Title: Linchpin
Author: Seth Godin
Type: Non-Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 246
Rating: 4/5
Seth Godin – Linchpin
All of Seth Godin’s books are pretty good and so it’s hard to rate them anything below a 4/5. This one wasn’t his best, but it was enjoyable enough. Even though some of the references were occasionally out-of-date, the actual lessons inside it are still just as relevant as ever.
The idea behind Linchpin is that we have a responsibility to ourselves to become indispensable. Historically, we’ve been taught to fit in and to be nothing more than cogs in a machine. That approach might have worked when everyone was working blue collar factory jobs, but it doesn’t work in today’s complicated business landscape. That’s where linchpins come in.
A linchpin is an indispensable employee, the kind of person that a company can’t easily do without, and Godin’s book talks about how to become one and what to do should you be lucky enough to hire one. Packed with examples, it makes for an enlightening read, and while it doesn’t necessarily offer a map for people to follow, that’s a good thing.
Godin himself explains that it’s not just a set of rules you can follow, and he talks about how that way of thinking is rooted in the old ways of doing business. If your job involves following a set of rules then you need to find yourself a new job before you’re replaced by robots and artificial intelligence.
Seth Godin
