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Biology and Strategy: Natural Strategy

Flora and fauna are, in some respects, the first home of strategy. Nature displays an enormous range of strategies that have been selected over time for fitness under different circumstances, long before humans walked the earth, let alone articulated the concept of strategy or competitive advantage. Biology illustrates the need for different strategic approaches under varying circumstances and provides a rich source of inspiration for understanding the range of possible approaches.

Consider the variety of strategies employed by plant species in a forest: some exploit a narrow or temporary niche, others enter into symbiotic or parasitic relationships with other species, and yet others dominate once the ecosystem of the forest has reached a steady state.

Nature’s repository of examples and analogies can help broaden our understanding of strategizing in diverse environments beyond the classical planning-oriented perspective. We drew inspiration for the strategy palette by considering this variety of natural strategies, and we explore biological analogies for each cell in the palette.

Acknowledgments and References

The Strategy Palette builds on the contributions of several authors in the fields of contingent strategy (choosing strategy according to a particular set of circumstances) and meta-strategy (strategies for choosing a strategy). The following references are especially recommended for those who want to deepen their understanding, and trace the evolution, of those ideas.

• Henderson, Bruce. “The Product Portfolio,” BCG Perspectives, 1970.
• Lochridge, Richard. “Strategy in the 1980s,” BCG Perspectives, 1981.
• Nadler, David A., and Michael L. Tushman. “Beyond the Charismatic Leader: Leadership and Organizational Change,” California Management Review, Winter 1990.
• Nadler, David A., and Michael L. Tushman. “Types of Organizational Change: From Incremental Improvement to Discontinuous Transformation,” in Discontinuous Change: Leading Organizational Transformation, edited by David A. Nadler et al., 15–34. Jossey-Bass, 1995.
• Abell, Derek F. “Competing Today While Preparing for Tomorrow,” MIT Sloan Management Review 40, no. 3 (1999): 73.
• Wiltbank, Robert, Nicholas Dew, Stuart Read, and Saras D. Sarasvathy. “What to Do Next? The Case for Non‐Predictive Strategy,” Strategic Management Journal 27, no. 10 (2006): 981-998.