I personally think that the theory of evolution does successfully explain how life on earth developed from it beginnings to the natural world that we have now. However, I don’t know if it was actually Darwin who came up with the expression, ‘survival of the fittest’ or not but I don’t agree with that phraseology as I find it misleading. I think that evolution works on the principle of ‘extinction of the least fit’ or ‘extinction of the worst’ and I will illustrate why we don’t want to end up worst and why excelling in an activity ordinarily doesn’t make much difference with the following little thought exercise.

Imagine a group of five people walking through the woods. One of them can climb trees better than the others. One of them can swim better than the others. One of them can run better than the others. One of them can jump better than the others. One of them is fatter than the others. As they walk through the woods they stumble across a man-eating animal (take your pick of animal, it doesn’t matter except avoid choosing a bear, after all it’s undignified to run with a bear behind). This animal has quite a hunger and he chases after the five people. In their panic they all start running away together. Now the tree climber could stop and climb up any number of the trees in the vicinity but out of instinct the tree climber keeps on running. The swimmer could dive into the river that they run next too but out of instinct the swimmer keeps on running. The jumper could bound up and away using the rocky incline that they pass but out of instinct the jumper keeps on running. The runner keeps on sprinting way ahead of the others. The fat guy is slowest – he gets attacked and eaten. In this scenario all of those who survived had superior ability (or had better ‘fitness’ in terms of suitability and not in terms of general health) in one activity or another and their genes can survive when they reproduce. However when the animal chased them what caused each of them to survive was not ending up as the worst runner in the group rather than superior specialisation. Hence my personal conclusion that key evolutionary developments revolve around extinction of the worst rather than survival of the fittest. Use of the superlative ‘fittest’ brings to mind ‘the very best’ adaptation and thus can imply that a minority survive and I find this misleading because generally the majority survive dangerous situations. Only in highly extreme circumstances would the majority perish thus leaving a minority with superior abilities but such circumstances occur rarely rather than commonly when factors of chance rather than adaptability would determine the winners and losers.

Looking at it in the other direction then if the fittest survived then that would imply that only the best of any species survives. In human terms that would mean that a few egg head geniuses with superb bodies, tall, and with perfect hair and teeth would survive (that’s right a world populated only by Tony Robbins).

In my observation of life and of people I see very few people striving to achieve the status of ‘fittest’ because that just takes too much effort and organisms generally don’t spend a lot of effort on unnecessary actions. However, I know that most people don’t want to end up the last or worst in whatever situation they end up in. Jack Welch, former CEO of GE used this principle. He sacked the worst performing 10% of his managers each year. I don’t know how well he rewarded the top performing ‘fittest’ managers but for 100% of the managers not ending up the worst provided the spur to higher levels (or evolved) performance. I consider it a natural approach although I do recognise it as a tough approach. If you volunteer to join such an organisation and you know about this aspect then you take on responsibility for your own performance. Under this regimen (but not exclusively because of this factor) GE obtained remarkably good returns on investment for such a vast firm. Getting rid of the poorest performers improves the average performance.

Survival Is Not So Hard

If evolutionary biologists focus their studies around extinction, where things hang in the balance and small differences can have big impacts, they can end up giving the impression that life in the natural world remains highly precarious for all creatures. Personally, I doubt that. Many species don’t hang in the balance and can continue reproducing for millions of years with virtually no evolutionary development (such as the nautilus and lung fish). In view of the sustained competition and of the continuous evolution of advanced competitors how can one explain how very primitive species remain except to say that they did not end up the worst of the worst in their environment and that the abundance of opportunity on this planet allowed them to continue to thrive and survive?

I think that sloth represents the natural state for most large carnivorous animals most of the time. Gathering food requires so much effort and risks that avoidance of it proves natural until absolutely necessary. Generally speaking, as adults, only threats to survival and obligations of necessity (perceived or real) cause us to make strenuous efforts to get on and get ahead in life. Children have a different outlook because their early survival needs are often provided for by the parents and so they put much effort into playing, which develops necessary learning and skills for later survival.

Although these days in urban environments we face less chance of dying accidentally through lack of physical ability we still feel acutely the threat of extinction in terms of ending up, for example, the worst in class, at work, in social groups and so on. We have an inherent instinct that ending up the worst in any situation likely spells bad news for us and it affects our emotional well-being.

