Every company has linchpins.
They’re the people that seem indispensable to the business. They know the company inside and out. They know how to get things done. They’re respected. Their opinions carry weight. They are the oil to the machinery of a company.
When strategic decisions are being made, it’s linchpins whose counsel is sought.
When layoffs come around, it’s linchpins who get an extra measure of grace and consideration.
When new opportunities come around, it’s linchpins who are considered first.
To be clear, no single person should truly be indispensable to a company. If they are, that company has bigger problems than the risk of losing that single person.
Semantics aside, linchpins exist in every single company.
Here’s how to be one.
The 90/10 rule.
Listen more than you talk. The ratio is less important than the sentiment. Here’s a good rule of thumb: the more you insert your opinion, the less people will listen to it.
Why?
Because all of us understand that good opinions are formed by good listening.
When someone gives their opinion with surface level information, there’s a very good chance that person doesn’t fully understand the situation. And increasing that understanding comes through listening well and asking good questions.
For some of us, listening comes easy because our default mode is to be one of the quieter people in the room.
If that describes you (as it does me), here is the key: when you’ve run your course of listening and asking questions, you’ve got to have the courage to voice your ideas and opinions. Your challenge won’t be listening. Your challenge will be using your voice once you’ve heard and understood the situation.
For some of us, listening is hard because our default mode is to engage and lead the conversation.
If that describes you, here is the key: reserve your commentary until you’ve listened and absorbed the quieter voices in the room. Seek their input. Pull it out of the people around you. When you’ve done that, your opinions will be better informed and carry more weight.
(P.S. If you want to learn more about your own “voice”, take the free 5 Voices assessment.)
Underpromise and overdeliver.
This point doesn’t need further explanation, but let’s talk about why it’s hard to do.
Our ambition oftentimes outweighs our output.
Not because we’re lazy. Not because we’re incapable. But because our ambition leads to overpromising *in the moment*. We want to succeed. We want to be trusted. We want to be depended upon. And so that pent up ambition comes out as overpromising, crossing our fingers that our output can keep up.
And anything less than what we promised is now viewed as a failure.
This isn’t advice to sandbag. Or to minimize the expectations of ourselves to the point that they’re inconsequential.
Underpromising and overdelivering is about recognizing that there are an unlimited number of variables in any given project or task. Some of those variables are in our control and some are not.
The wise person underpromises because they’re taking into account the unknowns - the variables that haven’t played out yet.
When you promise a 10, and end up at a 9, it’s viewed as a loss.
When you promise a 7, and end up at a 9, it’s viewed as a win.
Become an expert.
The more you know, the more you will be depended upon. Knowledge gaps exist everywhere in a company. The person that can fill in those gaps becomes central to the performance of the team.
If you sell products or services, know those products and services better than anyone else. If you work directly with customers, know those customers better than anyone else.
Become an expert in your business. Become an expert in your industry. Become an expert in communicating. Become an expert on your company’s biggest challenges. Become an expert on your company’s biggest opportunities. Become an expert in the nuances of your culture.
Expertise requires the humility to accept that we don’t know everything, the curiosity to want to figure it out, and the wisdom to apply that knowledge productively.
Be so good they can’t ignore you.
-Steve Martin
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✌️ and ❤️,
Adam Griffin