Posted by Bob Poole on Wed, Jan 27, 2010
Are you a Linchpin? Are you indispensable? Why should you be? Can you be? "Linchpin: Are You Indispensable" is the newest book from Seth Godin.
Seth's begins by describing today's current work organization of that of a factory - with interchangeable workers. And, if you do your job just the way you are told - then you are very easy to replace. What's the alternative? Become "indispensable" instead. Become a Linchpin. One way you do that is to make your work your art because it fufills your life and not just becasue you're doing what you're told.
The truth is that employers don't want a bunch of people who only do what they are told. They want an artist that can "change everything and make dreams come true." They want indispensable people because then they will have an organization that is well on its way to extraordinary.
I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy and interviewing Seth yesterday. The interview is about 16 minutes long and you can listen to it by going here and using the embedded player. I will also post a transcribed copy to read below if you can't listen to the interview right now.
Bob Poole: Good morning. I’m with Seth Godin, and today we’re going to discuss his latest book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? Which, by the way, has just been released today, so this is a special day for you, Seth. Welcome!
Seth Godin: Well, thank you so much. It’s almost anti-climatic given how hard we’ve been working on this thing. So, I’m thrilled to have pressed the publish button, and things are working the way they’re supposed to.
BP: Great, I see it already climbing on Amazon over the last 24 hours so I’ll be following it to see when it hits number one.
So tell me, what is a Linchpin, and what is it according to you and the book?
SG: Well, in the old days, a linchpin was a tiny piece of hardware, very light in weight and low in cost that held the wheel onto the wagon. Without a linchpin the wheel would fall off. It’s the part you can’t live without.
And I use that as a talking point to get me started down this road of talking about how our economy has shifted from 150 or 200 years of industrial compliance in which a workers job is to feed the machine and keep the system running, to a new age which just dawned, a revolution, in which the employees we’re willing to pay, and the people we seek out, and the jobs that we care about, are done by people, not who follow a manual, and do what they’re told, but people who matter, who make a difference, who are linchpins, who we can’t live without.
BP: Fantastic! The thing that really struck me about the book when I was reading it, is that I felt a personal connection to you, there was something about it that was different from your other books. And in fact, I know in the introduction you wrote, “This time it’s personal.” Can you tell us what you meant when you wrote that?
SG: Well, I didn’t mean it was personal about me, I meant it was personal about you. All my other books have been about systems, about policies, about ways that you use tools to help an organization, a politician, a fundraising organization, a for-profit, go out into the world and spread an idea. In this book, I’m trying to say “Wait a minute. If the underlying intent isn’t what it needs to be, then it’s not going to get you anywhere.” The systems can only take us so far, and in fact, this book is the anti-system book. It says that individuals are the building blocks of everything we have, and we need to get back to the humanity of the individual.
BP: I notice the first half of the book seems to be a lot about the new world of work, and how we got where we are today, where so many people are unhappy with their jobs and their lives, and what was sold to many of us as the American Dream. My father, for example, spent his entire life working in the same steel mill, doing the same job. And, you know, I was raised to kind of believe that was what you were supposed to do, you went to work for one company and they took care of you.
So what was the dream, in your words, and why do you write that the people in America
are still waiting to do in every corporation.
SG: All of us were sold that dream. We were cajoled and pushed and brainwashed. There was a reason for it, and the reason is if you own a factory, whether it’s a steel mill or an insurance company or an airline, you need it to be filled with workers who do what they’re told. And the more people who want that job, the less you have to pay.
If there’s a line out the door, then you can mistreat and disrespect people, and pay them less because you can easily replace them. So, the school system was complicit in building out generations of people who follow these instructions. So, right now, there’s a lot of people blamelessly in pain because the system is falling apart but they’re still doing what they were told.
BP: So, then people want to change, and there are people out there, who want to make a change, but we don’t according to the book, and I hit page 101 and found the longest chapter maybe in any book ever written and it’s called “The Resistance,” and it’s all about the Resistance and something you call ‘the lizard brain,’ which causes us to confuse fear and anxiety, right?
SG: That’s right, Steve Pressfield came up with the term ‘the Resistance,’ and then I combined it with some brain science and the Triune Theory that talks about the lizard brain, the amygdale, the pre-historic brainstem that is now miswired, but is responsible for us surviving saber tooth tigers and dark, scary jungles. That what we evolved to do is to stay with the village, keep our head down and do what we were told, and not be out on our own. That being laughed at 10,000 years ago was a really bad idea, ‘cause it was the step before being expelled. Now, doing things that get you laughed at is what makes you safe and secure.
