Fitness Landscape
Business fitness landscapes can have single dominant peaks (where all competitors converge) or multiple peaks (where differentiation persists).
Yesterday's peak becomes tomorrow's death valley when the landscape shifts.
The adaptive landscape concept, introduced by Sewall Wright in 1932, visualizes fitness as a topographic map where horizontal axes represent trait values and the vertical axis represents fitness. Populations evolve by moving across this landscape, with selection pushing them toward higher elevations. Peaks represent optimal trait combinations; valleys represent maladaptive combinations.
Single-peak landscapes produce strong convergence - all populations climb toward the same optimum (e.g., streamlined bodies for fast swimming). Multi-peak landscapes produce limited convergence - populations may reach different peaks depending on starting position and historical contingencies (e.g., diverse anti-predator strategies). The number of peaks is determined by the interaction of constraints (physical laws, developmental limitations) and tradeoffs (improving one trait worsens another).
Business Application of Fitness Landscape
Business fitness landscapes can have single dominant peaks (where all competitors converge) or multiple peaks (where differentiation persists). Strong constraints and few tradeoffs create single-peak landscapes; weak constraints and many tradeoffs create multi-peak landscapes. Understanding whether your industry has one peak or many is essential for strategic positioning.
Discovery
Sewall Wright (1932)
Introduced the adaptive landscape metaphor that revolutionized understanding of how populations evolve toward fitness peaks
Fitness Landscape Appears in 3 Chapters
Single-peak landscapes drive convergence; multi-peak landscapes permit divergence. The number of peaks determines whether industries consolidate or diversify.
Landscape topology and convergence →The fitness landscape reshapes when environments change - yesterday's peak becomes tomorrow's valley, making continuous adaptation essential.
Dynamic fitness landscapes →Fitness is context-dependent: the large ground finch's beak is optimal in drought, liability in wet years. Best practices assume static peaks that don't exist.
Context-dependent fitness →