Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? |
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| Title: | Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? |
| Author: | Seth Godin |
| Publisher: | Portfolio Hardcover |
| Type: | Book / Hardcover |
| Publication Date: | 26 January, 2010 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 1591843162 / 9781591843160 |
| List Price: | $25.95 |
| You Save: | $8.82 |
| Amazon Price: | $17.13 |
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This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $13.70.
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
"The only way to get what you're worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about."
In bestsellers such as Purple Cow and Tribes, Seth Godin taught readers how to make remarkable products and spread powerful ideas. But this book is different. It's about you - your choices, your future, and your potential to make a huge difference in whatever field you choose.
There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there's a third team, the linchpins. These people invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos. They figure out what to do when there's no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art.
Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they're indispensable. And in today's world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom.
Have you ever found a shortcut that others missed? Seen a new way to resolve a conflict? Made a connection with someone others couldn't reach? Even once? Then you have what it takes to become indispensable, by overcoming the resistance that holds people back. Linchpin will show you how to join the likes of...
*Keith Johnson, who scours flea markets across the country to fill Anthropologie stores with unique pieces.
*Marissa Mayer, who keeps Google focused on the things that really matter.
*Jason Zimdars, a graphic designer who got his dream job at 37signals without a résumé.
*David, who works at Dean and Deluca coffeeshop in New York. He sees every customer interaction as a chance to give a gift and is cherished in return.
As Godin writes, "Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must."
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Hugh MacLeod Reviews Linchpin
Hugh MacLeod is an artist, cartoonist, and Web 2.0 pundit whose blog, gapingvoid.com, has two million unique monthly visitors. His first book, Ignore Everybody, was an Amazon Top Ten Business Book of the Year and a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of Linchpin:
This is by far Seth’s most passionate book. He’s pulling fewer punches. He’s out for blood. He’s out to make a difference. And that glorious, heartfelt passion is obvious on every page, even if it is in Seth’s usual quiet, lucid, understated manner.
A linchpin, as Seth describes it, is somebody in an organization who is indispensable, who cannot be replaced—her role is just far too unique and valuable. And then he goes on to say, well, seriously folks, you need to be one of these people, you really do. To not be one is economic and career suicide.
No surprises there—that’s exactly what one would expect Seth to say. But here’s where it gets interesting.
In his best-known book, Purple Cow, Seth’s message was, “Everyone’s a marketer now.” In All Marketers Are Liars, his message was, “Everyone’s a storyteller now.” In Tribes, his message was, “Everyone’s a leader now.”
And from Linchpin?
"Everyone’s an artist now."
By Seth’s definition, an artist is not just some person who messes around with paint and brushes, an artist is somebody who does (and I LOVE this term) “emotional work.”
Work that you put your heart and soul into. Work that matters. Work that you gladly sacrifice all other alternatives for. As a working artist and cartoonist myself, I know exactly what he means. It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.
The only people who have a hope of becoming linchpins in any organization, who have any hope of changing anything for the better in real terms, are those who have the capacity to do “emotional work” at a high level—to be true artists at whatever they set their minds on doing. The guys who just plod around the office corridors, just turning up for their paycheck.... Well, those guys don’t have a prayer, poor things. The world is just too interesting and competitive now.
And Seth then challenges us, the readers, to become linchpins ourselves. To make the leap. To become artists. To do emotional work, whatever the sacrifice may be. It’s our choice, and it’s our burden. Seth won’t be there to catch us if we fall, but to become the people we need to be eventually, well, we probably wouldn’t want him to, anyway.
Congratulations, Seth. You have penned a real gem of a book here. Rock on.
--Hugh MacLeod
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Customer Reviews:
• Good Review Of Today's Work Environment
17 March, 2010
Helps you realize that every person is responsible for their actions. It is up to each of us to control our own destiny.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Wonderful Book That You Can Put To Use Today
17 March, 2010
This is a wonderful book for anyone navigating today's economic waters. Seth Godin expresses in readily accessible language why everyone's an entrepreneur today--and we should all think like artists. His concept of "The Resistance"--that inner voice, sometimes formless, omnipresent anxiety that distracts and holds ones back from one's best work--is memorable. It's also useful. His down-to-earth examples, many from his own life, resonate universally.
- Amazon Customer Review
• An Indispensable Book
17 March, 2010
I tend not to write in books. I usually take notes. My copy of Linchpin is underlined, highlighted, dogeared, has post-it notes sticking out the top and sides and the piece of paper that I use as a bookmark is covered on both sides with my sometimes undecipherable (except to me) handwriting.
I received this book as a gift from a friend.
And that is one of the messages that I got from the book: give gifts.
In work and in life: make art and give gifts.
I've read some but by no means all of Seth Godin's previous books. This book is by far the most passionate one that of his I have read.
But not only is it passionate, it is practical if you turn on your heart along with your brain. It took me a long time (relatively) to finish the book. I had to put it down time after time to ponder what the implications were for me in my daily life, both at home and at work. There are plenty of practical tips here.
I don't look at this book as being good for employee motivation. I see it as more for personal motivation.
Read it. Its good.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Enjoyable And Demanding Action Book
17 March, 2010
Very good book.
will work on every idea Godin's chalenges me :)
Good Job Seth
- Amazon Customer Review
• Yet Another Great Book By Seth Godin!
18 March, 2010
Yet another well-written, easy-to-read collection of Wisdom by Seth Godin! A great gift for yourself or loved one for any occasion, (like graduation, etc).
Its Value far exceeds its cost!
WELL worth it!
- Amazon Customer Review
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