How to Become Irrelevant
In the last year have you rented a movie from Blockbuster? When was the last time you charged up your Blackberry? Updated your Myspace? These are all things that used to be wildly popular, but now we go through our day without even thinking about them.
MySpace, Blackberry, and Blockbuster are just a few examples of organizations that have fallen from influence to irrelevance. The scary part about this is, irrelevance doesn’t just happen to large organizations. It can happen to you and me, to our companies, non-profits, products… and the scariest part, it can happen without us even noticing it.
Before we dive into talking about how to become irrelevant, let’s look at what the word really means. Webster’s Dictionary has an eye-opening definition: irrelevance is a loss of influence. None of us want to lose influence with our family, co-workers, clients, or friends. However, it happens all too easily.
We need to consider that our daily choices impact whether we are becoming more influential or more irrelevant.
If you want to let the influence you have slip out of your hands, I have identified three points on how to become irrelevant:
- Focus on the Method.
A pathway to irrelevance is replacing the mission with the method. Let’s go back to Blackberry for a second. Instead of being focused on the mission of helping people use a device to connect quickly with the world, they focused in on the method of a physical keyboard. For a season, the full physical keyboard on a handheld device was revolutionary. However, the focus on the keyboard, instead of the why behind the keyboard, took Blackberry from world-domination to complete irrelevance. It is important that as you are leading teams, volunteers, your family and even yourself, that you elevate the why above the what or how. Use your why, which is your mission, to define your what and how. The mission should always be first. - Forget about the Future
Another pathway to irrelevance is becoming comfortable with what you know. Do you remember Kodak? The inventor of the digital camera and, at one time, the king of digital photography. Digital photography has become popular in recent years, so what happened to Kodak? They got stuck in the “Kodak Moment” and completely forgot about the future. It takes work to think about what’s coming. It’s much easier to ignore trends, fall behind on news outside of your own culture, and even be uninterested in the apps your kids are using. Be careful that you are not becoming efficient in something that is losing its effectiveness. - Believe it’s About You
The final road to irrelevance that we are going to talk about is ignoring wise counsel and believing it’s all about you. The fast-track to irrelevance would be to forget about getting feedback from peers and leaders and to also neglect seeking wisdom from your mentors. When we believe it’s all about us, we isolate ourselves. We make decisions on our own, without input from those whom we respect, and determine that we know what is best. This kind of isolation creates something called, confirmation bias. If you find yourself pulling data and stories to support your own ideas without the input and feedback of others, you are wrapped up in confirmation bias and it is the nail in the coffin on the journey to irrelevance.
We don’t wake up thinking about the slope from influence to irrelevance. We can assume that Blackberry and Kodak weren’t thinking about the slope either. We need to recognize what we are stewarding and of what we get to play a part. As I write these thoughts, they are just as much for me as they are for anyone reading them. I need the reminder to not go on auto-pilot, but rather lean in and not take anything for granted. We have to press into the work and awareness it takes to remain relevant.
Thank you for reading and I hope these thoughts help you in the same way that they are helping me. If you would like to hear the entire talk on how to become irrelevant, here is a link to the video:
