Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

by Seth Godin

But How!? How do I know what art to make? How do I know what gifts to give? This is the crux of it. Once you commit to being an artist, the question is an obvious one. The answer is the secret to your success. You must make a map. Not someone else. You.

You must become indispensable to thrive in the new economy. The best ways to do that are to be remarkable, insightful, an artist, someone bearing gifts. To lead. The worst way is to conform and become a cog in a giant system.

The key distinction is the ability to forge your own path, to discover a route from one place to another that hasn’t been paved, measured, and quantified. So many times we want someone to tell us exactly what to do, and so many times that’s exactly the wrong approach.

You can’t make a map unless you can see the world as it is. You have to know where you are and know where you’re going before you can figure out how to go about getting there. No one has a transparent view of the world. In fact, we all carry around a personal worldview—the biases and experiences and expectations that color the way we perceive the world.

So the manager and the investor seek out an employee with discernment, the ability to see things as they truly are. A Buddhist might call this prajna. A life without attachment and stress can give you the freedom to see things as they are and call them as you see them. If you had this skill, what an asset you would be to any organization.

Seeing clearly means being able to do a job interview as though you weren’t the interviewer or the applicant, but someone watching dispassionately from a third chair. Seeing clearly means that you’re smart enough to know when a project is doomed, or brave enough to persevere when your colleagues are fleeing for the hills. Abandoning your worldview in order to try on someone else’s is the first step in being able to see things as they are.

Equanimity is easy when we’re dealing with a random event. Stuff happens. We don’t get angry at birds chirping or even a thunderstorm occurring during a play.

We need to sit and seethe, as if that seething is magically sending horrible vibes to the offender and he will never do it again.

If you accept that human beings are difficult to change, and embrace (rather than curse) the uniqueness that everyone brings to the table, you’ll navigate the world with more bliss and effectiveness. And make better decisions, too.

Our inclination is to give fire a pass, because it’s not human. But human beings are similar, in that they’re not going to change any time soon either. And yet, many (most?) people in organizations handle their interactions as though they are in charge of teaching people a lesson.

The ability to see the world as it is begins with an understanding that perhaps it’s not your job to change what can’t be changed. Particularly if the act of working on that change harms you and your goals in the process.

The first sign of attachment is that you try to use telekinesis and mind control to remotely control what other people think of you and your work. We’ve all done this.

You will exhaust yourself in this effort, and it will never work. No one ever says, “I’m glad I spent hours turning this situation over and over in my mind last night, because it prepared me for today’s meeting.”

The second sign of attachment is how you handle bad news. If bad news changes your emotional state or what you think of yourself, then you’ll be attached to the outcome you receive. The alternative is to ask, “Isn’t that interesting?” Learn what you can learn; then move on.

Interactions in the real world often feel more complex than a pinball machine. We assign motivations and plots and vendettas where there are none.

When our responses turn into reactions and we set out to teach people a lesson, we lose. We lose because the act of teaching someone a lesson rarely succeeds at changing them, and always fails at making our day better, or our work more useful.

The Two Reasons Seeing the Future Is So Difficult Attachment to an outcome combined with the resistance and fear of change. That’s it. You have all the information that everyone else has. But if you are deliberately trying to create a future that feels safe, you will willfully ignore the future that is likely.

Why Don’t We Believe That Social Intelligence Makes a Difference? If you made a list of the top ten things you’d have a new employee practice, where on the list would you put “be comfortable with other people,” or “engage people in a way that makes them want to talk to you,” or even “be persuasive”?

Far more critical for the linchpin-in-training is figuring out how to project enthusiasm and get people to root for you. Dale Carnegie understood this, but the technocrats running your organization have forgotten it.

Linchpins do two things for the organization. They exert emotional labor and they make a map. Those contributions take many forms. Here is one way to think about the list of what makes you indispensable: 1. Providing a unique interface between members of the organization 2. Delivering unique creativity 3. Managing a situation or organization of great complexity 4. Leading customers 5. Inspiring staff 6. Providing deep domain knowledge 7. Possessing a unique talent

If your organization is a network (and it is), what holds that network together? Is it just the salary and each person’s fear of losing his job? If so, you’ve already lost.

In great organizations, there’s a sense of mission. The tribe is racking up accomplishments, going somewhere.

That means that if you are the person who provides the bridge between the outside world and the company, you are in a critical position.

In the moments between your being checked through security and arriving at her tiny office, she’ll have Googled you. She’ll be ready with not just a warm welcome and a smile, but with relevant information you can chat about. She’s looking forward to the engagement, it’s a chance to perform, to do some art. Certainly, the White House will function without Darienne Page. But by escalating the job above the manual, she changes it.

Three fairly simple words, very difficult to combine in a meaningful way. Let’s go backwards: Creativity is personal, original, unexpected, and useful.

That’s why linchpins are so valuable during times of great complexity (which is most of the time). Linchpins make their own maps, and thus allow the organization to navigate more quickly than it ever could if it had to wait for the paralyzed crowd to figure out what to do next.

As markets fragment and audiences spread, consumers are seeking connection more than ever. In short, we’re looking for people to follow, and for others to join us as we do.

The new model is interactive, fluid, and decentralized. That means that organizations need more than a tiny team.

In a factory, this isn’t really a problem. The owner controls the boss who controls the foreman who controls the worker. It’s a tightly linked chain, and things get done because there is cash to be made. Most modern organizations are now far more amorphous than this. Responsibility isn’t as clear, deliverables aren’t as measurable, and goals aren’t as cut and dried. So things slow down. The linchpin changes that. Understanding that your job is to make something happen changes what you do all day.

Earlier, I argued that having deep domain knowledge by itself is rarely sufficient to becoming indispensable. Combining that knowledge with smart decisions and generous contributions, though, changes things.

Mentoring is rarely about the facts of the deal (the facts are easily found), but instead is a transfer of emotion and confidence.

Some fancy marketers might call this a positioning statement or a unique selling proposition. Of course, it’s not that. It’s a superpower. When you meet someone, you need to have a superpower. If you don’t, you’re just another handshake. It’s not about touting yourself or coming on too strong. It’s about making the introduction meaningful.

“I’m pleasant and compliant” is the one we’ve been taught. Sorry, that’s good, but it’s not super.

“Of course there is,” some say. “I wasn’t born with X-ray vision or even a lot of charisma for that matter.” Awhile ago, I may have agreed with that—you needed talents and gifts to make a difference. But today there are so many ways to lead, so many things to do, so many opportunities to contribute that I don’t buy it anymore.

It’s not enough because in a very connected, very competitive marketplace, there are plenty of people with your pretty safe skill. The “super” part and the “power” part come not from something you’re born with but from something you choose to do and, more important, from something you choose to give.

Which means you have only two choices: 1. Develop the other attributes that make you a linchpin. 2. Get a lot better at your unique talent. It’s possible that no one ever pushed you to be brave enough to go this far out on a limb. Consider yourself pushed.