How to Make Yourself Indispensable

What keeps ambitious employees and managers awake at night? Often it’s a dread that somewhere down the road, their expertise won’t be needed anymore. It takes years to build up professional esteem, yet there aren’t any guarantees about who will be valued going forward. Everything seems chancier now. There's no end of strategic zigzags or disruptive new technologies that could redefine even top producers' roles at any moment.

It’s time to re-examine why some people can stay indispensable in fast-changing environments, while others can’t.

Any mention of indispensability sets off anxieties. Lots of organizations run on the belief – stated or whispered – that no one should be irreplaceable. Count too much on one person’s impossible-to-duplicate expertise, the thinking goes, and your company risks outrageous salary demands or a competitive setback if that leading magician ever quits or calls in sick. In such companies, anyone who hoards rare expertise becomes briefly indispensable. Once such people attract scrutiny, they are likely to be regarded as corporate blood clots that need to be dissolved in a hurry.

Another awkward truth: it isn’t enough to deem yourself indispensable. It’s exciting when business gurus such as Seth Godin urge us to approach our jobs as emotionally engaged artists, crusading for new ideas. Godin’s 2011 book “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?” is packed full of inspiring passages. But if you take his advice too literally, as Forbes contributor Mike Myatt observes, you may embark on “career suicide.” If you want to be a “must-have” member of the team, you also need the respect of your peers and bosses – as well as a clear connection with the strategic priorities of your organization. Otherwise all your passion and big ideas may be for naught.

So what’s the best way to find career security in an insecure world? I’ve been collecting ideas in recent conversations with academics, recruiters, talent agents and CEOs. Here are five approaches with staying power.

Keep expanding your skills every year. When I was researching a recent book, “The Rare Find,” I made multiple visits to Los Angeles to learn how Deborah Aquila has managed to be one of the great “go-to” casting agents in Hollywood for more than two decades. In her specialty you’re only as good as your next movie; reputations can rise or fall quite quickly. Yet she struck me as fearless – and always ready to stretch her range. Her discoveries range from stars like Edward Norton to the transvestites that made “Last Exit to Brooklyn” a cult classic.

There’s a wide-ranging lesson to draw from Aquila’s success. She is what the philosopher Eric Hoffer dubbed a learner, rather than a learned person. (The last time I saw her, she was hard at work sizing up talent in the Iranian film community.) As Hoffer pithily observed, “in times of change learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Solve problems that never go away. You needn’t work in fast-growing or glamorous industries to be indispensable. I’ve met research librarians, coffee-shop owners and music teachers who have become bedrock figures in their communities. They deliver knowledge, companionship and personal growth – balms that we never grow tired of seeking. Anyone who can connect with other people on such a fundamental level will enjoy plenty of repeated business, as well as a steady stream of new customers knocking on the door.

Things don't work out as well if expertise is aimed at short-lived problems. You can run the best sanitarium for polio patients in the world, but if a vaccine eradicates the disease, demand for your current specialty will drop to zero. You will need to find a way to transfer your skills to some more relevant problem. That metaphor extends to a host of volatile industries, where fast-changing economics and technology can mean that certain prized human skills have hidden expiration dates.

In particular, today desk-bound professionals face dismay anytime it turns out that new software can get everything done faster and cheaper than they could. A prime example: newspaper copyeditors, whose mastery of spelling, grammar and publishing systems seemed essential 30 years ago. Not anymore; copyeditors’ ranks have shrunk 49% since 2007, thanks to the ubiquity of spell-checkers, Google searches and desktop publishing. Those who remain need to provide something more valuable than the same tidying-up that automated rivals can offer.

Be a starter or a finisher – don’t get stuck in the middle. In a long baseball game, many pitchers may contribute, but the key elements of recognition (wins and saves) usually go to the starting pitcher and the “closer” who finishes the last inning. There’s not much glory for middle relievers. It’s the same in business.

CEOs and boards cherish inventive souls who can sketch out a company’s next breakthrough. They crave the equivalent of Dick Hackborn, the Hewlett-Packard executive who championed laser and inkjet printing in the early 1980s, when it wasn't yet obvious how big a business those could become. Such people are the starters, solving the eternal problem of how to generate the next wave of growth. Also prized are the magicians who can step in at the end to achieve marketplace triumphs. They’re the closers: top sales people, marketers, litigators and financiers.

Once production processes are set, lots of people will get paid for keeping them running. That’s steady work in the middle until … the day it’s not. As soon as a cheaper, faster or better alternative emerges, old ways of doing things are cast aside. Upholding the status quo isn't a path to being irreplaceable; coming up with improvements is.

Consider what happens when industry veterans draw up their resumes. The ones that do best in job hunts showcase their ability to create value from scratch. New employers want that. It’s a different story for people who spent years “facilitating,” or “monitoring” projects that others built. Spend too long in the middle, and you may struggle to convince a new boss or a new employer of your full worth.

Set the tempo. I had a fascinating conversation recently with Scott Galbraith, who spent nine years in the NFL as a tight end and special-teams member; he now runs my favorite local café. We talked about why some athletes enjoy long careers, even with limited playing time, while some former stars are cut the moment their skills fade. His answer: you can be indispensable in the NFL, even if you aren’t a future Hall of Famer, by bringing such intensity and focus to your game that you help transform the whole team’s work ethos.

In the business world, such sparkplugs don’t need to be the people who work the longest hours or never take vacations. Instead, acclaim goes to the efficient, upbeat souls who are ideal trainers or mentors for anyone new. Catch top executives in candid moments, and they will admit that team morale is a bigger mystery to them than they would like. They do know positive engagement is contagious. If someone can help mold winning teams, again and again, such a person is indispensable.

Not sure what tempo is right? In a big organization, look beyond your boss’s immediate demands, and start thinking about what's valued at higher levels. David Stringer, a senior NASA administrator, introduced me a few years ago to the notion of “working your boss’s boss’s problems.” He picked it up during his time in the Air Force; it’s a strategic insight that’s good for civilian life, too.

Give more than you get. When indispensability becomes short-lived, it’s usually because an organization tires of the burdens associated with a difficult, arrogant personality. Silicon Valley companies grew weary of rock-star programmers who could write great code but kept erratic hours and refused to cooperate with others. Top-tier banks show a similar impatience with top-gun traders who can get away with a lot when they’re booking huge profits – but who are booted out as soon as their winning touch fades.

What about talented people who take a genuine interest in helping others? Such people do exist, and Adam Grant, a Wharton management professor, has spent the past few years chronicling their habits. In a soon-to-be-released book, “Give and Take,” Grant contrasts the career destinies of such “givers,” contrasting them with more aggressive “takers.” Guess what? Even though the givers’ generosity sometimes backfires, overall they end up as the most successful and well-adjusted people.

You could say, in fact, that it’s the givers who are indispensable.

Photo: Yuri Arcus/Shutterstock