Indispensable: Becoming the Obvious Choice in Business and in Life

This book shows you how to project your skills and expertise so that the right people sit up and take notice. You learn how to put others at ease, how to use humor to connect, and how to develop an effortless charisma that other people notice. Put simply, you learn how to be the kind of person everyone wants to be around and work with.

Is this a lot of work? Yes. Do you have to be unafraid of change? You bet. But the benefits of becoming indispensable to your organization and your clients or customers are more than worth the effort, for a lot of reasons.

Indispensable people don't dread the next round of layoffs, or their next performance review. They enjoy great relationships with their boss and colleagues, they're confident in what they're doing, and they make a real difference. It's safe to say that most of us would enjoy feeling like that all the time.

If you're tired of sitting in the same cubicle you've been in for years, if you're bored with the status quo, and if you're ready to make some major changes so you can achieve the vision you have for your life, this book is for you.

David Cottrell has three decades of management experience in corporate America. He's the CEO of the Cornerstone Leadership Institute, and he's the best-selling author of over 25 books.

Robert Nix has been an author, speaker, and salesperson for over 30 years. He's worked as a sales professional for some of the largest companies in the United States.

So, keep listening to find out how to decide if you should pursue an opportunity, why you should dress well on your company's casual day, and how to reword your emails so there's less of a chance you'll be misunderstood.

"Indispensable" is broken up into five sections, with 14 chapters in total. Section one starts off with a valuable wake-up call on why becoming indispensable is so important. The authors say that every day, each one of us makes a choice to be indispensable or not. We can choose to challenge ourselves and sell our talents to our boss, colleagues, or clients. Or, we can choose mediocrity and the illusion of safety that comes with it.

No matter what you do, or what role you fill, you sell yourself every day. You sell yourself to your boss, to clients or customers, to your colleagues, and even in chance encounters. Your reputation is formed by how well, or how badly, you sell yourself. Doors open or shut depending on this.

So, take a moment to visualize yourself as indispensable and successful. How would you feel every day? What would you do? How would other people react to you? How would your life, and your attitude, change if your life was like this?

The authors say that visualization is an important first step towards becoming indispensable. You have to be able to see yourself solving problems, collaborating with colleagues, and working with confidence. Olympic athletes use visualization to achieve their dreams, and this technique can work for you too.

It's important to realize that not every person is cut out for every new project or promotion. Think of the star sales professional who's promoted to manager, but does a terrible job – because her forte is sales, not management. Just because you're interested in an opportunity doesn't mean it's going to be a good fit.

The authors say there are four tests you should give yourself to decide if you should pursue an opportunity.

First, look at your talents. What comes naturally to you? Would you use your talents in this position?

Next, look at your values. Is there a values clash with this opportunity?

Now look at your desire. Will this position help you realize your long-term goals? Do you really want this position?

Last, look at your courage. Do you have enough guts to exit your current life, which is familiar, and pursue the unknown?

We agree it's important to look at each of these four areas before pursuing an opportunity or new position. But we wish the authors had included more hands-on help here. For instance, it's not always easy to identify your talents and strengths, and many people will need more than a few simple questions to discover what theirs are.

The second section in the book is titled "Look Like You Mean Business." These three chapters focus on how you present yourself to the outside world and, more importantly, how others see you.

According to the authors, we have about a tenth of a second to make a great first impression when we meet someone new. That's not even a blink of an eye. And, psychologists say that longer exposure rarely changes this initial first impression. You're being judged on your appearance, your posture, your perceived mood, and your body language. The good news is that you're in control of all these things.

Has anyone ever come up to you and asked, "Are you feeling OK?" when you're actually feeling great? Or said, "Is there something wrong?" when there isn't? These are signs that your outward appearance and attitude don't match your intentions or emotional state. When there's a mismatch, you might be inadvertently giving a poor impression of yourself.

By the time you get to this part of the book you might notice an annoying pattern. This is another area where readers would have really benefited from some in-depth, hands-on exercises. But instead, the authors simply ask you to write down how you perceive yourself, and suggest you ask five colleagues to explain how they perceive you. If there's a gap, you've got work to do.

Although this is a useful exercise, we think the authors could have gone further to help readers better understand their appearance and attitude, so they can make positive, lasting changes.

Chapter five covers personal appearance. Here, the authors stress how important it is to look like the person you want to become. This means dressing for success. Now, some readers might feel rankled by this. We know it sounds like pretending to be someone you're not, in order to please someone else. And on some level, this is true.

