“Linchpin” by Seth Godin

Linchpin, the newest book by the prolific author and marketing expert, Seth Godin, is a great read- but why should nurses care?

What does Seth Godin have to do with being a nurse-trying to raise and provide for a family in this most difficult of times?

Well the subtitle of Linchpin, Are You Indispensable? should help you to understand why this book is timely, and important.

What is a Linchpin?

We need to first define Linchpin, it is an old word, not much in use.   Linchpin, literally is the pin used to hold a wheel on an axle-without the pin the wheels fall off the wagon.  It has come to mean ” a person or thing that is critical to an organization.”

Now Godin spends a lot of time in the book discussing the new economy.  How factories and factory workers are disappearing (don’t I know that with unemployment at 14% in our county.)

The new economy is being filled with service industries, small entrepreneriul businesses, that are required to respond to rapid changes, with world-wide competition and the internet, and technology driving much of the changes.

Now some would argue that healthcare is different.  That if you are sick and in the hospital, you still need a nurse at the bedside to start the IV, give pain meds, take vital signs.

That is all true, but with what are we taking vital signs? A computer.  Where  are we recording those vital signs? On a computer.  What are we using to take out that gall-bladder, kidney, or uterus-in many places now- with a computer hooked up to a robot, known as DaVinci….

Now we get to the next phase of medicines -using nano-technology to make new drugs, and injecting normal genes into the body to take over where defective genes once lived.  I see in the future, that hospitals will be used only for outpatient surgery, as medicines improve there will be fewer cases of pneumonia, heart failure, MI, and stroke.

The other issue that should be forefront of our blackberry, is the huge financial upheaval going on in health-care.  What has been taking up 80% of the news this past 14 months–the debate on health-care spending.  Hospitals are going broke with the current system, and all the changes proposed do  not seem to promise more money showing up in the coffers where you and I work.

“OK, Dr Dean, you have made your point-but what the hell does that have to do with “Linchpin?”

Linchpins in Health Care

To survive and prosper in the future of health-care-you need to make sure you become a “Linchpin”!!!!

We all know the Linchpins where we work.  Those are the few who are always smiling, willing to go the extra mile.  The ones who make the patient feel better just by their attitude, and caring.  Even though they work in the same area that others grip about- that have too many patients/nurse,  deal with Docs with bad attitudes, and managers who don’t have a clue….

They still manage to rise above it and go home with the feeling that they have helped a fellow human being that day.  They are the ones coming up with new ideas to make patients more satisfied.  New ideas to improve patient safety. New ways to cut costs, improve care, do more with less!

They are true “ARTISTS” in every sense of the word.

The last half of the book discusses the resistance we all feel. The resistance to become a Linchpin. We want to go about our business with no emotion, just get through the day, collect our paycheck and go home.  But doing so, day in day out, leads to burn-out.

We can’t require our job to make us happy.

We have to make us happy!  Godin describes that part of our being, the Lizard Brain, the part that wants to not rock the boat, fit into the round peg, do what we have to do to get by , and not  ONE thing more.

He goes into great detail with suggestions to fight off the lizard brain-to keep it at bay, and how to recognize it when it rears its little green  head with the flickering red tongue…..

This is the type book that you should buy for yourself.  I love the library, I love  people to save money by borrowing books, from friends or the library-for entertainment.  Rather than spending hundreds, for detective novels, (my favorite), or for a stack of romance novels that you won’t remember the next day-mindless entertainment-which I am all for.  We all need a little downtime. But let’s borrow those books, not buy!

But this is the type of book, like your PDR, or software like Epocrates, your favorite textbook -that you keep, make notes in, and re-read as you mature in your job and your life.

And yes, I have attached a link to Amazon to allow you to buy the book with a few clicks-yes I may earn a dollar or two that way-and yes that money will help a nurse with her education.  (The Burke family Nurse Scholarship-click this link for more info.)