You may be asking, ‘why should I care about becoming irreplaceable at work?’ After all, this column has written extensively about how the war for talent is over, talent has won, and now organizations need to think really hard about what it takes to attract, inspire, motivate and retain employees—and deliver.

That doesn’t mean, however, that organizations can, should or will hold on to underperforming, or marginal, employees. So, while employers need to earn your continued loyalty, you also need to deliver.

Junior or new employees would often ask me what they need to do to excel. My standard reply has been, I need you to do three things in this order:

1) Do your job. Do what we ask you to do, on time, correctly and don’t rub anyone the wrong way in getting it done. Better yet, create fans when you interact with others. At a minimum, organizations need people who can reliably deliver the work. New employees shouldn’t take it for granted that they know how to do that; they need to dig in, especially during their first few months on the job, and master the work.

2) Do more than what’s required and make your boss’s job easier. Don’t wait to be told what to do: Anticipate it, plan your next steps, identify who you need to collaborate with. The less your boss has to guide you, the more your boss can focus on other matters, including coaching those workers who aren’t as capable as you are. I don’t know any boss who doesn’t appreciate an employee who’s super proactive—so long as that employee isn’t ignoring requirement number one.