Purposive Drift

In a nutshell

Looking through the FT today, I found a quote in an article by Michael Skapinker (subscription only) talking about "The Living Company" by Arie de Geus that seemed to capture the essence of my notion of Purposive Drift:

"In his study of long-living companies, Mr de Geus found they had several common characteristics. One was that they were cohesive, with a strong sense of identity. The second was that they were sensitive to their environment. 'As wars, depressions, technologies and political changes surged and ebbed around them, they always seemed to excel at keeping their feelers out, tuned to whatever was going on.'"