Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

What we want, what we need, what we must have are indispensable human beings. We need original thinkers, provocateurs, and people who care. We need marketers who can lead, salespeople able to risk making a human connection, passionate change makers willing to be shunned if it is necessary for them to make a point. Every organization needs a linchpin, the one person who can bring it together and make a difference. Some organizations haven't realized this yet, or haven't articulated it, but we need artists.
Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done.
That would be you.
Where Were You When the World Changed?

This is your opportunity. The indispensable employee brings humanity and connection and art to her organization. She is the key player, the one who's difficult to live without, the person you can build something around.
You reject whining about the economy and force yourself to acknowledge that the factory job is dead. Instead, you recognize the opportunity of becoming indispensable, highly sought after, and unique. If a Purple Cow is a product that's worth talking about, the indispensable employee--I call her a linchpin--is a person who's worth finding and keeping.

and cheaper. Or win by being faster, more remarkable, and more human

Those are the only two choices. Win by being more ordinary, more standard

The web has made kicking ass easier to achieve, and mediocrity harder to sustain. Mediocrity now howls in protest.

he web has made kicking ass easier to achieve, and mediocrity harder to sustain. Mediocrity now howls in protest

Now, if you're a linchpin, doing a job that's not getting done is essential.

When what you do is what you love, you're able to invest more effort and care and time. That means you're more likely to win, to gain share, to profit

These are internal choices, not external factors. How we respond to the opportunities and challenges of the outside world now determines how much the outside world values us.

linchpin has figured out that accepting the situation and improving it clearly beats the alternative