Evolutionary meaning and usage of the phrase “Survival of Fittest
It was originated in an evolutionary theory, as an alternative description of natural selection. British polymath philosopher Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin coined the term first and it was first used in ‘The Principles of Biology of 1864’.
Theoretically speaking, it means "only the fittest organisms will prevail”
What is a Natural Selection?
It is the portion of variation in reproductive success that is caused by heritable characters; Or
It is the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life; Or
Alternately it means "survivors survive, reproduce and therefore propagate any heritable characters which have affected their survival and reproductive success"
Idealism ^Realism
Notions of Natural Selection
q Survival of Fittest (Idealism)
q Preservation of Strength
q Heritable Characters
q Survival of Fittest (Realism)
q Survive” (The Natural Selection)
q Grow” (While we Survive)
Preservation of Strength
• Preserve and grow the Individual and Team Strength within Organization in relation to their knowledge domain, synchronization ability, interdepartmental coordination and exploit the strength of each department or each individual;
• Preserve and grow the organizational strength i.e. core business of your organization
• Preserve the Strength the Competitors curse and customers appreciates
• Explore the market based on our strength and exploit our strength in the right place for eg. If we are good in SME market then let us preserve that customer base while we explore any other market or industry even if the market is very lucrative
• Realize our weakness soon but focus to improve it gradually as we know that the current level of our business is due to our strength and weakness both, so it is not a matter of concern always.
• Vendor relationship and personnel management is our strength. In my view our strength is not preserved as there is no specific business model predefined to ensure vulnerabilities are treated well, at business level
Heritable Characters
• Reproductive success can genetically pass in employees, by way of work environment(WE) which are controlled, adapted and progressed by unambiguous policies and governance model, prompt feedback and clarification mechanism, approachable attitude in the hierarchy;
• Heritable Characters can be continuously preserved by creating and retention of key employees and mentors;]
• It is necessary that the organization imbibes genetically a positive cultural change in the WE
• Bring and demonstrate a WE attitude from the orientation to exit process;
“Survive”(The Natural Selection)
Strategic Level Selection
Let leaders be decision makers and accountable; let all the decisions be reason based with reviewable timelines and mitigation plan while approving it.
Trust the subordinates to the extent the delegation have been made and make review of anything beyond delegation.
Take review of all the decisions one level below and percolate the same practice down the line.
Have review committee of business, legal, delivery and CFO to advice on long term or large projects. Do not take large or long term projects in haste.
Review the strategic level manual with live / closed projects.
Delegation of Authority for smaller projects and one non-incentivized personnel acting as an authority for creating exception to smaller projects
Project Level Selection
Work on relation based projects; as far as possible do not encourage commencement of project before finalization of all the documents including the agreements.
In case if delivery needs to work before contract then approval of the committee to be taken and cap it to 5% of the project budget with MOU to finalize the contract within __days of release of Purchase Order.
Encourage short term projects to get in fast cash or
Split the long term development/implementation projects into smaller modules/ projects or have shorter payment timelines.
Incentives of Sales Team linked with release of the payment, Guaranteed performance bonus of delivery and support team linked with accomplishment of their respective obligations under the performance based large projects to get the incentivized focus on such large projects.
Offer discount to clients as an incentive for cooperation of the client in the project to close the projects before the timelines. Such incentive shall be calculated up to 50% of the financial interest that we would have to pay if the cash would have not reached us.
Ensure feedback from client and project leaders as part of review duly documented and signed by them
Employee Level Selection
Have a quarterly meeting of key personnel from each department to improve inter-departmental activity.
Develop a culture of at par respect towards the other to circumvent individual egos
Indentify and groom the key employees to enable them to stand fit to survive. Such identification shall be based on the performance evaluated by the review committee.
Keep alive the fighting spirit; have a never let go attitude; Remember size of organization does matter but what matters is the individual strength to survive.
“Grow” (While We Survive)
• ;Formulate and meticulously follow processes, policies and decisions;
• ;Percolate the same in the same spirit, so that we all speak the same language and remain on the same page always
• ;Modulate process from time to time with the reasoning for such modulation;
• ;Substantiate our decisions with a reasoning, mitigation plan, and strict review of the risk approved.
• ;Short term projects to have shorter decision making process and approvals
• ;Long term and large projects need to be prioritized and focused by meticulous documentation and timelines.
• ;Retention policies to be strengthen for key resources by recommending the career path and expectation with timelines of achievement.
