Building Indispensability

When you think about professional development, sometimes you need to look in the mirror and consider you… your business… your organization’s current and long-term value in the marketplace. Are your services… products needed, and growing… or fading and sliding toward that “obsolete” category?! 

This Building Indispensability podcast is meant to encourage everyone to self-check their value in the workplace and customer needs arena. This assessment should be a. natural business/organization/personal exercise to ensure appropriate changes and progress actions are taken to continually place your group in that “you can’t be successful without me” category! 

Enjoy the listen. 

Transcript

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Hello again and welcome to the September 2025 Inspiring Innovations Learning Moments Podcast. As always, this is your monthly discussionist host, Marv Pikla. And before we get into this month's special topic, I want to shout out one more time how great it is to have this simple podcast format available to share some insights, maybe ideas, initiatives, inspirations, and cool information as they relate to our favorite big-time topics: leadership, professional development, communication, and of course, innovation. Each month, I tell you, each month, I look forward to creating these ten minutes of learning moments that in some way can help you or everyone move progressively and professionally forward. That's my wish, and I'm sure glad we had this opportunity. All right, so now let's get on to this month's special topic. This month we're going to discuss building indispensability. Building indispensability. And with these two words, what am I really saying I'm going to talk about? Specifically, we're going to discuss how important it is, especially during these always changing and uncertain times, to kind of position ourselves in the world of work in just in life in general, to be indispensable, or in other words, help your organizations, your businesses know that they really need you to go forward, and they can't go forward great without you. And no, this is not a self-centered talk. It is about encouragement, encouraging you to position yourself in an ongoing professional and progressive way with a mindset and action steps that follow. So first let's think about today. I believe that our faster pace world more directly contributes to someone or something becoming obsolete, maybe even before it's time. People and companies are always looking for ways to be more efficient and effective. Does this mean that they cut corners? Maybe even to harm quality? Yeah, it happens. Then there's the fact that we have become a throwaway society. More often than not we toss out appliances and lawnmowers, tools, and even people, instead of repurposing them, maybe recycling them, maybe repairing them to make them useful and more progressive down the road, we just don't do that. We just think let's just get new, right? Let's just get new. Am I wrong? And kind of finally, there's often a situation that you or what you do only seems to have historic value. And maybe that becomes the dispensable decision. Even though your value is still much needed, history and age seem to decide if you're indispensable. Those are just some of the reasons that this Learning Moments podcast is dedicated to helping and tossing out some advice on building indispensability in your world, in your company, in your organization, and of course, in you. So, what can we do? First, always consider that even during the best of times in your career or with your company, to avoid being taken for granted. You get kind of laxed in your processes and kind of thereby lessen or even lose your professional edge. What I'm saying is that you should regularly relook at the problem you are solving for your customers, andor the special value that you are adding with your product or service, and ask yourself: are the challenges all still the same that you're trying to help fix, do for someone? And are your skills still highly necessary? You gotta ask those kinds of questions. Or has the service, the business environment changed so much, or even a little, that would make you and your service or product less important and maybe even a little more obsolete? Today's times almost mandate that you ask these kinds of change and advancement questions, and then maybe move into taking adequate research and development time, okay? RD time. People don't do that enough to develop yourself and the entity you work for to make it truly up with the times, and that RD time, that research and development time is well spent. Never doubt it. Think deeply about new product and service approaches. Think about improvements, or think about alternatives to keep the focus, the need on you, and your indispensability to move then progressively forward. Another thing, consider looking at your competition, whatever, and whoever they are. What makes them stand out today? What is special about them that maybe has taken away your shine? And remember, remember this that advancements in yourself andor your services do not need to be something totally new. You know what I'm saying? You can think about just ways to subtly improve yourself a little bit. And like indispensability additions may be simply adding extra value to your product or service. Small pieces, but but noticeable ones, different amounts of service and or cool adjustments in your marketing options just to keep that you know indispensability mindset out there. Also remember that old saying out of sight, out of mind, getting your word out there, getting your product and service out there needs to be consistent and consistently fresh. Do you hear me? Consistently fresh. So as you check yourself out, regularly remaining fresh, be sure to review the services delivered by the different divisions, departments, or special individuals also in your organization. Do you believe everyone has a kind of flexibility notion to kind of work better, faster, quicker with customers as they arrive at your door? Or would people walk in and see you as the same as it's always been? What label of progress would they place on you and your group? If you think about it, building indispensability is correctly linked with continuous improvement, research and development, and personal professional advancement. If you feel you are getting passed over in your workplace or believe that your organization or business is falling behind, and obsoletism, if that is even a word, is the kind of label for your product and services? Become aggressive in becoming and remaining, always improving and always special. Become aggressive in those areas by improving and getting that reputation of being special. Finally, does building indispensability sound like a personal responsibility assignment? Well, if it does, then I have made my learning moments point. Okay? It is a personal responsibility inside and outside the organization, within you and the group you work with. Remember that. Well, it's time to go for now. Hey, thanks so much for listening, and we will discuss even more stuff next month.