Evolving Your Business or Ministry...Not So Fast

According to the late Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould, the "trade secret" of paleontology is sudden appearance and stasis. That is, creatures suddenly appear in the fossil record and largely stay the same thereafter.

Of course, this phenomena presents all sorts of problems for Darwin's theory of slow and steady, slight modifications leading to the complex organisms we now observe. But sudden appearance and stasis should be quite instructive for your business.

Contrary to the much-touted though altogether ambiguous mantra that business must evolve to survive, you should consider your own company or ministry's evolution in micro, not macroevolutionary terms. That is, what small changes can you make that will ensure that you thrive, even as you survive? Your goal should not be to locate the missing links that will transform your business from a shoe company to a broadband provider or your ministry from a church to a homeless shelter, but to firm up the parts that are lacking to maximize sustainability and effectiveness.

Darwin prophesied an abundance of missing links easily detectable within the fossil record. 150 years later, paleontology has produced little more than debatable transitional forms.

Today the prophets of business and ministry trumpet evolving to survive, pointing to Darwin and friends. Perhaps in view of sudden appearance and stasis, you should keep your own "trade secret" that encourages micro-innovation within a constant whole.