If you really examine work that you get paid to do to earn a living, if you work for someone else when you leave the company should the work continue on. The answer invariably means you can be replaced and the question is how easy is it to replace you? In a book called Linchpin  Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin published by Portfolio or Penguin Books, NY, 2010 says you should make yourself indispensable and that way you can survive the changing nature of work. What does indispensable mean? Besides coming to work on a regular basis, what does an employer want? The ideal person is passionate about their job and tries to find workable solutions to help customers or people. Every job has defined rules to them, 95% of the time they need to be followed – in some cases it is 100% because lives are at stake, but what if your job there are no lives at stake? then there is wiggle room or creative solution making. In those instances you can make your job indispensable. There old values of being productive, coming to work are added to the art of being an artist.. An artist, and we all see a little differently otherwise our homes would all be decorated the same, the artist means there is a chance to perform or make a connection to do your art. The old formula was higher on conformity, obedience and compliance; the new formula is based on dignity, generosity and humanity with overlap between the two formulas. There are many other aspects to the theory and the book brings excellent points to it.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while personally you can be a linchpin (and I hope you’re) the reason to read the book is another method to do research on the companies you have shares in or are thinking about in. How do managers treat their employees? what attributes of linchpin are found in the companies you invest in? The belief is a linchpin employee is a higher value added employee – ie makes more money for the company, ideally most of the employees should be, but reality is different from ideal. If you like the theory and see how human resources should be evaluated then look at companies to see if they follow the theory and make more money for them and you.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.