Imagine that you are a product designer. And you've designed a product, a new  type of product, called the human immune system. You're pitching this product  to a skeptical, strictly no-nonsense manager. Let's call him Bob. I think we all  know at least one Bob, right? How would that go? Bob, I've got this incredible  idea for a completely new type of personal health product. It's called the human  immune system. I can see from your face that you're having some problems with this. Don't worry. I know it's very complicated. I don't want to take you through  the gory details, I just want to tell you about some of the amazing features of this product. First of all, it cleverly uses redundancy by having millions of copies of  each component -- leukocytes, white blood cells -- before they're actually  needed, to create a massive buffer against the unexpected. And it cleverly  leverages diversity by having not just leukocytes but B cells, T cells, natural killer cells, antibodies. The components don't really matter. The point is that together,  this diversity of different approaches can cope with more or less anything that  evolution has been able to throw up. And the design is completely modular. You  have the surface barrier of the human skin, you have the very rapidly reacting  innate immune system and then you have the highly targeted adaptive immune  system. The point is, that if one system fails, another can take over, creating a  virtually foolproof system. I can see I'm losing you, Bob, but stay with me,  because here is the really killer feature. The product is completely adaptive. It's  able to actually develop targeted antibodies to threats that it's never even met  before. It actually also does this with incredible prudence, detecting and reacting to every tiny threat, and furthermore, remembering every previous threat, in  case they are ever encountered again. What I'm pitching you today is actually  not a stand-alone product. The product is embedded in the larger system of the  human body, and it works in complete harmony with that system, to create this  unprecedented level of biological protection. So Bob, just tell me honestly, what  do you think of my product? And Bob may say something like, I sincerely  appreciate the effort and passion that have gone into your presentation, blah  blah blah -- But honestly, it's total nonsense. You seem to be saying that the key  selling points of your product are that it is inefficient and complex. Didn't they  teach you 80-20? And furthermore, you're saying that this product is siloed. It  overreacts, makes things up as it goes along and is actually designed for  somebody else's benefit. I'm sorry to break it to you, but I don't think this one is  a winner. If we went with Bob's philosophy, I think we'd actually end up with a  more efficient immune system. And efficiency is always important in the short  term. Less complex, more efficient, more bang for the buck. Who could say no  to that? Unfortunately, there's one very tiny problem, and that is that the user of  this product, you or I, would probably die within one week of the next winter,  when we encountered a new strain of the influenza virus. I first became  interested in biology and business, and longevity and resilience, when I was  asked a very unusual question by the CEO of a global tech company. And the 

question was: What do we have to do to make sure that our company lasts 100  years? A seemingly innocent question, but actually, it's a little trickier than you  might think, considering that the average US public company now can expect a  life span of only 30 years. That is less than half of the life span that its  employees can expect to enjoy. Now, if you were the CEO of such a company,  badgered by investors and buffeted by change, we might forgive you for not  even worrying too much about what happens 30 years out. But here's something that should keep you awake at night: the probability that your company will not  be around in five year's time, on average, is now a staggering 32 percent. That's a one in three chance that your company will be taken over or will fail within just  five years. Let's come back to our tech CEO's question. Where better to turn for  advice than nature, that's been in the business of life and death for longer than  any company? As a lapsed biologist, I decided to immediately call a real  biologist, my friend Simon Levin, Professor of Biology and Mathematics at  Princeton University. Together, we looked at a variety of biological systems,  ranging from natural tropical rainforests through to managed forests and  fisheries. And we asked ourselves the question: What makes these systems  resilient and enduring? And what we found was that the same six principles that  we saw underpinning the miracle of the human immune system actually cropped up again and again, from redundancy through to embeddedness. In fact, we  saw these principles not only in biologically enduring systems, we also found  them being very characteristic of long-lived social systems, like the Roman  Empire and the Catholic Church, believe it or not. We also went on to look at  business, and found that these very same properties also characterized  businesses that were resilient and long-lived, and we noted their absence from  ones which were short-lived. Let's first take a look at what happens when the  corporate immune system collapses. This beautiful building is part of the  Shitennoji Temple Complex in Osaka, Japan. In fact, it's one of the oldest  temples in Japan. It was built by a Korean artisan, because at the time, Japan  was not yet building temples. And this Korean artisan went on to found a temple building company. Amazingly, his company, Kongō Gumi, was still around 1,480  years later. In fact, it became the oldest continuously operating company in the  world. So how is Kongō Gumi doing today? Not too well, I'm afraid. It borrowed  very heavily during the bubble period of the Japanese economy, to invest in real  estate. And when the bubble burst, it couldn't refinance its loans. The company  failed, and it was taken over by a major construction company. Tragically, after  40 generations of very careful stewardship by the Kongō family, Kongō Gumi  succumbed to a spectacular lapse in the ability to apply a principle of prudence.  Speaking of company failures: we're all familiar with the failure of Kodak, the  company that declared bankruptcy in January 2012. Much more interesting,  however, is the question: Why did Fujifilm -- same product, same pressures from digital technology, same time -- why was Fujifilm able to survive and flourish? 

