Some of you may ask why particular religions, political movements and ideas, or philosophical doctrines are still alive, even though they have a very long history, but some of them died and perished in time. Why?

Of course, there are plenty of explanations of this case. If you are a communist, you would say: it’s because Marx was right. If you are a Christian, you would say: it’s because Gospels tell the truth. Every believer, no matter where they come from, would say: My doctrine’s alive, because it’s grounded in the truth. And because The Truth is eternal – my doctrine is eternal as well. But I’m not going to talk about the truth – I’m going to talk about efficiency.

My thesis is that the so called Agility is not a new idea. As a structurized, externalized approach, it’s quite new, but in its origin, it’s as old as the world. I once wrote an article entitled “Agile in the Mirror of Nature”, where I demonstrated that Agility is the language of nature and the evolution of the species is agile in general. Then, on this basis, I’d like to jump up to the human world, the universe of artefacts and culture. Let’s take a trip into the History of Humans, and try to find out why some of our works perished, but some, even though very old, are still alive, still growing and developing?

Let’s try to figure out why one succeeds and the other does not? Perhaps we can find the response in biology? Darwin’s theory of evolution explains how species arise and develop. The theory also explains why some species give way to others: some win the fight for survival, while others lose the battle.

Without going into details, I would like to introduce a parallel by an experimental thought. Now let’s imagine that organizations (and “organization” has the same etymology as “organism”), such as churches, political movements, or companies are treated as a species.

I will refer to Christianity as a superspecies whose strongest subspecies is the Catholic Church. Remember, I do not want to offend anyone – I just turn attention to certain formal convergences and similarities. Probably for many of you Catholicism is associated with the structure of the numb, the unreformable and the unchangeable. I will not convince you that this is a fake. If you are observant, you will notice that the early Christianity was very agile.

Origin of your confession. Not as simply as you believed?

As you know, Christianity grew from a Jewish sect, which quite arbitrarily chose from Judaism elements considered appropriate when tested on pagans. Missionary journeys of St. Paul were trade journeys in fact, aimed at gaining as many followers as possible. The obvious way to appeal to them had to be attractive on the one hand, and on the other hand, tailored to the expectations of the new fans. It had to be new to those who were seeking a new faith, but sufficiently grounded in what the new believers already knew. Apostles didn’t want the Gospel to be found by pagans as a completely incomprehensible bunch of nonsense.

Political evolution of revolutionists facial hair

Thus, the first Christians had to give up many things that had been important until then, at the same time creating new elements of their faith, simply borrowing and stealing them from pagans – their competitors. They stole the most attractive elements, like the best dates of holidays or the imagery of the human-god, and made them Christian. Today, everyone believes that Christian elements such as a virgin giving birth in a cave are something very Christian. Similarly, you think that Apple invented smartphones and tablets, right?

So, we can say that religions fight for survival as species – nicknamed as the ones that are best suited, they can stay on the track, creatively utilizing foreign elements for such purposes. But no priest will tell you this. Each priest will tell you that at the root of your creed lies the Truth. Which you have to believe. This Credo is indisputable. And although, as we see, functionally Christianity is agile and very fertile (now there are thousands of churches), all of them want to prove that they are strong as a rock, not weak like dust.

A religion, a political or business idea, like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment changes. And how to evolve? Keeping your eyes and mind open. Looking around and stealing solutions from your competitors and trying to overtake them at all costs. From the inner point of view, we have the main rule of evolutionism: to change and to adapt.

Immoral? Maybe so, but efficient. Note: I’m not talking about truth and ethics – every species (tigers, churches, companies) cares about ROI and KPI and they are over good and evil. Take a look at what both religions and companies want: to spread world-wide, to be necessary for mankind, and to last forever. Now take these elements and align them to the great, legendary organization. You don’t believe it? Just ask Pope and Bill Gates: they will agree, they wish they could turn the whole world into: a Catholic world, a Windows world, a Twitter world etc. Ever missionary you get wants to conquest the whole world. Fortunately, Stalin and Hitler failed.

Do you believe in prophesy of Jobs?

St. Paul, Muhammad, Luther, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Rupert Murdoch are not only managers or inventors – they are Prophets. Prophets do not manage directly, they define the mission, set long-term goals, and realize these goals with great belief. They pull crowds of followers who are ready to be engaged and involved, to fulfil the mission. Are the Prophets infallible? If you think so, you are a good material for a jihadist (or Apple evangelist).

You should look for opportunities to commit mistakes, creating new phenomena better responding to challenges in environment by faults, mistakes, and correction. Thanks to that, we make us and what we produce better fit to expectations. To stop is to die. Development – through errors – gives hope for eternity.

What of all this is clear:



be Agile like the Apostles;

be aware and learn from your competitors;

be Agile, but keep continuity – the strategy is long-range, the tactics are variable;

keep your goals beyond the direct future;

build as if the effect of your work was to last forever.

For more on the subject head out to ScrumDays 2015, where I’ll be expanding on the idea.

Photo credits: Flickr, Deviantart, The Economist, rantsandrage.com, Scrum Days.

Oryginally published here: http://bit.ly/1djDL3k