But the reality is that often, people are drawn to other people who look and act like they do. If you want to be indispensable, the authors say, you need to look indispensable. One way to do this is to model the successful people around you. What do they look like? How do they dress? What does their image say about them? Does that image match your company's brand and culture?

While we agree that you need to dress and act smartly if you want to be successful, we'd like to sound a note of caution here. Oscar Wilde once said, "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." And that quote matches our point perfectly.

We think it's a good idea to pay attention to your image, because how you dress and act does say a lot about who you are. But we don't think it's a good idea to mimic the dress and attitudes of others so that you become a carbon copy of someone else. When this is taken too far, you can betray who you are at the deepest level.

So look at the people you admire and how they present themselves. Try to emulate some of what you observe. But stay true to yourself at the same time. It's a fine balancing act, but it's something that all of us can, and should, try to do.

Another way to stand out is to take "casual day" with a grain of salt – if your organization has such a day. Some people show up on casual day wearing ripped jeans and flip-flops, which might be fine for them. But that doesn't mean you have to follow suit.

Make sure that any casual clothing you wear at work looks respectfully better than what's expected. This isn't to say you should show up to work dressed to the nines. Your goal shouldn't be to show up or embarrass your colleagues. But when you come to work looking polished, you feel more confident. So aim for casual, but classy.

At the end of this chapter the authors offer some advice on how to present a successful image to others. Some of this is smart, like teaching yourself the rules of etiquette. But other bits of advice feel dated, such as not using words like "honey," "hun," or "dear" at work. Most people already know this.

Section three looks at how to better connect with others by listening, speaking, and writing. We especially liked this section, because of its importance. You can visualize success, and dress like you've already made it. But if you can't connect with other people in a sincere way, you're never going to achieve your goals.

Chances are, you do a lot of writing during the day. You write reports, emails, text messages, and instant message chats. But how clear and concise are you in your writing?

The authors say that, as a general rule, sentences with 15 words or fewer are easier to understand than longer ones. Paragraphs should have no more than eight sentences.

It might be tempting to use flowery, complex words in your writing. But your goal shouldn't be to show off your vocabulary. Your goal is to be understood. And, this starts with using simple, concise language. Shorter messages save time – for you and for the people reading them.

To practice this, pull out the last four work emails you sent or received. Count the words in each one. Next, rewrite each email using half the words. Chances are, your shorter message will be clearer than the longer one.

Whatever the length of what you're writing, you need to be careful about how you word things. It's easy for written text to be misinterpreted. This is because we don't have the benefit of vocal tone, facial expression, and body language to cue us in on the emotion and intention of the writer. For instance, a reader may think you're angry or upset when you're not, just because of your wording.

Some phrases are especially prone to giving the wrong impression. For instance, the phrases, "I already sent that to you," "I told you…" or, "I said to…" just feel antagonistic.

Always read over your messages to see if there's a better way to say what you want to get across. For instance, instead of writing, "I already sent that to you," you could say, "It may have gotten hung up in the email server." Instead of writing, "I told you…" you could say, "Did I mention...?" And instead of putting, "I said to…" you could write, "I know you already know this, but…"

Rewording these statements soften your message and lessen the chance that the reader will misinterpret your emotions and intent.

Section four looks at humor: specifically, how to use it effectively and when not to use it.

The last section of the book is all about learning, and why becoming a lifelong learner is an important part of being indispensable. The author also uses the last two chapters as a cheerleading call to action, so you can easily skip these if you're ready to be done with the book.

So, what's our last word on "Indispensable"?

We think the book makes a compelling case for becoming indispensable in your organization. And, it definitely gives readers a good wake-up call. Just realizing that you're being screened for your next promotion or project right now is worth reading the first section for. That realization can inspire you to make positive changes in how you communicate and relate to others.

That being said, the book is a bit dry, and there's nothing really new or groundbreaking here. Because of that, we think a book like this would be most useful for someone just starting out in their career.

Our biggest criticism of the book concerns the exercises – or lack of them. In most chapters, the authors only give you a few simple questions to help you apply the tips to your own life. They could have gone further to help readers make these changes, and the book would have been more useful if they had.

Although the exercises were a disappointment, we still think the book has value. It's a good reminder of the risks of treading water in your career, and by the end you'll be convinced that it's worth the time and effort to stand out from the pack.

"Indispensable" by David Cottrell and Robert Nix, is published by McGraw Hill.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.