MARRIED TO THE METHOD, Part 2
Staying married to the method can lead to divorce and obsolescence. A bleak outlook, isn’t it? What used to work is no longer fruitful and even has damaging consequences. People change. Culture shifts. Technologies enhance. Expectations expand. And by not adapting, our organizations and teams remain confined to past wins while we decline in the present and will be left behind in the future. While commitment to a method – whatever it might be – sounds admirable, the reality is that doing so is detrimental to future success. Therefore, we must embrace new methods of staying relevant and growing. Here are some case studies of failing this litmus test.
Blockbuster
Consider Blockbuster video. Thousands of retail stores across the United States filled with VHS tapes to rent and return in two to five days. Hundreds of choices per location. Millions of customers! A movie-watcher’s dream! Yet, the Blockbuster leadership did not read the tea leaves of the imminent digital age. In 2000, Reed Hastings, the founder of a fledgling company called Netflix, flew to Dallas to propose a partnership to Blockbuster CEO John Antioco and his team. They proposed that Netflix would run Blockbuster’s brand online and Antioco’s firm would promote Netflix in its stores. Hastings got laughed out of the room. With the genesis and rapid propagation of Netflix’s DVD videos chosen and mailed directly to homes, and the fact that Blockbuster chose to not invest in a digital platform at this crossroads, it went bankrupt in 2010, while Netflix is now a $28 billion dollar company. Netflix’s Hastings is widely hailed as a business genius and Blockbuster’s Antioco is considered a fool.
Kodak
Kodak is synonymous with the world of photography. Beginning in 1888, this company overwhelmingly crushed its competitors in sales for decades. It is rare that an organization can say that. In fact, Kodak became so dominant in photography that by 1976, 85% of all film cameras and 90% of all film sold in the US was Kodak. But after over 100 years of dominance, Kodak’s business crumbled, and it was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2012. They were innovators in the industry yet failed to change course at a key juncture – the digital age. Ironically, a Kodak engineer invented the first digital camera, but their executives were convinced that consumers were not interested in viewing their pictures on a screen. What a short-sided misjudgment! As a result, the once-great photography giant fell behind the times and succumbed to irrelevance and death.
Fortune 500
Comparing the 1955 Fortune 500 companies to the 2017 Fortune 500, there are only 60 companies that appear in both lists. Put another way, fewer than 12% of the Fortune 500 companies from 1955 were still on the list 62 years later, and 88% of the companies from 1955 have either gone bankrupt, merged with (or were acquired by) another firm, or they still exist but have fallen from the top Fortune 500 companies. A significant percentage of the companies on the list in 1955 are unrecognizable companies today. It’s reasonable to assume that when the Fortune 500 list is released in another 60 years, nearly all of today’s Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist as currently configured, having been replaced by new companies in emerging industries.
Furthermore, at the current rate of change, about half of today’s S&P 500 firms will be replaced over the next 10 years in this season of heightened volatility and progress across a range of industries, especially given the rapid integration of AI. The overarching truth: No one is safe if they don’t innovate or adapt.
As it relates to church leadership, consider the features of modern worship services that have been intentionally left behind by many churches: bulletins, pews, Sunday School classes, hymns, lack of diversity, senior pastor leading everything, and speaking “Christianese” – certain phrases that were confusing for the irreligious, to name a few. For churches to be places that adequately address the needs of today, they must adapt. Methods that once proved successful have become outdated and, sadly, many churches have sacrificed their relevance. The good news: leaders can climb out of the bunkers of yesteryear and learn to adapt. It requires, however, letting go of old methods and embracing new ones.