In this current age we feel threat from many quarters. We still feel that ancient phenomenon of peer pressure yet on top of that we find ever more people willing to undertake higher levels of personal effort in order to get ahead. Hence, we feel a need to get more qualifications to give ‘competitive advantage’ or that we have to work more hours at work because of higher standards of attendance given by colleagues. Many of us feel little desire to make the necessary effort to come out on top of our particular group but few of us willingly accept ending up at the bottom, whether real or perceived.

Even though we can sometimes cover-up for our deficiencies and will often ferociously protect a weak position in order to avoid ‘extinction’ the only true answer to removing the anguish of ending up the least fit and under threat of extinction comes from developing competence at whatever activity we end up involved in either out of choice or out of obligation.

No One Wants To End Up Last

If we recognise and accept this principle of extinction of the least fit then we can use it for our own benefit in everyday life. I personally find that I will not make much effort to become the ‘fittest’ in any given situation but that I will make a lot of effort not to end up the worst. If I end up the worst that shows that I have the least competence and ability and that will continuously make me feel uncomfortable. I will feel strongly that I might slow up the group, bring its performance down and prevent it from doing better. If that continues on a regular basis and I continually remain the worst performer then it might eventually lead to exclusion, i.e. extinction in the sense that I no longer exist in the functions and workings of that group. Whilst I get a nice feeling if I end up the best in any group situation it doesn’t have as much importance as not ending up the worst.

The acuteness of this feeling often depends upon the size and nature of the group and upon the general level of ability and competence within the group. In a large group with a broad range of ability and where I never come close to showing incompetence then I never experience the threat of extinction. That can lead to complacency and perhaps an erosion of ability through neglect. Since becoming the best of any large group usually requires great ability and effort it often seems too hard to make it worthwhile. Thus if I want to improve my overall performance within a large group (such as when an employee in a large company) I can use the threat of extinction of the least fit to artificially create strong drives to improve and excel out of perceived necessity.

If I do end up in a small group (such as in a sports team, classroom, hobby group etc) the instinct to develop competence and excel comes quite naturally. If I don’t develop the necessary competence and if I can see that it badly affects the performance and progress of everyone else then I will often drop out and move to a situation where I have adequate competence to exist within that group. Sometimes the group wants me to stay, in which case I ask for their help in developing competence. Sometimes the level of effort and commitment required to develop competence and stay in the group just proves too much for the level of desire and necessity that I have, i.e. the dedication and resources needed will likely cause a deterioration of capability in other areas of my life, which on balance I find unacceptable.

Spurring Better Performance

As a general principle I find the threat of extinction of the least fit very useful in continuously giving me a spur to keep developing, building competence and excelling when otherwise my comfortable circumstances would quite happily support inactive behaviour until true necessity forced me to get up and get on with things again. Through artificial stimulation I develop an overall excess of capability that makes my life easier and gives me much greater control and options for how to lead my life.

This principle may already be at work in your life, in which case, if you feel the threat then know that you must develop greater levels of competence or else move to a situation where your levels of competence prove adequate. If you find yourself in a situation where you don’t feel any threat but would like to perform better you might often find that you don’t follow through because the emotional drive proves insufficiently strong enough for you to make the effort on something that you perceive as difficult and unnecessary. Create that drive through artificially inducing necessity through perceived threat of extinction as the least fit. Please take care though not to take this to extremes so that you continuously feel under pressure in all areas of your life as that will make you feel overwhelmed and miserable. Keep up high levels of competence in other areas of your life to make it easy to support the often tricky requirements to develop competence in another area.

In my life I generally aim to make good initial designs for what I want to do so that I design in the motivating factors and design out the demotivating factors. However, sometimes I do have to kick-start myself and a focus on how not acting and not following through will threaten my existence in any particular field of endeavour usually gives me the spur to get up and get on with things again. I ask myself the question, “Do I want to end up extinct as the least fit on this?” to which I answer, “NO WAY!” and then get on with things. If I don’t get this clear answer then it means that I feel conflicted over the issue, which usually means that on balance I no longer perceive it as wholly beneficial to continue and that then requires some deeper thinking about weighing up potential benefits to effort applied.

Once you start looking for the effect of extinction of the least fit upon yourself, other people and other groups you will notice the powerful effect that it has. Understand it and use it to your advantage.