There is a difference between feeling indispensable and being valuable at work
Ideothetic Flow
Hi everyone!
I am sure you have, at some point, felt indispensable at work. It is both empowering and frustrating. You feel responsible for the success of a team or project, yet also wonder why everyone else cannot keep it together if you look away for a few minutes. This week, I have a different view to share to ask if you are truly as important as you might think.
In "Being indispensable will make you miserable - here's a better goal" , Eric Johnson (CEO of Nintex) draws a distinction between being indispensable and being valuable. Being indispensable does not automatically mean we are valuable. He argues that we should strive to be valuable - making a difference within the confines of the workday. rather than trying to be indispensable and unable to take time away from work, leading to burnout.
I think it is important to evaluate our work based on the value we create, rather than on the reliance other people have on us. If your company or project would cease to function if you took some time off or took a break, then why are you not being paid far more, or your manager bending over backwards to ensure you do not leave. I would expect that a good manager would hire a second person who can do the exact same things so that there is never a moment where these "indispensable" tasks are not available.
Perhaps in reality, even if it seems like projects start falling apart the moment we go offline for a moment, we are not truly as indispensable as we think. Is the task so important that it must be done immediately by you? It could be that you are needed only because you refuse to share the knowledge and empower others to fill your void. You may also have ended up as the one responsible for low value items because you do not say no. Worse still, what you thought was so important may not actually be in the big picture, if left out or done by anyone else, little difference would be made.
To be indispensable helps our own insecurities about our work. We gain self-worth from thinking we are extremely important to our organizations. Yet, if job security and career advancement is the goal, then it is better to constantly generate value and refuse some tasks, than to be the one relied on for simple tasks that anyone else could easily pick up (Cal Newport has a test of "how long will it take to train a fresh graduate to do this job"). Someone might come along who is faster and cheaper, or you might run out of energy and eventually slip up.
In our current working culture, and because we are each assigned specific responsibilities, it is likely still hard to truly draw hard boundaries around our work hours and day. I hope this helps you adjust your own work to free up more time. In my own work as an in-house lawyer, one of the low value tasks I get relied on is to make minor edits to documents which a user could do themselves. When I started insisting they do so, I realise that most of my colleagues only push the task to me out of an impression that only a "legal guy" could touch these documents, but are actually happy to handle it themselves, saving us both time.
Do you feel that you are "indispensable" without being valuable? Or, are you always online because that in itself creates value? If you have made changes to your working style to generate more value without creating undue reliability, I would love to hear about them.
Aside: Reflecting on this article reminded me of a quote from a video game scene. ^5 for those of you who recognise it too.
"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."
- Mordin Solus
Hope you have a great week ahead!
James
ABOUT
Ideothetic Flow is a fortnightly newsletter where I reflect on insights that I have found useful in rethinking life in a more realistic way.
Modern culture, media, and technology, for all their benefits, have distorted the view of a complete and happy life. The ideas I share are those which have helped me gain a deeper understanding of my own identity and circumstances, and inspire change towards a happier life, and I hope they will do the same for anyone else who reads this.
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