Fujifilm used its capabilities in chemistry, material science and optics to diversify  into a number of areas, ranging from cosmetics to pharmaceuticals, to medical  systems to biomaterials. Some of these diversification attempts failed. But in  aggregate, it was able to adapt its portfolio sufficiently to survive and flourish. As the CEO, Mr. Komori, put it, the strategy succeeded because it had "more  pockets and drawers" than the rivals. He meant, of course, that they were able  to create more options than the rivals. Fujifilm survived because it applied the  principles of prudence, diversity and adaptation. A catastrophic factory fire, like  the one we see here, completely wiped out, in one evening, the only plant which supplied Toyota with valves for car-braking systems. The ultimate test of  resilience. Car production ground to a screeching halt. How was it, then, that  Toyota was able to recover car production? Can you imagine how long it took?  Just five days. From having no braking valves to complete recovery in five days. How was this possible? Toyota managed its network of suppliers in such a  collaborative manner that it could work very quickly and smoothly with suppliers  to repurpose production, fill the missing braking valve capacity and have car  production come online again. Toyota applied the principles of modularity of its  supply network, embeddedness in an integrated system and the functional  redundancy to be able to repurpose, smoothly, existing capacity. Now  fortunately, few companies succumb to catastrophic fires. But we do read in the  newspaper every day about companies succumbing to the disruption of  technology. How is it, then, that the consumer optics giant Essilor is able to  avoid technology disruption, and even profit from it? And yes, technology  disruption is not only a big deal in software and electronics. Essilor carefully  scans the competitive environment for potentially disruptive technologies. It  acquires those technologies very early, before they've become expensive or  competitors have mobilized around them, and it then develops those  technologies itself, even at the risk of failure or the risk of self-disruption. Essilor  stays ahead of its game, and has delivered spectacular performance for over 40 years, by using the principles of prudence and adaptation. OK, if these  principles are so powerful, you might be thinking, why are they not  commonplace in business? Why do we not use these words every day? Well,  change has to first start in the mind. If we think back to our pitch to Bob, in order to apply the principles that underpin the miracle of the human immune system,  we first need to think differently about business. Now typically, when we think  about business, we use what I call "mechanical thinking." We set goals, we  analyze problems, we construct and we adhere to plans, and more than  anything else, we stress efficiency and short-term performance. Now, don't get  me wrong -- this is a splendidly practical and effective way of addressing  relatively simple challenges in relatively stable environments. It's the way that  Bob -- and probably many of us, myself included -- process most business  problems we're faced with every day. In fact, it was a pretty good mental model 

for business -- overall -- until about the mid-1980s, when the conjunction of  globalization and a revolution in technology and telecommunications made  business far more dynamic and unpredictable. But what about those more  

dynamic and unpredictable situations that we now increasingly face? I think in  addition to the mechanical thinking, we now need to master the art of biological  thinking, as embodied by our six principles. In other words, we need to think  more modestly and subtly about when and how we can shape, rather than  control, unpredictable and complex situations. It's a little like the difference  between throwing a ball and releasing a bird. The ball would head in a straight  line, probably towards the intended target, and the bird certainly would not. So  what do you think? Sounds a little impractical, a little theoretical, perhaps? Not  at all. Every small entrepreneurial company naturally thinks and acts biologically. Why? Because it lacks the resources to shape its environment through brute  force. It lacks the scale to buffer change, and it's constantly thinking about the  tough odds for a start-up to survive. Now, the irony is, of course, that every large company started off as a small, entrepreneurial company. But along the way  somewhere, many have lost this ability to think and act biologically. They need  to rejuvenate their ability to think biologically in order to survive and thrive in  today's environment. So let's not just think about short-term performance. Every  company I know spends plenty of time thinking about the central question of  strategy: How good is our competitive game? In addition, let's also consider  the second, more biological and equally important question: How long will that  game last? Thank you very much. 



最后修改: 2025年07月18日 星期五 13:53