Essential or Indispensable

In a stand up meeting I was asked if I was essential or indispensable to the current business. I had to think about it. So here is my take on what was really asked.

Let’s start with the definition of each word.

Essential

absolutely necessary; extremely important.

Indispensable

absolutely necessary

Interesting enough they both mean the same thing. This really makes this easy. Well in the world of technology it complicates the issue.

Let’s break it down a little. If you are an essential part to a team, this means that you have worth to the company and team you interact with. In other words you are someone who can adapt to constant change.

Now for the other side. If you are indispensable, you hold all the keys to all the locks. Some people consider themselves this. There is not way that my employer could ever succeed without me. I am indispensable.

I guess in the great good of the this post, as an employer you never really want one person to know everything about your business or one person that holds all the technical knowledge. I believe that is why corporations have created silos. They keep their employee fenced into one subject matter.

In summary, if you have an employee that in indispensable, you might want to think about how to keep the person happy, or bring on more staff to learn. In the Midwest, employers are famous for only giving their employees just enough.

My recommendations to you is, make sure to take care of the people who mean the most to your bottom line.