“Systems Thinking!?!” Yikes, what is that? Is it like calculus?

Well, yes and no. Systems Thinking is an approach to problem-solving and project management that encompasses, er, the entire system of inputs and their transformation into outputs that you are, ah, thinking about. While it would seem that this is a difficult subject to tackle (like calculus), it really isn’t. My friend and doppleganger Timothy Johnson (@carpefactum on Twitter) has written a brilliant book about the subject:

The book (and a cup of tea)

Systems Thinking and GTD

Getting Things Done is a form of systems thinking, a way of looking at your entire workflow – your inputs (things that you need to do) and how they get transformed into the outputs (successful accomplishments). GTD for your own workflow is a focused, personal way of using systems thinking. It is also useful to consider how you can utilize this format of problem-solving in a larger view – that of the complete environment in which you are working.

Whatever your job is (your own personal system) you will have interactions with other systems (co-workers and other departments) that have an effect on your inputs and outputs. Call it an orbital-level perspective.

I finished the book earlier today, and wanted to share my thoughts in a little video (click more to see it):
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For more info on Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin, which comes out in bookstores today (order your copy from my Amazon link here – Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?), here are a few more reviews:

Linchpin by Seth Godin Review | Flat Frog Blog

In the current economic situation, it’s good to be a linchpin. “I couldn’t have written this book ten years ago, because ten years ago, our economy wanted you to fit in, it paid you well to fit in, and it took care of you if you fit in,” Mr Godin writes. Now is the perfect opportunity to begin sculpting businesses based on the passion of linchpins. The age of outfitting your company with minimally skilled, minimally paid, easily replaceable workers is over. While successful essential companies ride the roughest economic waves and come out ahead through the merits of their linchpin employees, businesses that hirer cheap easily replaceable labor race to the bottom of the competitive market as others easily copy their method.

But this book isn’t about failing businesses. It’s about encouraging every reader – who currently sits complacently at his desk, doing just what’s necessary to keep from being fired – to speak up, step up, and give more. It’s about ignoring your urge to just survive and embracing your ability to create art. Artists create something extra, something that doesn’t easily fit within the mold of “a day’s work for a day’s pay.” Artists have passion, they have ideas, and they do more with their skills.

Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog

As Seth Godin is gifted at doing, he puts his finger on some vital truths that we all may have sensed at certain moments but that haven’t been able to grap on a conscious level, articulate fully or act upon. If you are someone in a hurry to do good in this world, read this book because it will encourage you to pursue that goal in a way that makes a far bigger difference for you, your organization and the world. It will help you break out of the email inbox, the fear of failure and the spinning of wheels and galvanize you to pursue your genius instincts. In short, it’s a good kick in the butt and shot of bravery for the start of the new year.

Here are some key ideas from the book:

1. The people of greatest value in this economy and to your organization are linchpins. A linchpin is a person who walks into chaos, creates order and invents, connects, creates and makes things happen. People who work automatically, by rote and define what is and is not their job are disposable.

Here is a fun graphic (as in graphic novel) review by Joshua Fultz:
I am the Linchpin

Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Book Review « Books I Read

The linchpin is an individual who can walk into chaos and create order, someone who can invent, connect, create, and make things happen. Every worthwhile institution has indispensable people who make differences like these.

To me, this is a book that will make you question the following:

* Am I happy with what I am doing at my job? In my life?
* If I am not happy, is there anything I can do about it? (The answer is a resounding yes!)
* Am I undervalued where I work? If so, is there anything I can do to stand out?
* What if I am afraid of changing the status quo? How can I fight the resistance?
* What can I do to start making a difference?
* Can I become the linchpin?

Is this book for everyone? I think so. Seth Godin offers tips to the worker who feels his job is boring or monotonous to the boss who is perhaps not engaging his workers to their fullest potential. Here’s a key question that Seth Godin asks: would your company/business/organization be more successful if your employees were more obedient or if your employees had more leeway to be more creative, passionate, and artistic? The question is legitimate, as Seth Godin argues that we have moved away from the age of production (think of factory workers/laborers during the Industrial Revolution) and management (think of your boss) to an era of creativity and art.

