The Speed of Your Irrelevancy

Remember the pencil?

The first lead pencil surfaced around 1564, well before the First Industrial Revolution began in 1765. For centuries, the pencil was a fundamental everyday tool. Architects used it to build cities on paper; accountants used it to track debits and credits; children used it to write their first numbers and letters. But in 2018 The Guardian wrote that “children are not coming into school with the hand strength and dexterity they had 10 years ago.” The reason: “excessive use of technology.” The iPad and the iPhone have replaced the pencil and the crayon. If they don’t learn to hold a pencil when they are children, what are the chances they’ll learn when they are adults? So the pencil, a tool that survived three industrial revolutions, a tool that was relevant for 455 years, a tool that weathered the storm of the typewriter and the keyboard, has lost its relevancy. The speed of its irrelevancy: 9 years.

The speed at which technology is changing our lives is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. It leaves us asking existential questions: will I still be relevant in the digital world that awaits? How long before I become irrelevant? And what can I do about it?

In late 2018 the World Economic Forum published “The Future of Jobs Report 2018,” focusing on the potential economic disruption that may result from emerging technologies. Here’s the gist: the landscape of work is being transformed by technology, thrusting us further into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This new era marries the digital world with the physical and differs from the industrial revolutions that preceded it in a critical way – velocity.

Worker relevancy in an uncharted digital world is hard to predict. In prior industrial revolutions, jobs gained by technological advances outnumbered jobs lost. But the rate of change today is exponentially greater than ever before. Will professions, companies and products that survived through prior industrial revolutions outlast the Fourth?

Companies with relevancy at their fingertips have often failed to grasp it

Eastman Kodak began operations in 1888, shortly after the start of the Second Industrial Revolution. In the 1960s and 70s Kodak’s instant photography spread widely, helping people capture memories they dubbed “Kodak Moments,” and print them on paper to keep and to share.

In 1975 a Kodak engineer named Steve Sasson invented the world’s first portable digital camera, but Kodak chose not to release this new technology. In 2001, before Mark Zuckerberg wrote a single line of Facebook code, Kodak acquired a photo-sharing site called Ofoto. Kodak was so close, so well-positioned to be first movers in a digital world where social media has flourished. But they stuck to their business model: paper.

Facebook launched in 2004, and in early 2007 the first iPhone was born. Every iPhone customer got a camera to capture those memories, and they had Facebook’s platform to share them with a touch. Unsurprisingly, shares of Kodak cratered. Before declaring bankruptcy in 2012, Kodak had been around for 124 years. The speed of Kodak’s irrelevancy: five years.

Another well-known example is Blockbuster. An apocryphal story tells us that Reed Hastings walked into a Blockbuster Video store in 1997 to rent Apollo 13, and six weeks and $40 in late fees later the idea for Netflix was born. Whatever the truth about its origin, when Netflix’s business model began to take hold in the early 2000s, they offered to sell to Blockbuster for $50 million. But Blockbuster declined, convinced their business model would maintain its power.

Today, Netflix has a market value of over $160 billion. Although Blockbuster had the first website, was the first to rent movies on its site, and streamed movies before Netflix, they filed for bankruptcy in 2010. The speed of Blockbuster’s irrelevancy: six years.

Defining the speed of irrelevancy

The Speed of Irrelevancy, or SOI, is how long it takes an incumbent to lose relevancy in the face of a new entrant, technology or business model. To calculate, take the date of bankruptcy or dramatic, continuous decline in a company’s annual revenue growth (10% or more for three consecutive years), and subtract the date a new player began to take substantial market share.

5 ways to protect yourself from irrelevancy

The question of irrelevancy is not a matter of if, but when. Workers today are faced with the same threat that Kodak and Blockbuster faced: new entrants with new capabilities (whether human or technology) will render you irrelevant if you let them. But we can change our professional fate. I recommend the following steps.

1. Adopt the proper mindset

Stanford Professor Carol Dweck identified two dominant mindsets that help determine people’s success. Those with a “fixed mindset” view talent and knowledge as innate gifts – you’ve got it, or you don’t. They feel threatened by the success of others, avoid criticism, and shy away from change and challenges. In contrast, those with a “growth mindset” believe that their learning potential has no limits. They embrace change and feedback, thrive when challenged, and are inspired by the success of others. They see change as an opportunity to grow and succeed. A growth mindset focused on gaining and maintaining relevancy; an entrepreneurial mindset, where your ideas can be monetized; or an augmentation mindset, finding ways to work alongside technology instead of against it, are three ways to protect yourself against irrelevancy.

2. Learn to learn

Openness to expanding self-knowledge is key. In the Future of Jobs Report, the term “upskilling” (learning or teaching workers new skills) appears more than dozen times. Our relevancy is built upon what we know today, but more importantly what we will know tomorrow. Acquiring or furthering skills in the following areas will prolong worker relevancy: automation, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, blockchain, cybersecurity, digital trade, machine learning and quantum computing. Knowing a foundational software language like Python or Javascript would complement these skills. Eric Ries, author of the start-up bible The Lean Start-Up, says “The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.”

3. Find a place that aligns with your purpose

CEOs worldwide have begun to talk about corporate purpose that goes beyond shareholder value. In some cases, they have adopted values-driven missions, identifying change they want to see in the world as a goal that complements their profit targets. If you’re a little jaded you might see this as another clever marketing scheme, but Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, believes it’s more than that. “Purpose is not the sole pursuit of profits but the animating force for achieving them,” he says. “Profits are in no way inconsistent with purpose – in fact, profits and purpose are inextricably linked.” Research shows that finding work meaningful keeps employees satisfied. If you are driven by the need to make your world better, finding a cultural fit in your workplace goes a long way to inspire you to fend off irrelevancy, and really contribute to that future.

4. Succeed at failing

Somewhere along your journey to remain relevant, you will fail. This is normal. View it as a temporary setback, an opportunity to learn from mistakes, a chance to pivot and take another approach. Children are taught that failure is always bad. In school if you get a failing grade you may get punished by your parents; in sports if you lose a game you may be screamed at by your coach. But adversity is a path, sometimes a necessary one, to future success. Failure, as unnatural as it may sound or feel, is a part of success. Finding ways to fail fast-but-smart is key. As IDEO partner Tom Kelley said, “Fail often so you can succeed sooner.”

5. Be Agile

Many of the world’s largest tech and software companies, such as Google and Microsoft, leverage a project management methodology known as Agile. Within Agile there are many different frameworks, but they all have the same goal: drive the highest amount of business value to the customer in the shortest amount of time. In Scrum, one of the most popular frameworks, projects are broken down into sprints, iterative bursts of creativity and collaboration that range from one to four weeks; large projects that can’t be completed in a sprint or two are known as epics. Looking through an Agile lens, your life is an epic. Plan the project, chart the steps to your future self, and execute your plan in sprints. Being nimble and making tweaks along the way is part of the journey.

Coming to terms with an ever-changing world is not easy. It’s hard to accept the need to evolve to remain relevant. But with the proper mindset to view change as an opportunity rather than a threat, you can use these tips to position yourself to succeed in the digital world that awaits.