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The precarious economy has lots of people worried. They’re especially concerned that they’ll lose their jobs. It’s no wonder that you see more “How To Keep Your Job” articles on the web and in today’s newspapers and magazines.

If you can sum up the advice in these articles, like the one written by Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology: Truth and Lies About What We Buy, in the prestigious Parade Magazine, it’s “become indispensable to your boss.”

Lindstrom proceeds to offer five pithy tips to make sure your neck is far from the chopping block when the ax falls. They include:

• Define what makes you different from your colleagues. (Maybe a lack of integrity?)
• Do one thing well. (How about: stroke your boss’s ego?)
• Communicate your brand. (Hmmm. How do you brand desperation?)
• Create a signature look. (Like a clown suit?)
• Leave a personal mark behind. (Like a lip mark on the behind?)

I have no doubt that these ideas might keep you on the job, but at what price? That’s the question.

Lindstrom’s whole strategy is based on a faulty premise: that you can become indispensable. The only person your boss thinks is indispensable is himself or herself. What you will really try to do is make your co-workers look more dispensable. This usually leads to the empty gestures that Lindstrom describes and the typical office political games of back-stabbing and ass-kissing.

And, those empty gestures may get you noticed enough to survive the initial cuts. Then what? More than likely, you’ll be surrounded by more insincere empty suits and sycophants who will begin the battle to position themselves to survive the next round of cuts or layoffs.

Obviously, if you get good at the game, you’ll survive and thrive in the corporate world. You’ll become the perfect employee. But that’s all you’ll ever be. You’ll never be free.

It’s okay to work hard at your job, but work to be independent, not indispensable. Develop other sources of income. Set up residual forms of income. Explore self-employment opportunities. Save and invest smart.

There is no personal brand that can cover up a lost soul.

I’ll give Janis Joplin the last word about indispensability:

Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.

*** By the way. I’m pretty tough on Mark’s advice about personal branding, but not about his book, Buyology, or his overall approach to marketing. It’s actually a superb book–genius, in fact–and I recommend it. Here’s his site, too: Martin Lindstrom.

Related posts:

1. Is Your Boss Robbing You?
2. The 10 Percent Self-Employment Solution
3. 11 Blogs Your Boss Doesn’t Want You To Read
4. Personal Abundance Step 5: Get Employed, Stay Entrepreneurial
5. Weekly Wisdom: Financial Freedom is One Post Away

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