For decades, businesses had the tendency to resist change. Heavyweight approval processes, change control boards, and so on, were put in place to ensure that only a selected few had the right to decide what changes should be made, if at all. The higher the predictability, the more reassured the leaders were that "everything is under control." There was a defined process for everything, compliance to processes was expected and rewarded, and those committing "deviations" were punished. Standardization, therefore, not only became the means to achieve predictability, but in many cases became the goal itself.

Standardization consequently leads to homogeneity, which is the opposite of diversity. However, biological species are known to become more vulnerable as they become more genetically homogenous. Nature has therefore put in a mechanism of sexual reproduction, which leads to the random matching of chromosome pairings. This results in more permutations and more variety in offspring.

According to William Hamilton, an evolutionary theorist from the University of Oxford, "enemies," that is, harmful germs, find it much harder to adapt to a population born through sexual reproduction, as opposed to one born via parthenogenesis.

In the context of an enterprise, people are chromosomes, the genetic material that creates variety and diversity. Therefore, a business must strive for diversity in its people (gender, ethnicity, education, and experience), and, more importantly, encourage diversity of thought. A company must also leverage the fresh perspectives that newly hired talent can provide.

Without internal variety and diversity, a business will find it very difficult to deal with the variety and diversity of today's external environment. Diversity also means having the right balance between process standardization and autonomy for the people closest to the environment to override processes, as needed, if that helps to deliver greater value.