When your wife admires the qualities of another man and wishes you had them...you are replaceable,
When your client has become accustomed to you and can almost predict you...you are replaceable,
When your audience is chatting on facebook about the game as you rant on...you are replaceable,
When your boss wishes you could be as sharp as her friend's receptionist...you are replaceable,
It is only a matter of time, well, unless you recognize this fate... and do something right away!
One of the biggest and longest debates in Uganda is about Presidential term limits. Since 1986 @KagutaMuseveni has been the President of that nation. A very curious question has been on people's lips: Who can replace the man?
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| Should We stick by him or replace him? |
I think one of the biggest recipes of turmoil in organizations is when individuals do not accept the fact that they can be replaced. Yes, they do see that they can be replaced, yet they are scared. There is an easy way out of this, if you think it is a predicament: Acknowledge it, and do something about it! Certainly not externally, but something internally to add more value to yourself.
I host the Hour of Prayer on 104.1 Power FM in Uganda every weekday at 5:00 a.m East African Time. One of my listeners called in and was thanking me for the good job. She went as far as saying that she was wondering who would fill in the gap left by my predecessors. At the reign of my predecessors, she would not think of any other person. They were the real deal....of course until I showed up!
That got me to thinking about today's question. Am I replaceable? Is there someone out there who would do a much better job than what I am doing today?
Here is the thing: If I sit in comfort on my position and remain stale in dispensing my duties, I am a great disservice to the people. It is important that on a daily basis, I keep churning out much needed wowing value to my audience.
The same applies to any visionary out there. There is no doubt that each and everyone of us have an audience one way or another. Either in our professional life, family life, spiritual life or even in our business life...we all have our audiences.
I have discovered that if an audience sniffs out a better 'service provider', they will be much inclined to abandon my ship and move. That is a given. That is a human trait. The only thing that would hold them is loyalty.
Loyalty on the other hand is never a thread that runs on autopilot. Loyalty is always relevant. In other words, people will stay loyal as long as their loyalty is rewarded. That means that the loyalty is directly proportional to the frequency of relevance.
In a more practical language, let me say this: If I were to die today (God forbid), I am more than certain that there will be another Presenter to replace me. There is no doubt about that. In fact, I was never born a presenter, and from the time of the inception of the Program I host, there have been people doing what I am doing.
For the purpose of staying on the cutting edge of productivity and value addition to my audience, it is important that I note how replaceable I am today. It is important that I ask myself this question: If I am replaced today, what would my successor do better than myself?
In answering that question frequently, I do not need to worry about being replaced...and when I do get replaced (inevitably), there will be no replacing the legacy that I would have left behind. There will be no question about my Life Signature.
Truth be told: Nobody is indispensable...and the earlier we embraced that fact, the better.
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