Note to self: When people only know you as an individual,
organization, or business by what you “used to be,”
warning bells should go off.
● Fear staying the same — Fear can be a debilitating force,
but it can also be a catalyst to spur us forward and keep
us from becoming complacent. A healthy fear of becom-
ing irrelevant always exist within true leaders.
● Assess your current state — Honestly evaluate your rel-
evance within your scope of business. This will include
speaking with your employees, your customers, and
potential customers to determine the current identity
of your business within the community.
● Acknowledge your current position — We rarely invest
time and money into fixing a problem we don’t know
exist. If you glean f rom step 2 that you are becoming
irrelevant, bring together those who can do something
about it and make them aware. That could be as simple
as saying, “Team, I fear we are becoming irrelevant in
this market.” Or “I sense we are stuck in the past.” Get-
ting your teams buy in will be pivotal in the often chal-
lenging road back.
● Don’t go it alone — There are multiple routes out of
the mire of irrelevance, but by far the fastest and lon-
gest lasting is to make the journey as a team. Those with
whom you surround yourself will either encourage you
to change or seek to keep you as you are. It is important
to note that those who are personally stuck will rarely
help anyone else break free. Surround yourself with oth-
ers who desire to know more, do more, and be more.
Empower your people and allow them to challenge you.
Train them to be their best!
● Live it — The desire to be more alone will only frus-
trate you if it is not accompanied by action. I hap-
pened to catch the end of one of my favorite movies
recently. “Miracle” is the story of the 1980 US Hockey
Team. You will remember this team as the one that
once again made the US relevant in the world of
Hockey. Prior to the 1980 team beating Russia, it had
been 20 years since the United States stood on the gold
medal stand. Re-watching the movie was like reliving
the experience. But as good as the movie was, what
really caught my attention was the updates that ran at
the end of the movie. It shared one-by-one what hap-
pened in the lives of the players and coaches. If anyone
ever had the right to be tempted to live in the past,
it was the players that were part of what Sports Illus-
trated later deemed the greatest single sporting event
of the 20th century.
Toward the very end of the updates, they paid homage to
Herb Brooks, the coach who took a group of extremely
overmatched players and lead them to believe in the
impossible. Unfortunately, Herb Brooks died before the
airing of the movie. The credits noted Brook’s passing in
a way that should inspire all of us. It simply said, “Herb
Books died before the airing of the movie. He never saw
it… He Lived It!
That is what will be required to achieve and maintain
relevance. It is not enough to dream or even to know what
needs to be done. You have to live it… ❚
The fear of and/or resistance to change is undoubtedly the greatest
single cause of becoming irrelevant in your business and life.
Premier Flooring Retailer | Q3 2017
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