Simple ways to make yourself indispensable at work: Bestselling author [Video]

Think about the most highly valued people at your workplace. They probably have one thing in common: the ability to consistently come up with great, “non-obvious” ideas, says bestselling author and marketing expert Rohit Bhargava.

Employers place a high value, especially in the artificial intelligence era, on “somebody who’s able to see around the corner, someone who’s not stuck doing the same things and someone who’s able to anticipate what’s going to matter for the future,” Bhargava tells CNBC Make It.

Reliably devising great ideas that other people haven’t considered is easier said than done, of course. Bhargava — whose resume includes stints as a marketing executive at global firms Ogilvy and Influential, and an adjunct professorship at Georgetown University — recommends a four-step process, which he calls the “SIFT” method.

SIFT stands for “space, insight, focus, twist,” Bhargava writes in his upcoming book“Non-Obvious Thinking: How to See What Others Miss,” co-written with investor Ben DuPont. The idea …