What makes you irreplaceable?

Hello friends!

This is a text from the Dinheiro e Profissão series, which aims to make us reflect on what makes us irreplaceable – at work, at work, in the career we decide to follow. Contrary to what many people think, we are indeed irreplaceable, but – looking at it from a business point of view – we are irreplaceable due to our personal characteristics that make us stand out. Perhaps there are hundreds, thousands of people with the same skills and it is precisely one or another characteristic that will make us successful. The text then seeks to help you think: what makes you irreplaceable?

When someone dies, we say that person was irreplaceable, that is, no one will be able to take their place, do what they did, the way she did. I think this is the simplest way to think about this question. When someone dies, we also think – in companies and organizations – that the show must go on, that is, the company cannot stop and someone else has to take the vacancy left.

If we think from a philosophical point of view, we will come to the conclusion that, really, each person is irreplaceable, insofar as the individual is, by the very definition of the word, in his origin, the one who does not repeat himself, the one who is unique. , a case apart from the whole species. If we look at an animal like a dog or a cat, even knowing that it is a dog or a cat, if we live with the animal we will soon realize that each one is unique, each one is, in the original meaning of the word, an individual.

For example, here at home we are lucky to live with these incredible beings: Syang, Amelie Poulain (both are basset dachshund puppies) and two cats (Pitika and Bonifácio Schubert). Well, everyone is unique, right? And each one is irreplaceable, just like us human beings, even though we are human beings as a species, we are unique, unequaled individuals.

However, within a company, an organization, we have to remember that there are goals to be achieved, that there are efforts and resources to achieve them. The thought of organizational psychology then divides the company into positions and, in each position, a series of competences that must be fulfilled daily by the employee. And this is where the opposite idea comes in: in there, everyone is replaceable, that is, everyone can be fired, sent away, or resigned and, with that, the thought that we are irreplaceable would not fit.

How to resolve these two contrary ways of thinking?

What makes you irreplaceable?

A while ago I saw a report that showed that in a large American company of coffee franchises, there was a store that sold more than twice as much as the others. The managers then went to analyze what would be the reason for those extraordinary sales. And the reason wasn’t a better location, better products, or lower prices. As it was a franchise, the entire process of creating each of the hundreds of stores was practically the same.

The difference that made all the difference came from an employee that everyone in the neighborhood just loved. She knew each one of her clients, called each one by name, knew when they were good or bad, their families, professions and, in this way, had an excellent relationship with everyone. As everyone loved her, they kept coming back to buy more coffees and chat with the woman, now a lady in her fifties.

And what did this irreplaceable lady do? Her great ability to get to know customers. The difference is so big compared to the other stores in the franchise and it was all due to his personality, his way of acting and behaving – and caring – for customers, in a true and spontaneous way. This made her irreplaceable for the company. All the other functions she did – like serving coffee or serving lunch – could be done by other people, but her personality, where she stood out, was irreplaceable.

And, if we are going to think about our own characteristics, we can divide in a didactic way two large groups of individual characteristics: emotional intelligence and intellectual intelligence.

The emotional intelligence that makes you irreplaceable

The example of the lady in the cafeteria is the best possible example of the emotional intelligence factor, which allows her to get close to people, get along with everyone, have a great interpersonal relationship. Contrary to what most people think, to be more sociable, better connected, we don’t need much. The main characteristic is knowing how to listen. If we are willing to listen to other people, very attentively, even briefly, saying “Hi, how are you?” being really interested in what the person is going to say is already a way of dealing that brings excellent results.

Many people are brilliant at dealing with others, without being extroverted, that is, those people who talk a lot, have millions of friends and like to show off (although extroversion is a lot more than that, this simple definition will suffice for our purposes here). .

In addition to the ability to establish good interpersonal relationships, we can see emotional intelligence in the ability to know and know how to deal with one’s feelings: anger, sadness, anguish, discouragement and other emotions may be present, but the fact of being able to recover and continue is sign of a characteristic that can make you irreplaceable.

The intellectual intelligence that makes you irreplaceable

I don’t know, everyone knows the American series House. The Doctor. House is a brilliant doctor, who knows the rarest and most difficult to diagnose diseases. He would be the example of low emotional intelligence and high intellectual intelligence. What makes him irreplaceable at the Hospital where he works is having the ability to know more, in more depth, and with a better perception of what the patients’ symptoms indicate in order to make an accurate diagnosis and, with that, indicate the best treatment.

Some people find it easy to acquire and retain a huge amount of information, data, knowledge and manage to use them in their career and profession. Although they may not be very adept at dealing with other people (it would be infinitely better if they also develop the emotional part), they are irreplaceable for their intelligence, for knowing more than their competitors for the same vacancy.

Conclusion

Generally and philosophically speaking, we are all irreplaceable. I always like to remind my patients of the fact that they are unique and no one, not even one of the 7,000,000,000 human beings alive today will match them. That is, we are unique and we have to know how to value what is special about us. Maybe you have a characteristic that stands out for your emotional intelligence or knowledge or even for a gift or a talent that we didn’t comment on in the text.

However, discover your potential. Perhaps your potential is rare, or hidden, or underutilized. You may use it outside of work, or you may not be using it at all. Always remember what makes you irreplaceable.

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