I'm not sure. I'm a big plant guy and when I think about how plants adapt to new environments it's all about growth. Movement to better soil, water, or light is achieved by growing to a new location and then abandoning the old stems/leaves/etc. A plant that can't grow is about to be toast - these often bloom in a last-ditch effort to continue their genes through new plants (that will have to grow) elsewhere. It's very hard, or even impossible, to maintain a static ecosystem. Plant parts age or get mechanically damaged - the only way to replace them is growing new ones.

It's obviously not a perfect analogy. But in complex natural systems stability without growth is rare.

In this metaphor growth would indeed be growth, and adaptation would be evolution.

And for the record: trees and plants mostly stop growing if you put them in a pot with limited space.

Growing is the external sign that the company is successfully adapting.

What?

Growth is new business, its evolving old ones. If you don't know whats going to work you try more than one thing. Growth is the measure of adaptation.