No one was ever going to be ready for A.I., whenever it happened to show up. The fact that it arrived in a polished form that let students use it to write term papers and employees use it to generate reports only adds to our collective sense of cultural whiplash. The old refrain of “learn to code” was coined as an evergreen bulwark against menial jobs being supplanted by technology and automation. But in a cruel twist, it turned out that advanced A.I. systems are actually really good at writing code, and it is the coders who find themselves in the most immediate danger. (Well, them, and whoever was going to write Transformers 7.) While it’s true that no one’s job is safe in this rapidly shifting landscape, resisting the future is no strategy. Just ask the ice harvesters who, in the wake of the invention of the refrigerator, launched an ill-fated PR campaign to decry the use of “synthetic ice”.
At least one entrepreneur and businessman believes you need to wrap both arms around all advances in technology. Chef Robert Irvine, author of the business leadership book Overcoming Impossible, knows a thing or two about subject. In over 300 episodes of the hit show Restaurant: Impossible, Irvine helped struggling restaurateurs turn their lives and businesses around. He’s also the founder of several companies, including the ubiquitous FitCrunch, whose protein bars can be found in virtually any convenience store in the country.
Irvine shared these essential tips on how to future-proof your job by being indispensable to your boss. Though Irvine is bullish on embracing new technology, he’s also a firm believer that flesh-and-blood humans who exhibit the following behaviors are irreplaceable. Want to become irreplaceable? Read on…
Become Your Company’s ‘New Tech’ Guru
Irvine says he prefers to hire those who are “early adopters” meaning, people who are the first to explore every facet of the latest software and hardware. “Everyone needs to take a lesson from legacy media, which took an absolute pounding in the last two decades,” he says. “Newspapers, magazines, and TV news programs that either ignored the warning signs of the digital age or were too proud to prioritize an online audience over one that consumed media through traditional means were demolished. If you look at who survived or even thrived, the common denominator isn’t necessarily about quality; the ones who made it were the early adopters.”
In the food and beverage industry, Irvine says restaurants who resisted mobile ordering, online reservations, and tap payments were left behind while early adopters reaped all the cash that flowed through the new tech. Today, there are precious few restaurants that can afford to eschew these new customer habits. “The demographic with the most disposable income, they do everything through their phones, so if you’re not on DoorDash or Uber Eats, they’ll often just pick someone else that is.”
The universal lesson, Irvine stresses, is that employees who are able to embrace new technology on behalf of their companies are the employees that become future proof in the eyes of their bosses. “Those restaurants that were the first to jump on mobile ordering; that wasn’t necessarily the owner who was pushing for that. I know of several instances where the owner had his eyes elsewhere, but thanks to an early adopter who worked for him and got the company online, it opened up a whole new world of doing business. An employee who stays on top of the latest consumer trends? That person is irreplaceable.”
Filter News Through A Lens of How It Could Help Your Company
This sounds like crass opportunism, but Irvine says it’s nothing of the sort. “Like it or not, we are a global village now,” he says. “There’s very little that happens in a vacuum anymore. Bad weather in Indonesia hurts the pineapple harvest, and the next day a pina colada in a Manhattan bar is more expensive. This is one of the lessons of the pandemic—when supply chain issues rippled through every conceivable industry—and everyone ought to have learned by now; no one can opt out of our global interdependence. It is a fact of life.” Irvine’s advice is to voraciously read the news and think critically about how the industry you’re in—as well as adjacent industries—might be affected. “The employee who is always doing that is totally indispensable. Anyone can react once a problem hits, but the employee who helps steer the company away from the storm? That person will never get fired.”
Commit To Continuing Education
“More and more, I’m seeing a lot of people who are a jack-of-all-trades, master of none,” Irvine says. “There’s nothing wrong with this; when people start out in their careers, they often must contribute in a variety of ways. But to be valuable long-term, you’re going to need specific expertise. The only way to achieve that is through continuing education.” The good news: Irvine says education can take many forms. “I don’t expect employees to keep taking college-level courses at night. That’s wonderful if they have the drive to do that, but I’m thinking more in terms of building expertise through habitual learning. I want to hire people who will attend seminars, voraciously consume podcasts, and read books about their subject matter. A.I. can give me a summary of a book. I don’t want that. I want someone who knows the book, someone who has digested its lessons, someone whose worldview might have been shifted by it. The student for life is always an asset to the team.”
Be Present & Hands-On
Irvine says this point is, unequivocally, the most important rule. “In an age of remote work, I can’t stress enough how important it is to find every opportunity to be the in-person face of your department,” he says. “When colleagues and business partners know you only through e-mail or a tile on a Zoom call, you become something a little less than real, and if there’s one thing we’re all starved for as we drown in information, media, and technology, it is the human touch.”
Irvine says making pointed efforts to attend meetings in person whenever possible, and to make real face time (not FaceTime) with clients, is a serious value-add in a world that is doing less and less of it. “A lot of people will go to great lengths to avoid in-person meetings, especially members of this younger generation. Technology is great. I use video conferencing all the time, but it can never take the place of being in the same physical space as someone else. Not only is the quality of work improved when you’re physically present, but real bonds are formed that simply aren’t possible through a screen.” In short, it’s a whole lot easier to lay off someone you barely have to see face to face. Remember that the next time you say, “Eh, I’ll skip that meeting and just call in.”