BP: Now, let’s say I’m a cubical dweller, or maybe I have my own office. Okay? I’m middle management, I’ve been with the same very large corporation for twenty years and with each passing week I realize I want to leave. I know I’m talented, I’m a linchpin already where I work, which I I’ve gotten where I am, but I’ve had enough of the corporate world. But at the same time, I’m afraid, I’m afraid to make the move. Why do you think that is?
SG: Well, I’m not pushing people to quit their jobs. I think if you want to quit your job that’s a fine thing to do. But I also think that in our economy and culture, there’s a lot to be said for being part of an organization, it gives you leverage.
What I’m saying is, if you have a choice between doing great work and maybe getting fired, or doing mediocre work and thinking that you’re safe, you’re better off taking the first choice. Because there were 20,000 auto workers in Detroit who thought they were safe and they all lost their jobs.
And there were 100 people at that small business down the road who thought they were playing it safe and they lost their jobs.
What you need to do, if you’re going to keep your job, is lean into it and use it as a platform: a platform for doing your art, for making your contribution. And it’s a great place, I mean, my first job taught me so much because, you know, there were 16 million dollars in venture money. Harvard
University kicked in at least half of it. I was surrounded by thirty or forty really smart people. And I was the third guy down on the totem pole. I wasn’t the senior management. No one worked for me, I had no direct reports.
What a great place to play and learn and make a commotion! Because I could launch a product, get into Lechmere, and Kmart, and Target, and if it failed I didn’t have to sell my house, somebody else had to worry about that.
So, that opportunity made a huge difference to me, and I think it’d make a difference to just about anyone. The irony is, the really good part, is that the people who are running the company, want you to do that! You’ve persuaded yourself that what they want you to do is nothing, and be boring, and sit still, but that’s not really what they want.
They want you to push them to have bigger market share and better connections and a bigger network. And you’ve just been silently blaming them when that’s not really the point.
BP: Yeah, I think you touched on that in, you wrote two secret memos, one of was for employees and one was for employers. I’m not gonna, you know, I’m not going to give up the story, but they were great. What do you think employers are going to do when they read linchpin. How do you think most of them will respond?
SG: Well, first I don’t mind if you give up the story. My goal is to spread the idea, and if it spreads without the book, that’s okay with me.
There’s two kinds of employers. The employers who don’t understand the magic of what they do are going to want everything to stay the same. They don’t want people who are indispensible. They want compliant, disposable workers. They’re not going to buy this book for all their employees. Don’t worry about it, it’s not going to happen. But I don’t think you should work there anyway, because those companies are doomed. You know, the Western Unions of the world, they’re still waiting for the telegraph to come back. That’s going to be a problem.
On the other hand, most companies, particularly smaller companies, are saying “You know what? There’s a lot of change in the world, I like running a small company, I’d rather survive and thrive by filling this place with people who will take responsibility and stand up for what they believe in, than I would to fill it with people who are waiting for me to tell them what to do.”
BP: You use the phrase, “Real artists ship.” What does that mean, and why is it important?
SG: Well, I stole it from Steve Jobs. And he uttered it in his unique way to a programmer who was begging for one more day, one more day, one more day to keep tweaking code.
What I’m trying to argue for is that if no one sees your work, if you don’t change people, then you’re not an artist. That painting in your attic, or writing interesting things down and not sharing them, or coding a website that doesn’t get used, that’s not art. That’s, you know, interesting, and it’s a hobby, but it’s not important, because it doesn’t matter. And, if you can’t ship your thing out the door, whatever your thing is, a blog post, or a direct mail letter, or customer service interaction, then you are failing.
BP: Your chapter on gifts, and the gift of art, meant a lot to me. It kind of validated some of my own beliefs. When you write about the gift of art, what do you mean?
SG: So, I was inspired by a book by Lewis Hyde, called The Gift, and what he argues, and I completely concur with, is that it’s not art if you got paid to do it.
Art is the bonus, it’s the extra, it’s the connection, it’s the change. That when Picasso paints a painting he might get paid for the canvas, but seeing it in a museum is free. The Beatles don’t get paid by you when you hear their song on the radio; the joy it gives you is free. The souvenir addition, the concrete instantiation of the item, that costs money. That’s how you can make money. But if you’re not prepared to give a gift, to connect to people, then you’re not going to be able to do art.
