Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

by Seth Godin

The new American Dream, though, the one that markets around the world are embracing as fast as they can, is this: Be remarkable Be generous Create art Make judgment calls Connect people and ideas . . . and we have no choice but to reward you.

Branson’s real job is seeing new opportunities, making decisions that work, and understanding the connection between his audience, his brand, and his ventures.

The law of linchpin leverage: The more value you create in your job, the fewer clock minutes of labor you actually spend creating that value. In other words, most of the time, you’re not being brilliant. Most of the time, you do stuff that ordinary people could do.

And if you’ve got no choice but to move the bricks, your opportunity is to think hard about how you do even this mundane task, because almost any job can be humanized or transformed.

People who tell you that “I could paint a painting like that” are missing the point. The craft of the painting, the craft of writing that e-mail, the craft of building that PowerPoint presentation—those are the easy parts. It’s the art and the insight and the bravery of value creation that are rewarded.

Depth of knowledge combined with good judgment is worth a lot. Depth of knowledge combined with diagnostic skills or nuanced insight is worth a lot, too.

Rick Wagoner lost his job at GM because he told everyone what to do (and he was wrong). Far better to build a team that figures out what to do instead.

Expertise gives you enough insight to reinvent what everyone else assumes is the truth.

factors that motivated them to do their best at work. The top ten, ranked in order: 1. Challenge and responsibility 2. Flexibility 3. A stable work environment 4. Money 5. Professional development 6. Peer recognition 7. Stimulating colleagues and bosses 8. Exciting job content 9. Organizational culture 10. Location and community

This gulf creates tension. If you reserve your emotional labor for when you are off duty, but you work all the time, you are deprived of the joy you get when you do this labor. Now, you’re not giving gifts on duty, but you’re not off duty much at all. Spend eight or ten or twelve hours a day at work (not only in the office, but online or on the phone or in your dreams), and there’s not a lot of time left for the very human acts that make you who you are and who you want to be. So bring that gift to work.

Art, at least art as I define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person. How and where you do that art is a cultural choice in the moment.

You can’t ship if you’re far outside the box. Artists think along the edges of the box, because that’s where things get done. That’s where the audience is, that’s where the means of production are available, and that’s where you can make an impact.

There are two solutions to the coordination problem, and both of them make people uncomfortable, because both challenge our resistance. 1. Relentlessly limit the number of people allowed to thrash. That means you need formal procedures for excluding people, even well-meaning people with authority. And you need secrecy. If you have a choice between being surprised (and watching a great project ship on time) or being involved (and participating in the late launch of a mediocre project), which do you want? You must pick one or the other. 2. Appoint one person (a linchpin) to run it. Not to co-run it or to lead a task force or to be on the committee. One person, a human being, runs it. Her name on it. Her decisions.

So, what’s left is to make—to give—art. What’s left is the generosity and humanity worth paying for. What’s left is to take that resistance (the very same resistance we embraced and rewarded for decades) and destroy it.

We've Evolved into needing to go back to the beginnijng of being more artful and less efficient

It turns out that the three biological factors that drive job performance and innovation are social intelligence, fear response, and perception. Public speaking brings all three together.

If there is no sale, look for the fear. If a marketing meeting ends in a stalemate, look for the fear.

One antidote is to pursue multiple paths, generating different ways to win. This meeting or that proposal no longer means everything. If nothing is do-or-die, then you don’t have to worry so much about the dying part.

Don’t listen to the cynics. They’re cynics for a reason. For them, the resistance won a long time ago. When the resistance tells you not to listen to something, read something, or attend something, go. Do it. It’s not an accident that successful people read more books.

Check out this quote.

It’s interesting to say it out loud. “I’m doing this because of the resistance.” “My lizard brain is making me anxious.” “I’m angry right now because being angry is keeping me from doing my work.” When you say it out loud (not think it, but say it), the lizard brain retreats in shame.

A workaholic brings fear into the equation. She works all the time to be sure everything is all right, and she experiences resistance all the time. She satisfies the raging fear of her lizard brain by being at the job site all the time, just to be sure.

The workaholic isnt he same thing as a linchpin

The goal is to strip away anything that looks productive but doesn’t involve shipping.

Leo Babauta’s brilliant little book Zen Habits helps you think your way through this problem. His program is simple: Attempt to create only one significant work a year. Break that into smaller projects, and every day, find three tasks to accomplish that will help you complete a project. And do only that during your working hours.