"Embrace your lizard brain. It's the source of understanding why you're in a job that sucks."
Seth Godin's book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
came out Jan. 26, 2010. In the meantime, some members of Triiibes.com (his social media site) and those who responded to an offer to donate $30 to the Acumen Fund, received advance copies. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy, so here's my review. First, it's a definite thumbs UP on the book. Buy it. If you need more convincing, read the review below.
If you're looking for a book summary, or the Cliff's Notes version of Linchpin, this isn't it. As a member of Triiibes.com, and someone who has read all of Seth's books and met the man, my impressions are not going to be totally unbiased. I haven't drunk the Kool-aid, but I do highly respect and admire the man. If it weren't for his encouragement and help I'd never have made it to TED, or grown as much as I have in the past year.
First off, I think Linchpin is different in many ways than anything Seth has written. I think his writing shift started with Tribes. He gave readers a glimpse into more of who Seth is, what he thinks, how he feels. He's put more of himself into Linchpin than he did in Tribes, but not until the second half of Linchpin. His sentence structure is longer, and more complex. His "voice" is different - more studied, more analytical, more like he walked away from several discussions/debates and contemplation and the input of friends rather than simply a recounting or teaching of things he knew personally (ie. The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick).
My impression (and that's all it is), is that Seth has spent more time listening, reading about, and hammering away at the ideas he's presenting here than he has with his other books. Linchpin feels more intellectually collaborative, more like some of the themes and direction were thrashed through with the help of significant others and authors - more than simply Seth's delving into a topic he has extensive first-hand knowledge of.
The talk of resistance rang a bell for me simply because I read Steven Pressman's essay/blog on the topic before I even knew Linchpin was being written. And from the excerpts I've read in The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, overcoming resistance is a huge part of becoming a linchpin. (By the way, if you haven't read Pressman's blog, it's usually brilliant and fascinating and worth subscribing to. And - for trivia buffs, Pressman was once homeless - living in his Chevy van with his cat before conquering resistance to being a writer instead of a truck driver or one of others of the dozens of jobs he held before recognizing resistance: [...])
LINCHPIN REVIEW
Linchpin is 244 pages long. The good stuff, the stuff that made me take my feet off my desk and lean forward to grab my highlighter, starts on page 101. Seth, as you know if you pay attention to his writing style, always begins with a foundation, the history of ______, the background, the prologue, the reason for the important stuff to follow and Linchpin is no different. The first half of the book makes for great debate and presentation fodder and will bring you up to speed on the state of the corporate culture as we know it - if you haven't been paying attention.
If you already know that corporate America is still stranded, for the most part, in the 80's - then you won't be surprised by the first half of the book. If you are a member of Triiibes.com, you will definitely not be surprised by anything in the first 100 pages. If you are still wondering what's wrong about asking your secretary to fix your coffee or pick up your dry cleaning; or if you have the numbers of third world sweatshops on speed dial you really do need to read those first 100 pages.
No need for a spoiler alert here - most of you know the usual insights and basics if you're a Seth fan. The first 100 pages cover those basics, such as the title headings indicate: Introduction, The New World of Work, Thinking About Your Choice, Indoctrination-How We Got Here, Becoming the Linchpin and Is It Possible to do Hard Work in a Cubicle?
What I found interesting about Linchpin was that Seth is reaching out to the individual more in this book than any other - save Tribes. I wonder if he's become frustrated with trying to explain a "better way of being" to corporate executives and decided to build up the perfect workplace from the bottom up - which is where it should come from - the people who work in the rank and file. If you're an artist, or a "creative" then you can find some comfort in what Seth is saying. Like Dan Pink and his recent book: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future Seth encourages the right brained worker to step forward and become "indispensable."
If you are a clueless, reluctant, skeptical cog in search of economic salvation, you'll need those first 100 pages to convince you that the world really IS changing. You'll need to realize that not everyone worships or accepts the concept of a vertical food chain terminating in the corner office for those not handicapped by a glass ceiling. You'll find the reasoning you need in the first 100 pages.
However, if you already know the state of the average workplace, and consider it a dusty, boring place filled with cubical monkeys and supervisors who remind you of the soup nazi's of work, as in: "No questions or NO JOB FOR YOU!," then skip ahead to page 101. Save the first half of the book for later, for incorporating into your conversations with people who ask, "Who is Seth Godin?"
Seriously. If you need reasons, historical recaps and someone to bring you up to speed on the fact that the average workplace kills creativity; if you need the definition of purple cows and remarkable; or if you don't know in your heart of hearts that being different, generous, remarkable and better worker is a good thing, then start at page one and read on.
From page 1 to 100 you'll get great info, solid background and a typical Seth observation of the history of the workplace. You'll find the evolution of the world of minimum wage, how outsourcing and the dumbing down of the American worker has starved our souls and created a disposable employee mindset and economy.
