Book Review: Linchpin: Are You Indispensible

“Being slightly remarkable is a losing strategy” (ch. 9).

Stars: 4/5

What is a linchpin? How do you become a linchpin? What are some of the barriers to becoming a linchpin? Seth Godin, author to the entrepreneurial-spirited, corporate-working, self-enrichment crowd, answers these questions – and many more.

A linchpin is not someone who does the day-to-day drudgery; he or she offers much more. They add value by their ability to ‘make things happen’ even if there is no roadmap. A linchpin is able to connect with and influence others. Most importantly, a linchpin has the ability to overcome resistance, whether that resistance is exerted internally (by what Godin calls the ‘lizard brain’) and/or externally (closed-minded and uncooperative management).

A linchpin is also an artist. “Artists are people with genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done” (Ch. 1). It is not art if you followed a standard model, map, or rote procedure, that would mean that it has been done before; your art has to be ‘uniquely creative’.

The advent of the linchpin is a result of the evolution of the business model. We are no longer making widgets in a factory assembly line – which was something that could be quantified and used to track worker productivity. Today, progressive thinking is more valuable, indispensible. But for most of us, we still work as if our work is forecasted & tracked. To paraphrase Godin, our work has changed, but our psyches have not.

Read this book to help build your roadmap to becoming indispensible.


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