No One Is Indispensable Indefinitely

This has never been a genre I'd linger at the bookshelf. It's pure bias, I do confess. The man was persistent in getting me to read it. He insisted that it was good. I brushed him off with a "Your type of good. Not mine." Still he said it was so brilliant that I should read it. Seriously. Okay... Seth Godin's 'Linchpin : Are You Indispensable'.

Sure, Seth Godin is inspiring entrepreneur. He makes things happen and through his books, he tries to teach you to make your products remarkable and spread powerful ideas. But I'm not interested in being an entrepreneur. I've never wanted to create anything. I'm quite happy to participate, or be a consumer. Clearly, I'm not meant to appreciate any sort of marketing or even try to market anything. I'd fail so miserably.

Since this book touches on choice and linchpins as "essential building blocks of a great organization......who can walk into chaos and create order" (meaning...the mavericks), I'd have a browse. The book also talks about thinking of choices, of buying into a climate of fear within the rigid system or to chart one's own path and create value as one would. Sure. I want to know who on earth is indispensable to an organization in this day and age. With a great deal of skepticism, I flipped to the first page.

"You want your employees to be indispensable. // Really? After all, if they're the linchpins, you have to treat them better. Pay them fairly. You won't be able to quickly fire them for any reason, knowing how easy they will be to replace with all those folks lining up at the door. The linchpin represents a threat to the orderly execution of your agenda, because the linchpin is necessary. The linchpin has power! // No one is irreplaceable, of course, because over time, someone can be trained to fill the shoes of your linchpin employee. But right now, knowing you have to depend on someone is a scary feeling. Not only does he have power, but he might leave you hanging. This isn't what you were taught in school."

The writing is easy, as though one is carrying on a conversation with the author. But hey, this is his skill. It welcomes you into the book as though you'd soft step through the doors to a one-day conference on this topic. The structure presents the idea flow in a rather structured manner across the various ideas thrown up in the content. There're astute observations and good examples proffered. It's an easy...management textbook published in layman language with contemporary bells and whistles. A version that's easier to digest. It'd appeal to readers with a short-attention span and whose approach to management styles could be termed as the 'new-wave', and who require to have the information presented to them in such a bite-size format.

I accorded this book all of 30 minutes, and endured through certain chapters. The concepts aren't going to get drilled into this brain. I get it, but I don't geddit. I'm the wrong type of reader who refuses to understand the smashing revelations that the book may impart.