Linchpin notes

By Seth Godin.

Wow. I mean wow. I've marked almost the entire book. And it's a library book, too. Well, it's in pencil.

• If you're not indispensable (yet) it's because you haven't made that choice.
• We have gone from two teams (management and labor) to a third team, the linchpins. 
• No map: If you have a job where someone tells you what to do next, you've just given up the chance to create value. 
• Stop asking what's in it for you and start giving gifts that change people.
• Learn the new rules.
• You weren't born to be a cog in the giant industrial machine. You were trained to become a cog.
• Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done. 
• There are no longer any great jobs where someone else tells you precisely what to do. 
• Here's the law: Any project, if broken down into sufficiently small, predictable parts, can be accomplished for awfully close to free. 
• First you have interchangeable parts, then you have interchangeable workers. [actually workers are parts/cogs]
• If we can measure it, we can do it faster. If we can put it in a manual, we can outsource it. If we can outsource it, we can get it cheaper. 
• What we need are gifts and connections and humanity -- and the artists who create them.
• Leaders don't get a map or a set of rules. 
• If factories are our minds -- if the thing the market values is insight or creativity or engagement .. 
• The linchpins leverage something internal, not external, to create a position of power and value.
• End of ABC: Attendance-based compensation. There are fewer and fewer good jobs where you can get paid merely for showing up. 
• 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. 
• Consumers say that all they want are cheap commodities. Given the choice, though, most of us, most of the time, seek out art.
• the competitive advantage the marketplace demands is someone more human, connected, and mature. Someone with passion and energy.
• All of these attributes are choices, not talents, and all of them are available to you. 
• "Not my job" -- three words can kill an entire organization. 
• If you're a linchpin, doing a job that's not getting done is essential.
• just maybe, would you be more successful if you were more artistic, motivated, aware and genuine?
• When customers have the choice between faceless options, they pick the cheapest, fastest, more direct option. You can't out-Amazon Amazon.
• Because everyone is a person, and people crave connection and respect.
• Letting people in the organization use their best judgement turns out to be cheaper and faster -- only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude. Which is the attitude of a linchpin.
• Mediocre obedience: we've been taught to be a replaceable cog in a giant machine. We've been taught to consume as a shortcut to happiness. We've been taught to not care about our jobs or our customers. And we've been taught to fit in. 
• we've been taught to embrace the system, to spend for pleasure, and to separate ourselves from our work. 
• Almost impossible to imagine a school with a sign like: "We teach people to take initiative and become remarkable artists, to question the status quo, and to interact with transparency. And our graduates understand that consumption is not the answer to social problems."
• the distinction between cogs and linchpins is largely one of attitude, not learning.
• Fear at School: things learned in frightening circumstances are sticky. Schools have figured this out.   Fear is the greatest shortcut on the way to teaching compliance. Classrooms become fear-based, test-based battlefields. 
• Schools teaching the wrong stuff: Fit in. Follow instructions. Use #2 pencils. Take good notes. Show up every day. Cram for tests and don't miss deadlines. Have good handwriting. Punctuate. Buy the things the other kids are buying. Don't ask questions. Don't challenge authority. Do the minimum amount required so you'll have time to work on another subject. Get into college. Have a good resume. Don't fail. Don't say anything that might embarrass you. Be passably good at sports, or perhaps extremely at being a quarterback.
• Participate in a large number of extracurricular activities. Be a generalist. Try not to have other kids talk about you. Once you learn a topic, move on.
• Key questions: Which of these attributes are keys to being indispensable? Are we building the sort of people our society needs?
• Being good at school is a fine skill if you intend to do school forever. 
• What they should teach at school: only two things -- 1. Solve interesting problems; 2. Lead.
• Leading is a skill, not a gift. 
• The linchpin is the essential element, the person who holds part of the operation together. 
• Depth of knowledge combined with good judgement is worth a lot. 
• Your job is also a platform for generosity, for expresson, for art.
• She didn't get assigned either of those jobs. She just did them. If you could write Marissa's duties into a manual, you wouldn't need her. But the minute you wrote it down, it wouldn't be accurate anyway. That's the key. She solves problems that people haven't predicted, sees things people haven't seen, and connects people who need to be connected. 
• challenge structure and expectation and status quo.
• Troubleshooting is never part of a job description. Troubleshooting is an art and a gift.
• Krulaks law -- the closer you get to the front, the more power you have over the brand. 
• If all you can do is the task and you're not in a league of your own at doing the task, you're not indispensable. 
• Emotional labor is available to all of us, but is rarely exploited as a competitive advantage.
• It's called work because it's difficult, and emotional labor is the work most of us are best suited to do. It may be exhausting, but it's valuable. 
• Scarcity creates value.
• Fearless doesn't mean without fear. It's being unafraid of things that one shouldn't be afraid.
• Reckless -- foolish. Feckless -- ineffective, indifferent, and lazy. 
• Key to success was dealing with fatigue. When you got tired, you didn't quit. Where to put the fear?? Linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds. 
• Seek out achievements where there is no limit. 
• Showstopper. Opposite of being a cog is being able to stop the show, at will. 
• Art is never defect-free. 
• If it wasn't a mystery, it would be easy. If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth much. 
• The problem with meeting expectations is that it's not remarkable. 
• Want someone exceptional. Seek something that is neither good nor perfect. Want something remarkable, nonlinear, game-changing, and artistic. 
• Work is a chance to do art. 
• He saw an opportunity to give gifts. He had emotional labor to contribute, and his compensation was the blessings he got from customers.
• Bring your genius self to work. 
• A resume gives the employer everything she needs to reject you. 
• To get a job: show, not tell. Projects are the new resumes. Find a company that hires people, not paper. You are not your resume. Your are your work.