Adaptability as a Competitive Advantage

One of the better summaries on how companies need to be adaptable is the Harvard Business Review article by Martin Reeves and Mike Deimler called “Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage“.


The main point is that the world is far less predictable than in the past.


Adaptibility is an approach that does not rely on prediction, but instead on experimentation, but experimentation necessarily means a bumpy road:


They describe four organizational capabilities that are necessary to foster rapid adaptation.  Specifically:

  1. The ability to read and act on signals of change;
  2. the ability to manage complex and interconnected systems of multiple stakeholders;
  3. the ability to experiment rapidly and frequently—not only with products and services but also with business models, processes, and strategies; and
  4. the ability to motivate employees and partners.

In regards to point 3 above, experimentation is not something that is exclusively done by the CEO.  Experimentation is done throughout the organization, at all levels.  They point out:


This really helps explain why there must not be a distinction between “run time” and “design time”:  experimentation at a particular place and time means that the change happens in the situation, and not separate from it, and particularly not in an isolated design time.

Traditional predictive management would institute strict procedures and policies, and use this to drive interaction in place of what was really happening.  But to achieve an adaptive organization, anything might change, you dont’ specify the policy.  Instead you need to be a lot more transparent about what is really happening:


See also “Throw Away the Process Map, use Status Feedback Instead“.


Decentralize is always a theme of adaptibility:


To be adaptable, it is necessary to think more holistically:


Focus you managers in risks and uncertainties:


every significant source of uncertainty should be addressed with an initiative.

An excellent article on how the nature of the business world is changing, and you have to get used to change in order to survive.  Adapt!

2 thoughts on “Adaptability as a Competitive Advantage

  1. Pingback: How an Adaptable Business Model Can Drive Your Start-up - BusinessnWealth

  2. Pingback: 5 Ways to Thrive in Your Career | Fancycrave

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s