Ever wondered why you constantly hear the phrases, "Oh, that guy is indispensable!" or "Thank god, he is in my team!", over and over again for the same person? Ever wondered why it is always someone from only a handful set of people who keeps getting picked for any new assignment that is interesting or challenging? What's your first reaction when you notice such things? "That guy is extremely intelligent", or maybe "He is extremely lucky"? Agree that such people are both highly intelligent, and that luck might also be on their side. But look deeper, you might find something really interesting…
Most of the fast movers are typically the ones who make their entire team run with them. While they are focusing on getting their day-to-day job done well, they are paying equal attention to getting replaced easily. These are the people who will organize their work properly, make sure that each member on their team keeps high-level tabs on all the work being done by everyone, and are actively involved in knowledge–share sessions, be it the technical domain or understanding the bigger picture related to different aspects of their organization's business. If I can call them so, they are typically "great delegators". By grooming the junior members on their team to take on more and more of their current responsibilities, they are creating bandwidth for themselves to start contributing towards more challenging/interesting assignments. Whenever something new comes up, these guys have already developed the next set of people who can do their current job, thereby allowing the senior management to easily move them elsewhere. Every good manager wants such people, and these people are always "available" when others need them. So, it is neither magic nor pure luck, it is instead the art and science of being organized (replaceable) that is behind all the "wows" that these folks gather. Hence, the title, "If you are replaceable, then you are indispensable!"
An interesting by-product of this is "chain growth". When such people move on to new assignments, someone else on their team steps up to fill their shoes. This creates a ripple effect which, if organized properly, leads to sustained growth for all people who were below them in the hierarchy. Also, in their new assignment, these people start owning certain portions of responsibility which earlier lay in the hands of their seniors. This allows those higher up in the chain to now expand their horizons further, leading to a ripple effect in the upward direction as well.
To conclude, I'd like to capture a symptom that I have noticed pretty regularly. People sometimes show resistance when encouraged to delegate their work, or organize it properly so that it can be de-centralized. They do this under the fears of job security or sometimes plain lethargy. One thing that they don't realize is that by doing so, they might themselves be creating a "job jail" in which they could be stuck for a very long time. This short term protectionist attitude towards the "current job" can have a far-reaching negative impact on their overall career. Sometimes, the organization/managers are also responsible for creating such an environment. They inadvertently misjudge the people, basing the "dispensability" criteria on the amount of work due from that person. Instead they should recognize the "dispensable" people, because not only have they done their work, they have done it properly!
Hence, remember the mantra, "Be replaceable. You never know what new opportunity might be lurking for you around the corner. Be prepared to grab it, when it finally unveils itself!"
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2 comments:
I think it’s a very convenient argument, “If you are replaceable, then you are indispensable!”. While there is no denying the fact that an organized guy, who’s good at delegation as well, is a fine prize, you cannot infer indispensability or the other so quick. What you have done is reduced a scenario to a generality! And while doing so, you have ignored many more factors that merit attention and mention. Maybe, the reason is that you cannot cut down this debatable element to a few statements. Or maybe, it is not science. I see many arguments and thus I stop.
Hem, I agree with you that a few paragraphs cannot conclusively establish the merit/demerit of such an argument. As a matter of fact, all such sayings are subject to a similar debate.
To give you more context about how this post came about, I had decided to pen down my thoughts on this topic after noticing a peculiar behavior being exhibited by some of my colleagues. I was talking to them about the need for organizing some important documentation and increasing the level of automation for some key processes. I was surprised at their response that they were deliberately doing it slow. Their argument, "If we finish this right away, there would be nothing left for us to do", reflected a certain degree of job insecurity in them. Make no mistake, they are some of the the brightest talent in our country. But since they do not have much experience in the industry, I believe they might have got influenced by some wrong inputs from others... Hence, the idea of sharing my perspective with them.
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