Reading this book, I have come away thinking more about being creative, connecting with people, and bringing art to the masses.

My lizard brain wants me to stop… « rich work life

I love the central idea behind this book and the logic of the call-to-action. Your choice:

* Take the apparently risky and courageous path of becoming an indispensable human, and in the meantime discover meaning and lifelong employment, or
* Follow the indoctrination of many years of society and education and remain a faceless cog in the machine, increasingly dispensable, and at the mercy of your employer and the forces of globalization

If you accept the hypothesis that we all have this choice (and Seth argues that regardless of nature or nurture that we all have genius within us), or even that it’s better to die trying than not, it’s pretty obvious which is actually the less risky path.

Much like Dan Pink’s wonderful A Whole New Mind, which I reviewed previously, Godin passionately argues that times have changed, and a new approach is the key to success. The good news is the new approach should make you not only more successful but happier and wealthier at the same time. Bring it on!

In the last few weeks, I’ve reflected on my life and current work. There is no doubt that when I’ve put in that extra effort at work or home it’s typically yielded noticeably better outcomes, and been warmly acknowledged by the recipients, which has given back to me a sense of fulfillment far in excess of that extra effort. In the same few weeks, by actively pursuing ways to go above and beyond I’ve significantly elevated my value in what becomes a marvelous positive feedback loop – do something unexpected and great, be acknowledged, feel great, create and give more art. This concept is not new, but the imperative for action is arguably stronger than ever.

Linchpin | Benjamin Hysell – Software, Projects, and People

Seth asks, “What if we all were artists? What if our workplaces were full of artists?”

He passionately argues that we can all be artists, that we have the choice to either follow a map and work ourselves out of a job, or we can choose to become very difficult to replace by becoming invaluable, by being artists.

I’m choosing in this review to focus on Seth’s idea that we should all choose to be artists, I will leave it to the reader to read Seth’s book to understand why we struggle as a species to make it happen.
What Does it Mean to be an Artist?

Several of the common artist themes Seth lays out in Linchpin are:

* Art doesn’t mean you work with paint and canvas, artist create, regardless of medium.
* Artist give gifts.
* Artist produce output.

Paints, Pencils, and Watercolors

Seth argues art doesn’t have to be paint and canvas. Seth points to several examples of famous artists who worked in the conventional “art” mediums and asks aloud what would they be doing today? If the Internet was available to Shakespeare would he have still written his plays? Would Picasso still have painted? Would Shakespeare and Picasso team up for the next great Xbox game?

When asking yourself if you can become an artist, Seth challenges us to not confine ourselves to the classic definition of artist. Seth points out excellent customer service is an art, an amazing chef is an artist, a business owner who can make a million dollars a year is an artist.

I can’t draw for beans, but I can organize a team of freshly minted developers to create a data management system that organizes 50 plus gigabytes of data a month.

I can’t mix primary colors to create just the right shade of orange to paint a sunset, but I know how to architect a bare bones iPhone alarm application.

I can’t play an instrument to save my life, but I write a pretty darn good blog about software, project management, and managing people.

I can’t do anything a classical artist can, but at Seth’s urging I consider myself an artist.

You need to read Seth Godin’s Linchpin. Or be a cog in the machine. Your choice.

In my mind, one of the most valuable things in this book is a chart on page 181. There are two axes. The x-axis goes from passive to passionate. The y-axis goes from attachment (that is, inflexible dedication to your own world view) to discernment (knowing what to live with and what to seek change in). I would call that y-axis “wisdom”. Seth wants you to aim for the upper left, high passion plus high wisdom, the realm of the linchpin.

