Most of history is about people and organizations that successfully dominated their environment. Winners are winners within the context in which they compete.

Although we think of humans as a very adaptive species — and we are — we aren’t adapting because we like it; we're adapting in order to win. The process of adaptation is expensive and difficult. The best adaptation is one that only needs to be done once. Where, after you’ve won, you continue to stay on top. The most efficient adaptation results in successful domination.

This is possible because contexts have historically been relatively stable. Not that things didn’t change, only that the rate of change in contexts is far less than the rate at which actors within the context can act, change, adapt, and win.

This fact has been true for all of human history, but it’s about to change forever.

The world is now changing too fast. This change is being driven mostly by technology, with climate change providing the assist. It used to be that you could adapt in a burst and reach a winning position, then use your power to stay in power. That only works if the environment in which you have won continues to exist. The half-life of environments keeps getting shorter and will soon be less than the decision-making cycle of most actors.

The winners of the future will have one thing in common: the ability to sustain continuous adaptation. Soon it will be necessary to continuously increase an organization’s ability to adapt.

I don’t know what this looks like, but I suspect it’s radically different from the companies, governments, and other organizations that are today considered best in class.