Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [20]
SOLVE INTERESTING PROBLEMS
"Interesting" is the key word. Answering questions like "When was the War of 1812?" is
a useless skill in an always-on Wikipedia world. It's far more useful to be able to answer
the kind of question for which using Google won't help. Questions like, "What should I
do next?"
School expects that our best students will graduate to become trained trigonometricians.
They'll be hired by people to compute the length of the hypotenuse of a certain right
triangle. What a waste. The only reason to learn trigonometry is because it is a
momentarily interesting question, one worth sorting out. But then we should move on,
relentlessly seeking out new problems, ones even more interesting than that one. The idea
of doing it by rote, of relentlessly driving the method home, is a total waste of time.
LEAD
Leading is a skill, not a gift. You're not born with it, you learn how. And schools can
teach leadership as easily as they figured out how to teach compliance. Schools can teach
us to be socially smart, to be open to connection, to understand the elements that build a
tribe. While schools provide outlets for natural-born leaders, they don't teach it. And
leadership is now worth far more than compliance is.
In Search of Great Teachers
Great teachers are precious. Lousy teachers cause damage that lasts forever.
We need to reorganize our schools to free the great teachers from tests and reports and
busywork, and to expel the lousy teachers. I know this sounds like a pipe dream, but why
should it be? When schools were organized to produce laborers, lousy teachers were
exactly what we needed. Now, lousy teachers are dangerous.
Don't blame the teachers. Blame the corporate system that is still training compliant
workers who test well.
BECOMING THE LINCHPIN
You Can't Get Far Without One
A linchpin is an unassuming piece of hardware, something you can buy for sixty-nine
cents at the local hardware store. It's not glamorous, but it's essential. It holds the wheel
onto the wagon, the thinger onto the widget.
Every successful organization has at least one linchpin; some have dozens or even
thousands. The linchpin is the essential element, the person who holds part of the
operation together. Without the linchpin, the thing falls apart.
Is there anyone in an organization who is absolutely irreplaceable? Probably not. But the
most essential people are so difficult to replace, so risky to lose, and so valuable that they
might as well be irreplaceable. Entire corporations are built around a linchpin, or more
likely, a scattering of them, essential individuals who are worth holding on to.
1. Your business needs more linchpins. It's scary to rely on a particular employee, but in a
postindustrial economy, you have no choice.
2. You are capable of becoming a linchpin. And if you do, you'll discover that it's worth
the effort.
The easiest linchpin examples to find are CEOs and entrepreneurs, because they're the
ones who get all the press. Steve Jobs at Apple or Jeff Bezos at Amazon or Ben Zander at
the Boston Philharmonic or Anne Jackson at flowerdust.net. We look at these leaders and
say, "Of course they're the linchpin. That organization wouldn't be the same without
them."
But what about that great guy down at the vegetable stand? You know, the one who
makes it worth a special trip past the (cheaper and more convenient) supermarket. If he
left, the place would go downhill and you'd stop going. All the rent, all the inventory, all
the investment--they're worthless if he leaves. As far as you, the customer, are concerned,
he's indispensable.
Have you ever purchased a car or consulting services or a house because the person you
worked with made a powerful connection with you? If so, then she was the linchpin in
the entire process. If she had been replaced by a cheaper, by-the-book automaton, you'd
have bought from someone else. Indispensable.
What about the way it makes you feel when you walk into an Anthropologie store, or
unwrap a piece of