BP: I agree with you that something as what might sound as simple as being good with people is really an art. In fact, the linchpins that I know, that came to my mind as I was reading it, are all the very best at being good with people.
SG: Right, so you know you get on the airplane, you paid for the ticket to take you to Cleveland. You didn’t pay for the flight attendant to smile at you. You didn’t pay for the pilot to come out and comfort your granddaughter who’s crying. You didn’t pay for the baggage person to carry the bag out to your car for free and refuse a tip. But after you’re done with the flight, those are the only things you’re going to remember. That’s the bonus, the thing that makes one airline worth more than another. That’s the art of service.
BP: Fantastic. I want to go back to the Resistant, for just a second, too. It’s such an important concept. What do we do about the Resistance? Do we, you know, accept it? Ignore it? Chase it down and beat it to death? What’s the answer to dealing with the Resistance?
SG: The answer is, it needs a name. Right?
If you’re playing golf, and you don’t know about the thing called the hook and the thing called the slice, It’s going to be really hard to fix your game. But once you know the name of it, you’ve got a shot. Right? And that’s exactly what Steve Pressfield did by naming the Resistance.
So once you know it’s there, once you know that that voice in the back of your head that’s keeping you from shipping, the one that’s making you go to meetings, the one that’s having you water down your great idea to make sure that everyone likes it. That voice is a natural part of our evolution. It’s there, and we have to acknowledge it.
Now, there’s lots of things you can do about it. You can be the kind of person who fights it head on. You can be the kind of person who views it as a weathervane. That’s what I do. If the resistance is loud, I know I’m on the right track. I do exactly the opposite of whatever it says. So that means if there’s a guy down the hall who you’ve been meaning to have an honest heart to heart talk with, and the resistance says, “Well, maybe you should just postpone it until tomorrow; it’s not the right astrological moment” and stuff, that’s your signal to do that difficult thing. Go have that difficult conversation.
Other people learn to make it their friend. To say, “You know what, that’s part of who I am, it’s there, I’m used to it now.” There’s lots of different ways to get through it, but what I know is that every artist that I’ve ever spoken to, in every field, has told me the Resistance is present. And everyone deals with it in a different way.
BP: How ‘bout recognizing the lizard brain, the resistance… how do we know when it’s at work? He lives in our gut, is that…?
SG: The lizard is never going to tell you not to have that hot fudge sundae. The lizard is never going to tell you not to ream out that parking attendant who was two minutes late getting you your car. The lizard never speaks up when you’re about to do something selfish. That’s not its job, that’s a different part of your brain.
The lizard is the one that speaks up when, maybe just maybe, you’re about to get laughed at. And if that’s the situation you’re in, and you hear that voice in the back of your head, that’s worried about that speech you have to give, or that phone call you have to make, or that graphic that you’re about to post. That is what the lizard sounds like. And it won’t take you very long to figure out the tone of its voice.
BP: I think I’ve heard the lizard a few times.
SG: [Belly laughs]
BP: So, in reading your other books, and following your online posts, I feel like people always want you to provide a map. In fact, I’ve even seen criticisms that you don’t give people enough direction. But that’s the whole point of being indispensible, isn’t it?
SG: Well, you know, this is valuable because it’s scarce. Right? If everyone could do this, no one would pay extra for it.
So, if I could tell you how to do it, everyone would do it. I can’t tell you how to do it. No one can tell you how to do it. When you go to art school, Bob, they don’t teach you how to be Picasso, or Shepard Fairey, or Monet, or Manet, because they don’t know.
They can teach you how to paint. They can teach you how to do a still life that looks like a photograph. But they can’t teach you how to do the next thing. ‘Cause no one knows, except you. So, my job is to say, this is the opportunity, and in fact the obligation. But if you want the step-by-step “Twitter for Dummies, Blogging for Idiots” manual, I don’t write those. Sorry.
BP: Okay. You know, when I finished reading Linchpin, I realized that it really isn’t a business book, in my mind, but really a book about how to find your purpose in life, and it’s a book about living the life we all deserve. Would you agree with that? Was that your goal?
