Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [45]
thrashing. The creators didn't have the discipline to force all the thrashing to the
beginning. They fell victim to the resistance.
Coordination
Handshakes.
How many handshakes do you need to introduce three people? Only three. Ishita, meet
Susan. Susan, meet Clay. Clay, meet Ishita.
Four people need twice as many, six.
And five people? Ten.
Coordinating teams of people becomes exponentially more difficult as the group gets
larger. And for important projects in an organization with something to lose, the group
pushes to get larger. People with something at stake (and we all believe we have
something at stake) want to get involved in the really good projects, mostly because we're
afraid that everyone else will screw it up and we'll get blamed.
So projects stall as they thrash. Nine women can't have a baby in one month, no matter
how closely they coordinate their work.
The reason that start-ups almost always defeat large companies in the rush to market is
simple: start-ups have fewer people to coordinate, less thrashing, and more linchpins per
square foot. They can't afford anything else and they have less to lose.
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.
Get scared early, not late. Be brave early, not late. Thrash now, not later. It's too
expensive to thrash later.
The Resistance: Your Lizard Brain
The lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny.
The lizard brain only wants to eat and be safe.
The lizard brain will fight (to the death) if it has to, but would rather run away. It likes a
vendetta and has no trouble getting angry.
The lizard brain cares what everyone else thinks, because status in the tribe is essential to
its survival.
A squirrel runs around looking for nuts, hiding from foxes, listening for predators, and
watching for other squirrels. The squirrel does this because that's all it can do. All the
squirrel has is a lizard brain.
The only correct answer to "Why did the chicken cross the road?" is "Because its lizard
brain told it to." Wild animals are wild because the only brain they possess is a lizard
brain.
The lizard brain is not merely a concept. It's real, and it's living on the top of your spine,
fighting for your survival. But, of course, survival and success are not the same thing.
The lizard brain is the reason you're afraid, the reason you don't do all the art you can, the
reason you don't ship when you can. The lizard brain is the source of the resistance.
The Daemon and the Resistance
Your mind, the thing that drives you crazy and makes you special, has two distinct
sections, the daemon and the resistance.
The daemon is the source of great ideas, groundbreaking insights, generosity, love,
connection, and kindness.
The resistance spends all its time insulating the world from our daemon. The resistance
lives inside the lizard brain.
I first heard about the daemon when Elizabeth Gilbert talked about hers at TED (you can
watch the video at www.ted.org). Then I read the source of her talk: Lewis Hyde's take
on it in The Gift.
Daemon is a Greek term (the Romans called it a "genius"). The Greeks believed that the
daemon was a separate being inside each of us. The genius living inside of us would
struggle to express itself in art or writing or some other endeavor. When the genius felt
like showing