Linchpin_ Are You Indispensable_ - Seth Godin [85]
small businesses, door to door.
John was a veteran, recently back from Iraq. I was interested in his charisma and proud of
his service, so we chatted. The amount of emotional labor he put into his work was
obvious, and, fascinated that people were still selling things door to door, I asked him
about his day and his compensation. It turns out that 100 percent of his income was in
commissions, and the company didn't really give him leads. Even worse, the company
required him to use their business cards, their materials, and their script, at his expense.
Not a perfect job, and certainly someone with John's interpersonal skills could do better.
He was putting himself on the line, essentially acting as human spam, and getting paid a
pittance to do it.
I started to give him some ideas on how he could gather better leads, how he could be
more remarkable in his presentation, how he could turn a few casual customers into a
larger group of truly committed customers.
Then John surprised me. He explained that he didn't want to risk anything that might
work better, didn't want to leverage his time, didn't want to do anything except follow the
rules. If he worked long enough and hard enough, he assured me, the system would pay
off for him. He had gone from risking his life in the desert with IEDs to being afraid of a
new way of selling insurance.
This upset me. Of course John has a right to run his commission-based career any way he
wants to. It's his choice. But John has been brainwashed, sold hard on not becoming a
linchpin. His boss has given him a script, a set of rules, and has intimidated him into
leaving his art at home. As a result, he ends up as a follower, a cog, a quiet, replaceable
participant in the system.
The problem is that the system is ripping him off. He's not getting compensated fairly.
He's doing what he's told and it's not working. To deal with all the rejection and to have
that work be unrewarded isn't fair. He's 90 percent of the way to superstar status--all
that's missing is the desire to create forward motion, to stand out and not merely fit in.
Just because his boss demands that he act like human spam doesn't mean he has an
obligation to listen. In fact, he has an obligation to do just the opposite. To stand out, not
to fit in. To make connections, not to be an invisible cog. To do otherwise is a loss.
Someone like John shouldn't have to moonlight to pay the bills.
Who Sets Your Agenda?
Who is your boss? What is your work for? Whom are you trying to please?
If you are working only for the person you report to according to the org chart, you may
be sacrificing your future. Pleasing him may cause you to alienate customers, hide your
best work, fit in, and become merely a cog in the system. The system wants you to fit in,
but pleasing the system may not be your real work.
The typical big college in the United States today has a binge culture. The agenda is to
get by in class, party a lot, become popular, and drink when you can. It's not so difficult
to adopt this agenda, not so difficult to fit in. But where does it get you?
The typical nonprofit has embraced its status quo. If you embrace it, too, you'll get no
pushback. Your anxieties will be minimized and your fears will not be aroused. But what
will it lead to?
Your hard-charging boss wants to look good, and he's going to do this by cutting shortterm costs. You can help him by doing nothing all day, spending no money, and making
no noise. Then what happens?
If your agenda is set by someone else and it doesn't lead you where you want to go, why
is it your agenda?
The Candyland Decree
Author Steven Johnson hates the board game Candyland and all board games like it. I
hate them even more than he does.
"I realize that games of pure chance have a long history, but that doesn't make them any
less moronic," he writes. Here's how Candyland is played: You pick a card and do what it
says. Repeat.
This is early training in agenda following.