He’s also frustrated and irritated.
But, at least he’s nice about it.
Sort of.
You see, Godin, in his newest book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Now, he’s on the “Listen up!! The WHOLE WORLD OF WORK is changing and if you want to have any type of career security at all, you need to start taking risks and daring to be REMARKABLE, because if you don’t, you are a commoditized cog in the machine!” warpath.
He’s been singing this tune for years, in fits and starts, but now he’s brought in all together into one place where he lays out his thesis.
- Here’s how the world used to be (vis a vis the workplace)
- Here’s what has changed
- Here’s what you can do about it
And he’s really tired of the whiners, the complainers, the nay-sayers, the shoulda/coulda/woulda people who spend more time coming with reasons for why it won’t work/can’t be tried than daring to dream about why it can work.
He’s tired of people he’s met like the MBA student a few years ago who took a ‘sheepwalking job.’
He’s beating his bald head against the wall telling people to go for it and he’s losing patience for their excuses.
This is a man who genuinely wants to give the gift of his understanding and unique perspective to as many people as he can and is frustrated that, until now, it’s only worked with some of them. It’s kind of fun to see this side of him, I must admit :-)
As a marketer, however, he knows that if the audience isn’t persuaded, it doesn’t mean the audience is stupid, it means the marketer needs to tell a better story.
That’s what Linchpin represents, I think. Godin’s effort to “put it all together” so that you, the reader, walk away saying “yep, he’s right. Now it’s time to make the change and I won’t let my reptilian fear reflex stand in the way.”
Was this my favorite Godin book?
No, not at all, but that’s because it was more auto-biographical than forward-looking, since it just explained my own transformation in leaving Microsoft to start Never Stop Marketing.
As I shared in my new e-Book, Dandelion Marketing: How to Increase Your Odds of “Going Viral”, one of the things you need to do in your organization is create a culture of high fault tolerance. Godin hammers home on this point (and many others), but at a personal level, to become a “linchpin” in whatever you do, a person that will be cherished, not downsized.
We’re at a stage where the truly valuable people, the linchpins, are artists in their craft. This book is his manifesto to help you tap that inner artist so you can have the fulfilling career (and life) that you desire.
