The Natural Selection Audit
A comprehensive 7-step framework for identifying which variants in your organization are under selection pressure, which are thriving, and which should die.
A comprehensive 7-step framework for identifying which variants in your organization are under selection pressure, which are thriving, and which should die. Most organizations talk about strategy as if they're designing a product. Natural selection reveals a different approach: create variation, expose it to selection pressure, detect what survives, replicate success.
When to Use The Natural Selection Audit
Use when you need to assess organizational fitness, make portfolio decisions about products/strategies/teams, respond to changing market conditions, or determine whether to invest in, adapt, or kill specific organizational variants. Especially valuable during times of market disruption, competitive pressure shifts, or strategic planning.
How to Apply
Map Your Variation
List the different approaches, strategies, products, or teams operating in your organization. You're looking for differences that matter - not cosmetic branding, but structural variation in how they operate, what they optimize for, and what environment they're designed to serve.
Questions to Ask
- What products/services target different customer segments?
- What teams use different processes or methodologies?
- What strategies rely on different assumptions about the future?
- What revenue models exist (subscription, transaction, ads, usage)?
- What geographic markets have localized adaptations?
Outputs
- Variation map
- For each variant: what it optimizes for, what environment it assumes, what selection pressure it faces
Identify Selection Pressure
For each variant you mapped, identify the environmental constraints determining survival. Selection pressure comes in two forms: gradual (Red Queen race) and punctuated (landscape flips). Document what pressure each variant faces and whether it's intensifying.
Questions to Ask
- Customer selection: Which customer segments are growing/shrinking?
- Competitive selection: Which competitors are gaining share and why?
- Economic selection: How are margins, costs, or willingness-to-pay changing?
- Regulatory selection: What rules are changing that constrain operation?
- Technology selection: What new capabilities are customers expecting?
Outputs
- Selection pressure diagnosis per variant
- Pressure type (gradual vs. punctuated)
- Timeline until forced adaptation or death
Measure Differential Survival
Natural selection requires that some variants survive better than others. If all your products, teams, or strategies produce identical outcomes, selection isn't happening. Create a fitness scorecard measuring which variants are thriving vs. struggling.
Questions to Ask
- Revenue growth rate vs. market/competitors?
- Customer retention (cohort-based)?
- Competitive win rate?
- Team retention?
- Usage growth?
Outputs
- Fitness scorecard
- 1-10 scores per variant
- Trend indicators (↑ ↓ →)
- Action recommendations (invest/replicate, adapt/kill, monitor)
Determine r vs. K Strategy for Each Variant
Not all variants should use the same reproductive strategy. Stable environments reward K-selection (invest heavily, move slowly, protect quality). Unstable environments reward r-selection (iterate fast, fail often, bet on volume). Match strategy to environment stability.
Questions to Ask
- Are customer needs predictable or rapidly shifting?
- Is competition from few entrenched players or many new entrants?
- Is technology mature or emerging with frequent breakthroughs?
- Is regulation stable or changing/ambiguous?
- Are economics steady growth or volatile with margin compression?
Outputs
- r/K classification per variant
- Strategy alignment assessment
- Recommended adjustments
Design Variation-Creation Mechanisms
If Step 1 revealed insufficient variation, you need deliberate mechanisms to create it. Natural selection can't happen without variation. Use all five biological mechanisms: internal experimentation, acquisition (sexual reproduction), horizontal gene transfer, phenotypic plasticity, and spin-outs/skunkworks.
Questions to Ask
- What internal experiments are running?
- What acquisitions would add new DNA?
- What competitors or adjacent industries have practices to copy?
- What regional or customer adaptations of core offerings exist?
- What radical innovations need protection from corporate antibodies?
Outputs
- Variation roadmap
- Mechanism assignments per quarter
- Expected outputs
Build Cheater Detection for Internal Selection
Ensure low-fitness variants don't persist by gaming metrics. Create accountability mechanisms that tie resources to actual fitness outcomes, not activity or political capital.
Questions to Ask
- Are teams hitting OKRs but not improving actual outcomes (metric gaming)?
- Are targets set low to guarantee 'success' (sandbagging)?
- Is failure attributed to external factors without counterfactuals (blame externalization)?
- Are outputs celebrated without outcomes (success theater)?
- Are budgets defended for low-fitness initiatives (resource hoarding)?
Outputs
- Cheater detection audit
- Accountability mechanisms
- Quarterly fitness review process
Monitor for Punctuated Equilibrium
Most selection pressure is gradual, but punctuated pressure (COVID, Suez Canal, Great Oxygenation Event) demands different responses. Set up early warning systems for landscape flips and have response plans ready.
Questions to Ask
- Regulatory: Any rules that would invalidate current business model?
- Technology: Any breakthroughs that 10x competitor capability?
- Economic: Any macro changes altering willingness-to-pay by >20%?
- Competitive: Any competitor gaining >5% share in <12 months?
- Customer: Any behavior changes affecting >30% of customer base?
Outputs
- Punctuated pressure early warning system
- Response plan
- Dormant variation inventory ready for activation