After all, some reason, creating adaptability means not organizing for optimal efficiency and inefficiency in business is a bigger threat than a potential sudden change in market conditions.

And it has been highly debated ever since. Megginson’s quote was likely the first parallel between evolution theory and management. Darwin’s printed name, however, turned out to be quite resistant to change. When the academy learned about this, it decided to remove Darwin’s name from the floor, leaving the famous quote intact. From this lecture on management, the quote started to lead a life of its own, and eventually ended up in big print on the floor of the California Academy of Sciences, even though Darwin himself had never said anything that even remotely resembled the quote. In 1963, Megginson stated in a class that ‘According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives it is not the strongest that survives but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.’ He used the phrase to address the fact that organizations, like species, should adapt to their markets in order to survive. Megginson, Professor of Management and Marketing at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. The origin of the quote had been traced back to Leon C. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Until some years ago, when research proved that Darwin had never actually said such a thing.

Up until a few years ago, when you walked into the California Academy of Sciences you would see, printed on the floor, a quote by Charles Darwin reading “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. Success does not await those that have adapted fastest to the 1.5-meter economy, but those that have become adaptable to change. I lean towards a version of Amara’s Law: the impact of the pandemic will be overestimated in the short term but underestimated in the long term.

Yes, we will be left with an economic crisis for which we can blame the pandemic, politicians or the press, but the question is what the ‘new normal’ will look like.

By the time you finish reading through all of the advice you have been sent on how your organization could manage the impact of Covid-19, the impact of the virus will likely be contained enough for your company to return to some form of ‘new normal’.

Who stated survival of the fittest