Read it. But if you want to dive into more than a retrospective of why most workers and those who pay them are mind numbingly clueless then skip ahead. If you know you are destined for a future without a gold watch or retirement that will actually cover the expenses of your golden years, then start reading on page 101. Return to the beginning later. If you've never read a Seth Godin book, or seen or heard one of his talks, then by all means, start with page one - this is good stuff. But page 101 on is better.
What surprised me most about all the talk of linchpins is that I don't think the word "unicorn" is used once in the entire book. Seth, well known for his championing of the Unicorn, the remarkable worker who shows up in balloon factories (popping the bubbles of status quo beliefs) doesn't mention the creature in this book. I don't know if that's because unicorns aren't usually linchpins, or if Seth has figured out that talk of creatures that scare, upset or threaten the status quo doesn't play as well to corporate moguls as the idea of a linchpin - an invaluable, creative team player who responds well to rewards, plays well with others and doesn't run with scissors.
Same creature, different story. Or is it? Can a linchpin be a unicorn? Or can a unicorn be a linchpin? It's not answered in this book, but it's an intriguing question isn't it?
There's no doubt about it, Seth is focused on the individual in this book - not on changing corporate America. In Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Seth urges readers to lead. In Linchpin he urges them to become the artist, the creative, indispensable person they can be. All you need to do is eliminate the fear (which, Seth explains, is really anxiety. People, he notes, confuse the two all the time.
Anyway, beginning with "Resistance," on page 101, Seth takes a really good, basic look at lizard brains, that "fearful, hungry, angry and horny" part of our brains that controls so much of our thinking and a great deal of our actions. The lizard brain causes us to confuse fear and anxiety, to seek safety rather than risk brilliance. It also works and walks hand-in-hand with resistance - to totally stop us in our tracks.
I hear the influence of Pressman's The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
in the second half of the book. I also see a good effort to reduce a lot of information into a handful of chapters. As a writer I can empathize and appreciate his creation of a roux of wisdom that packs a greater taste than three times the words. The tone in the second half of Linchpin is more like Seth's previous books -- more like Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
- still my favorite. He retains the blog post length of chapters - one of the great things about his writing style.
I found it amusing that Seth mentioned his favorite negative review (A review on Amazon.com) of his book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
- since I responded to that particular reviewer (on Amazon) when the book came out. Since it's all but impossible (never say never) to list specific steps in "how-to" be a creative genius, or a leader, or a remarkable person or business; his negative reviewer won't much like Linchpin either; even though he comes closer to taking the reader's hand and walking them through the process as much as is humanly possible.
As always Seth incorporates vignettes of linchpins he knows personally, using the short, short story of a success to make a point. He has developed the 200 to 300 word inspirational, informative or insightful parable to an art form.
If I had one criticism of the book, it would be that the second half of the book wasn't longer and the first half wasn't shorter. Like any creative person, understanding HOW to succeed, to act, to learn the rules of the workplace while becoming a linchpin is confusing. Seth urges workers to give more, to be more of who they are and to not just coast through their jobs putting in their time. Generosity and engagement is its own reward, he says.
As a creative person who has given and given and given and been fired, and fired and fired for being remarkable, different, creative and generous - I have to say I wish there were more specific instructions on exactly how to escape a job where generosity is taken advantage of by cruel and stupid employers; and how to find a job where such skills are valued and rewarded.
There may be a few hundred employers who look for and hire generous and creative people, but there is no "how-to" chapter on how to find them if they aren't mentioned in the book.
What I liked best about Linchpin was the bibliography. Not only was it personal and helpful, but it was appreciative and thoughtful. If you haven't read any of Seth's books, I suggest starting with this one, then reading Tribes. Between the two you'll have a good idea of where the new workplace is going and how to be a part of it.
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This wasn't the first Godin book I tried to get into (many of my peers recommend him tirelessly for some reason) but it will surely be the last.I prefer books that offer an educated and informative look into a subject, and then substantiate their claims. But in Linchpin Godin just goes on and on for 240 pages about virtually nothing. The last straw for me was on around page 220 out of 240 where he claims--without any evidence whatsoever--that cancer can be cured by the placebo effect alone. At this point I just couldn't finish the book and put it down in disgust. You can't just SAY this kind of thing. It's preposterous, dangerous, and deeply insulting to the countless lives (including some members of my family) that have been lost to this horrible disease. To say these people could have just thought themselves to better health is, quite frankly, disgusting.This book is going STRAIGHT into the recycle bin. There is no way I will allow it to fill space on my bookshelf, and I surely won't be giving it to anyone else. All I know is that the carbon trapped in its pages deserves to be transformed into something more useful.It is just as the late Christopher Hitchens once said: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
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