SG: Well, isn’t that all of our goals? I mean, we didn’t build the internet, as I said earlier, to someone, just so we could sit around wasting time watching Paris Hilton videos. And we didn’t spend all those years in school just so we could sit around at Aetna Insurance stamping insurance forms. There’s way more to do.
And as Baby Boomers get older and we look around and say “Is that it?” I guess my answer to us is, “No, it’s not.” What’s “it” is this idea of connection and change and transformation.
And I’m not sure I mind sounding a little bit like a New Age guru when I saw these things, because sometimes New Age gurus are right. And what we’re right about, if I am one, and I’d like to think I’m not, but if they’re right, it’s that this whole system we’ve built has a bigger purpose than yet another McMansion. And I think the purpose of it is to do work that we’re proud of.
BP: Well, the new American Dream, you describe it as, “Be remarkable, be generous, create art, make judgment calls, connect people and ideas, and, in the end, we have no choice but to reward you.” I think that’s a great summary to the book.
SG: I’ll settle for that.
BP: Is there anything else you’d like to add today?
SG: I want to add that the people who read what you write are really lucky. We’re fortunate that you wake up every day to do it, and I want to thank you for kicking in, and standing up, and doing work that matters.
BP: Well, thank you very much, Seth, I appreciate that. You have a wonderful day, and the best of luck with Linchpin. I’ll be following the action today, and all the Hoopla!
SG: Thanks so much, we’re working on it. See you later!
BP: See you later. Bye.
Posted by Megan Elizabeth Morris on Tue, Jan 26, 2010
I ended my day yesterday by chatting with Angela Lussier, who is so together and motivated that she almost scares me. She makes me think of CEOs cowering behind their minibars, because the
new work is getting so big, so fast. (I don't know why we haven't appropriated Doctorow's terminology yet, but I'm ready to start. What else could possibly better describe the small- and micro-business entrepreneurial movement we're experiencing?) With her on our side, we're really going places. So where are we going?
My mind goes in two directions when I try to project the answer to that question, because I am surrounded by two very different kinds of people. Some of us are
creator-operators, the kind of people who want to get our hands dirty and at the same time, be constantly generating new scenarios and opportunities to apply ourselves to. People who aren't all that interested in following someone else's plan. People who start from scratch a lot, because starting from scratch is so exciting.
And many of us
like to have a plan -- or at least have a hand in someone else's design. There's nothing wrong with the 9-to-5, as long as you love it, as long as you make it meaningful work. But those people are often left behind when the creator-operators produce materials to help their own. There are lots of
traditional business and employment handbooks that tell you how to be yesterday's Good Employee -- you know, the kind that is steadily becoming less and less valued in the society we're growing into. And there are now lots (and LOTS!) of new resources for creator-operators who are leaping into the unknown, drawing their own maps and leading tribes into new territories, without any organizational support but that which they make for themselves.
But there aren't a lot of resources for the employee who wants to set her own standard for the company she works for. Or for the job-seeker who doesn't want
just any job, who wants to do work for a business with a purpose that changes the paradigm, for a business with values that are aligned in just the right way. And if the creator-operator set is confused... and yesterday's Good Employees are confused... well, this inspired linchpin-employee-to-be is just about tearing her hair out.
I didn't have an answer for those people until the last few weeks, and one of the resources I discovered was
The Anti-Resume Revolution. I'm barely a third of the way through the book, and I can already see very clearly how it answers questions I didn't know the answers to before -- because I am so removed from the traditional workplace, I sometimes have trouble seeing any way to stay there, but still make a difference. From what I can see, Angela's got her system
down, and anyone looking for a way to be remarkable in their career search would be making an awfully good bet to pick up her book. Her ideas are truly fantastic.
The funny thing is, she (and a few other really excellent authors) have reminded me that even people who aren't "creator-operators" are
still creator-operators, in a way. Maybe their creation happens on a smaller scale, inside a particular system. But they still do the work. They have that spark. They make things happen, and they have meaning in their work.
And that can be you.
Is it?
Megan Elizabeth Morris (email)Ms. Morris is a professional catalyst and adventurer running a positive impact network called Ideaschema. Her title is "Magnificent Megan M.," a superhuman font of knowledge, skill, determination and resources. Ever exuding enzymes that cause others to surpass their potential, she is a master thinker, writer, designer, manager, ideastormer, marketer, inspirator, growth-inducer, connector, and Maker of Things to Happen. She is making change on her own terms. Want to join her?