S1.E2. Evolution: Taken as a Whole - Part 1

The best chance for companies to survive an accumulation of changes to the environment is to develop a better understanding of how evolution itself works. The popular Darwinian notion of a slow, incremental process of continuous improvement by random trial and error is only partially accurate. Evolution also happens in great leaps of sudden transformation, so-called discontinuities. Small changes have a cumulative effect so that when certain thresholds are reached, dramatic metamorphoses are triggered. This kind of step-change is often called the hundredth monkey phenomenon. The emergence of the corporate social responsibility and environmental movements over the past few decades, culminating in the slippery slogan of sustainability, is a prime example of the hundredth monkey phenomenon. Environmental and social concerns have risen like a tide over the intervening decades so that, today, sustainability stands on the brink of transforming the underlying business model that has been so successful over the past few hundred years.