Optimized to the limit? Learning from forests to regenerate our business models
You’ve rationalized everything: every resource exploited, every process sharpened, every cost squeezed. But you may have missed the main point—what makes a system alive. A forest doesn’t chase maximum efficiency; it prioritizes rich connections, functional diversity, and the capacity to endure.
A forest isn’t a scenery to protect. It’s a living, complex, multi-temporal system—a master of resilience. Jacques Tassin invites us to change our perspective and rethink companies like forests: living, slow, diverse, rooted, and regenerative. The forest doesn’t need us—we need it. What if that were the future? Shift from a mechanical model to a forest model, from performance to cohabitation. From extraction to regeneration.
1. Leave monoculture behind: move beyond one size fits all models
1.1 Diversity: the real strengh of forests
Forests don’t do uniformity. They never rely on a single tree. Their strength comes from the coexistence of thousands of species, each with its own pace, function, and vulnerability. This diversity isn’t decorative—it’s structural. It helps adaptat to crises, share resources, and foster resilience to shocks.
Belief #1: drop the obsession with a single model. Tomorrow’s economy will be adaptive—or it won’t exist. Value plural, situated, evolving models.
For decades, we’ve worshipped business-model cloning: find “the right model,” scale it hard, optimize it endlessly… Like monoculture—profitable in the short term, vulnerable in the long term. Standardized, global one-size-fits-all models prove fragile as soon as one variable shifts. Living systems don’t run on benchmarks—they run on complementarities.
Belief #2: replace obsession with “scalable” with a connection-driven mindset. Diversify your sources of value creation. Get perspectives, cultures, and functions to meet. Encourage hybridization over duplication. Your robustness will come not from repeating a perfect model, but from multiplying productive connections.
She spent 12 years in industry, working for Bolloré Technologies, among others. She co-founded Business Digest in 1992 and has been running the company since 1998. And she took the Internet plunge in 1996, even before coming on board as part of the BD team.
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