book.chapter The resolution

It's time to shatter the status quo and abandon the elements of the system that suggest your only ambition should be to become an increasingly larger gear in the machine. Make a logical choice to step off the hamster wheel and steer your career towards becoming an indispensable asset. Since henry ford demonstrated how automobiles could be manufactured more economically with his model t assembly line, businesses have strived to deconstruct the production of goods into a series of small tasks, each of which can be executed by low-wage individuals following basic instructions. Consequently, for the past three centuries: Educational institutions have produced graduates based on the notion that the optimal way to earn a living is by working for a large corporation and gradually climbing the corporate ladder. Most employers prefer compliant workers who follow instructions rather than encouraging them to think creatively. Society has propagated and endorsed the idea that it's better to conform than to stand out by doing something extraordinary. Many individuals have been conditioned to believe that it's safer to have a stable career in a large corporation than to take a risk like creating something remarkably excellent. Investors' primary focus was to identify companies that excelled at transforming low-wage workers into high-value producers. If a company had an assembly line that facilitated this, it was worth investing in. Thought leaders have proposed that the secret to success is to construct a business model so foolproof that even an untrained entry-level worker can't mess it up. The ideal has always been mcdonald's, which produces a consistent product using low-wage workers and a foolproof business process. For the past century or more, business managers have operated and planned on the assumption that labor is interchangeable and therefore entirely expendable – one worker is no better or worse than another. However, if you examine today's economy, you'll notice an abundance of bureaucrats, note takers, manual readers, laborers eagerly awaiting the weekend, and map followers. These individuals, once well-compensated, are now being laid off, ignored, and underpaid in record numbers. The system they were accustomed to was straightforward: show up for work every day, do the job assigned by your boss, follow instructions and work hard, remain part of the system, and be rewarded for your loyalty to your employer. In today's economy, it's an undeniable fact that you no longer land a great job where people tell you exactly what to do. Such jobs are being outsourced elsewhere – physically or digitally – to the lowest bidders, or these kinds of repetitive tasks are being automated. In other words, everyone in the world today faces a thought-provoking decision: "what we want, what we need, what we must have are indispensable human beings. We need original thinkers, provocateurs, and people who care. We need marketers who can lead, salespeople able to risk making a human connection, passionate change makers willing to be shunned if it is necessary for them to make a point. Every organization needs a linchpin, the one person who can bring it together and make a difference. Some organizations haven't realized this yet, or haven't articulated it yet, but we need artists. Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done." – seth godin Instead of staying on the treadmill and trying to become a better cog, it's time to seize the opportunity to strike out in a different direction. The time is ripe to start moving towards becoming a linchpin because it is linchpins who will be the essential building blocks of the high-value organizations of tomorrow. Linchpins are actually a relatively new phenomenon. Traditionally, economists have divided the world into two different classes: The bourgeoisie – who had the capital to invest in building factories and hiring people to work for them. Since members of this class owned their factories, they had considerable bargaining power and therefore prestige. The proletariat – working-class people who did the best they could by selecting the best employment opportunities throughout their careers. However, today, anyone with a computer and an internet connection owns the factory. Workers can self-organize online. Anyone with a new idea can find capital to bring it to fruition through electronic means. A third economic class of people is emerging who neither follow instructions issued by someone else nor do they own large enterprises. These people create value and then capture part of that added value by thinking creatively. They have all the technical, manufacturing, and distribution capacities they need to do their own thing. These are the linchpins of society.