The propensity to become irrelevant and/or self-destruct, once it sets in, is almost impossible to stop. There is no amount of innovation, capital injection, meetings, or restructuring it seems, that will reverse this process of irrelevance or self-destruction. The good thing though, is that once irrelevance/self-destruction has well and truly started, it paves the way for innovation and a quick acceptance and uptake of new and bold ideas. This implies that only through a crisis created by becoming irrelevant or self-destructing, do we dare to adopt change. You could say that that the propensity to become irrelevant or self-destructive is a necessary and sufficient “evil” that enables us to embrace change or take up innovation.
It seems most systems follow this cycle of boom (relevance), stalemate (capital injection, restructuring etc) and decay (irrelevance/death). Think of Kodak and what happened to its business because of the adoption of digital technology. Look at GM Motors with all the massive capital injection from the US government, which did not leave the company unscathed. Think of slavery, that the British government stopped and within a year of stopping it, paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. You almost have to wonder whether Microsoft’ s time is up (as in loosing relevance) as the competition from Google becomes fiercer with every new product Google puts on the market. What about the infrastructural change we face today to Clean Energy that will see a lot of businesses, educational systems, and political ideologies become irrelevant.
I guess the million-dollar question is that, is there any way a business or government can stay relevant forever? I do not know, although one thing is evident, our history is littered with examples that seem to suggest that we cannot. Let’s us say we cannot … why then can’t we put management systems and protocols in place that will enable us to transition better from becoming irrelevant to becoming relevant. That is, rather than fighting to keep more of the same that is showing signs of decay, allow the boom-stalemate-decay phenomena to follow its natural course and concentrate resources on building or preparing for the “new”. This would save us from painful restructuring and capital injection, which is only indicative of our yearning of the past that was once relevant. As many of us know, we perceive change as something that will cost us our jobs and livelihood and sometimes it is like that, but more importantly it holds the key to our continued survival and allows us to embrace a future that we are not frightened of.
Now think of Climate Change mitigation in this context … We are reaching a critical situation and its not surprising that many businesses and/or governments are injecting massive capital for more of the same that is starting to show decay. Wake up world, it’s that time again to transition into the “new”!
