How to Build Systems like Nature
7 lessons for entrepreneurs and business operators
To build a great business, you need to build great systems. And who better to learn from than the master system builder — Mother Nature?
I’ve spent the last ten years studying Nature through my formal physics training and informal self-study (i.e. reading books). Despite sounding like an academic endeavor (with little practical significance), I’ve found many ways to apply what I’ve learned to my entrepreneurial ventures.
In this article, I’ll discuss 7 lessons from Nature that entrepreneurs can use to improve their businesses and beyond. Each lesson will be demonstrated via examples from Nature and business.
Lesson 1: Diversity
Monocultures amplify weaknesses and vulnerabilities
Diversity underlies the resilience of many systems from Nature. For example, Prairies supporting a vast array of species endure storms and droughts while remaining largely free from weeds and pests [1]. This starkly contrasts traditional farming monocultures, which demand substantial artificial aid via water, fertilizers, and pesticides [1].
The key point is that monocultures (i.e. everything is the same) amplify the vulnerabilities of the prominent species. For instance, corn rootworms can thrive in a cornfield (because that’s their food source). However, if corn is growing alongside dozens or even hundreds of other species, this greatly stifles the pests' ability to proliferate.
Of course, the power of diversity is not limited to ecosystems. We can (and often do) use it to improve our businesses.
I’ve leveraged diversification in content creation by posting on Medium and YouTube, which broadens the reach of my content while mitigating unpredictable quirks in the all-powerful “algorithm.”
Diversity, however, does not come without a cost. For instance, given my limited time, posting on two platforms means sharing less content on each channel. Balancing this tradeoff of diversity vs maximizing output is a bet one must make based on the details of the business context.
Lesson 2: Redundancy
Have two lungs in case one fails
The opposite of diversity is redundancy. The former means having many different things, while the latter means having many of the same things.
Putting aside, for now, how we can reconcile these opposite principles, redundancy is seen throughout Nature. Salient examples come from the human body, e.g., we have 2 lungs, 2 kidneys, 2 hands, etc. Thus, we can still survive if any of these subsystems are injured or lost.
Redundancy is also widespread in business. When I worked at a large enterprise, I was one of many data scientists on the team. This simple redundancy allowed the business to operate without issues if I got sick, took a vacation, or left the company (all 3 happened).
Of course, there is a clear downside to redundancy. Having multiple copies of something incurs resource costs without much (short-term) marginal benefit. It also precludes diversity, thus exposing us to the monoculture risks mentioned in Lesson 1. But what if we could get the best of these principles without the downside?
Lesson 3: Degeneracy
Diversity + Redundancy
While Lessons 1 and 2 are both powerful, they are (from a certain view) in conflict. The former says we should have many different elements, while the latter suggests multiple copies of the same element.
Degeneracy captures the best of both worlds. I first heard this idea from Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Antifragile, where he described it as “functional redundancy” [2].
In other words, degeneracy means having different system elements which serve the same function. For example, the nose and the mouth are different parts of the human body, but they can perform an identical function: breathing [2].
I like to think of this as the blend of diversity and redundancy because we have two different subsystems (i.e. diversity) performing the same function (i.e. redundancy).
With this richer description, the Lesson 1 example of posting content on Medium and YouTube could also be viewed as degeneracy since the channels have functional overlap, e.g., educating consumers, increasing audience size, and driving traffic to my consulting services.
Lesson 4: Recycle
The waste of one is the fuel of another [3]
Nothing is wasted in Nature. A tree dies and becomes the home of a woodpecker. Fungi sprout and break down the deadwood into nutrients. Then, the tree eventually collapses and decomposes into the soil, contributing to the conditions that allow new life to grow.
While our resource cycles are not nearly as efficient as Nature’s, waste nothing gives us a compelling North Star to strive toward.
One way I’ve strived to implement that in my consulting business is to have a place for all the leads I receive (even if they don’t align with my services). For instance, someone recently inquired about creating a custom AI course for their company. While this isn’t something I do, instead of burning the lead, I referred them to a colleague who offers exactly that service.
Another manifestation of this in my work is reusing content whenever possible. In other words, a blog becomes the outline for a slide deck, which turns into a YouTube video. Or a LinkedIn post becomes a TikTok script, which is reposted to Instagram and is the seed for a blog (that’s how this article came to be).
