboration of business transformation specialists which I helped co-found, has developed a set of business principles for the firm of the future originating from the life principles developed by the Biomimicry Institute in the US. The principles are aimed at creating conditions in business conducive to collaboration, adaptability, creativity, local attunement, multifunctionality and responsiveness; hence, enhancing the evolution of organizations from rigid, tightly managed hierarchies to dynamic living organizations which thrive and flourish within ever-changing business, socio-economic and environmental conditions.

Organizations that understand how to embed these principles from nature into their products, processes, policies and practices create greater abundance for themselves and their business ecosystems in times of rapid change; flourishing rather than perishing in volatile conditions. Organizations inspired by nature are resilient, optimizing, adaptive, systems-based, values-based and life-supporting.

For more on this and the full-length original blog post, please visit:  http://nbs.net/lessons-from-the-environment-help-firms-evolve/