From my years of experience working with people, passion is a trait most visible in the young. Wisdom is a trait that is more visible in people who are more experienced. This is why there are so few wise and passionate linchpins. Seth would never be so crass as to typecast people by age, but I know there are plenty of experienced and wise but passive people (he calls them bureaucrats, you know the type) and plenty of young, passionate, and inflexible people (he calls them fundamentalist zealots.) This is why the wise, passionate person stands out.

The real reason I like this book is that after nearly 30 years of work I have arrived in a place Seth would describe as a linchpin and I am loving it. I have always been as passionate and creative as I can, just to amuse myself, why work if it’s boring. This is a childish quality but I retain it at age 51. On the other hand, I have learned some discernment that I sure didn’t have in 1982. Every quarter, my boss (and I have had many) sets goals with me related to what the company needs. At the end of the quarter, often, what I accomplish is very different from what we thought would be useful. But typically, that boss looks at what I did and says “that was what we needed” and rewards me anyway. I cannot be a cog, and fortunately, they have recognized that a cog is not what they need. In the long term, all of my success so far has come from this sort of thinking.

Again, here is my Amazon affiliate link. I highly recommend this book, it can change your life and work – by changing the way that you look at both. I will be writing on this topic regularly from now on.

Let me start this review by saying that I have been a huge fan of Seth Godin for a long time. I have read most of his books, and all of them have been very valuable in building my various business ventures and learning about the internet-based economy of the future. (Keep in mind that, as William Gibson said, “…the future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.“)

Linchpin is different. It is less of a business book, more of a personal development book. Like Tribes before it, Linchpin describes the essential qualities needed for success in the world to come but it is not an instruction manual. Linchpin will be generally available on 26 January, you can pre-order your copy from my Amazon link here – Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

There are 2 very special things about this book, the first is how Godin has gone about marketing it, the second is how it pulls together a lot of information-threads and weaves them into a new design.

Internet Marketing and Philanthropy

As part of the launch of this book, Seth Godin is sending out 3,000 copies to the first 3,000 people to donate at least $30 USD to the Acumen Fund. He wrote about it on his blog (Get a Review Copy of Linchpin…) and it only took 49 hours for the stock to run out, raising $108,000 for Acumen. 49 hours. That is amazing. Both the speed in which Godin’s fans (like me, that is where I got my copy) snapped at the chance to get his new book before everyone else, and the fact that some people paid more than the $30 minimum.

Why did he do it this way? As Godin wrote in his original blog post:

… because you have a network. You blog. You tweet. You talk things up at meetings or recommend things to friends.

And there are a lot more than a hundred of you.

One solution is to give everyone a free copy. Publishers and authors could do this and try to make money doing something else. Another solution is to let the best of this group, the most committed, the most interested… let them stand up and identify themselves.

So, that’s what we’re experimenting with on Linchpin. For a select group of motivated readers, I want to send you a copy of Linchpin (at my expense) three weeks before anyone else can buy one. My US publisher is not sending free review copies to magazines (the few that are left), newspaper editors, TV shows, any of the usual media suspects. Instead, we’re allowing people like you to raise their hands and, if they like the book, asking them to tell the world about it in January.

So I suppose that this means that I am already a sort of Linchpin…and after reading the book, I am convinced that if I am not one quite yet, I certainly want to be. (more…)

From Seth Godin’s blog, a new e-book for the new decade.

Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up.

Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I’ve organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you’ll find it worth the effort. (Download here, at Seth’s Blog).

Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Fred Wilson, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.

This is an amazing resource. As Seth writes in the introduction:
“If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved.
In a digital world, the gift I give you almost always benefits me more than it costs.
If you make a difference, you also make a connection. You interact with people who want to be interacted with and you make changes that people respect and yearn for.”

I could not agree more whole-heartedly!

One of the contributors is Stephen Pressfield, one of my favorite authors and a brilliant blogger (see It’s the Tribes, Stupid to see what I mean) whose essay is on Tough-mindedness. Here is a quote:

“…what produces real work (and happiness for each of us, in my opinion) is depth, focus, concentration and commitment over time.“

Indeed. Please share your thoughts.