Lesson 5: Iteration
Iteration beats intelligence [4]
The secret to Nature’s wisdom lies in the evolutionary process. Things that work persist, and things that don’t perish. This simple selection process, over many iterations, turned a soup of molecules into the rich complexity of life we see today [5].
Ray Dalio summarized the power of iteration in his book Principles, in which he said, “Iteration beats intelligence.” [4]. An example of this was the army of PhDs required to keep up with the rapid pace of COVID-19 mutations.
Iteration is a widely adopted principle in business. This is illustrated by the Silicon Valley mantras of “move fast and break things” and “fail fast,” or the Toyota Production System, which is built on the principle of Kaizen (i.e., perpetual improvement) via iteration.
I personally use iteration in every facet of my business. A specific example is for content creation. I iterate on content ideas by posting them in different forms on different channels (e.g. I posted these lessons twice on LinkedIn before writing this article) to gather feedback and help organize my thoughts.
Lesson 6: Hierarchy
Systems span multiple scales
Atoms make up molecules, molecules make cells, cells make tissues, tissues form organs, organs form organisms, organisms create tribes, tribes create cities, cities underlie states, states combine into countries, and countries make up human civilization. We could continue scaling up this to our observable universe or drill further down the atom to elementary particles.
Needless to say, hierarchies are ubiquitous in both the natural world and the business world. What might not be so obvious, however, is why they are beneficial.
In her book Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows highlights one such benefit: hierarchy simplifies complexity [6]. This allows one to abstract away finer details that (for the most part) do not influence a larger system’s behavior.
For example, you don’t need to understand chemistry to understand human behavior. Similarly, a CEO doesn’t need to know each individual contributor to manage her firm successfully.
However, this also cuts the other way. Understanding chemistry doesn’t tell you much about human behavior, and knowing every single person in a company doesn’t shed much light on the firm’s long-term success.
This phenomenon is what scientists call emergence. Two famous lines capture the idea: “More is different.” and “More than the sum of its parts.” These highlight the importance of connections between subsystems, which underlies Geoffrey West’s conclusion that a company's growth is better predicted by the number of (quality) relationships between individuals and departments rather than headcount [7].
Lesson 7: Symmetry
Patterns, self-similarity, and fractals
A striking feature of Nature is its symmetry. The left side of a person looks like the right side. Today’s weather is similar to yesterday’s. Branches resemble the trees they fall from.
Symmetry's value is similar to that of hierarchy. It simplifies complexity by reducing the information needed to describe (and generate) a system.
A special case of symmetry is self-similarity, which describes a system that resembles itself across scales. Like a branch resembling the tree it falls from or the bronchioles in our lungs resembling our bronchi.
There is a stronger notion of self-similarity in which the system doesn’t merely resemble itself but is identical to itself regardless of scale. Systems with this property are called fractals.
While this might all sound beautiful and wondrous, how can we put these ideas into practice? One idea that I use most often comes (again) from Antifragile, where Taleb introduces the “Barbell Strategy” [2]. This is an approach to risk allocation where 80% of resources are placed on a safe bet while 20% are allocated to a risky one.
Where fractals come in is if you want to place 2 risky bets, you can further split the 20% allocation using the same Barbell Strategy [2]. In other words, 80% toward the safe bet, 16% toward (less) risky bet, and 4% toward the (more) risky bet. We can continue this pattern until the allocation becomes practically negligible. I use this approach when deciding what to write blogs about (e.g., data science articles — 80%, my entrepreneurship journey — 16%, this article — 4%).
Closing remarks
Nature has produced systems that have endured billions of years. These systems can serve as a source of wisdom and inspiration when developing new technologies, products, and businesses.
Here, I reviewed 7 lessons derived from nature that can be applied to business. Since the full depth of this endeavor cannot be captured in a single blog, I invite the reader to share their insights in the comments section 😁
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[1] Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine M. Benyus
[2] Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
[3] The Nature of Business: Redesigning for Resilience by Giles Hutchins
[4] Principles by Ray Dalio
[5] The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
[6] Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows
[7] Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies by Geoffrey West
