Today’s guest post is by Steve Harris, Managing Director of the Brand Agency.
On an African Safari people want to see the big five – elephant, rhino, buffalo, leopard and the apex predator, the lion.
On our Silicon Valley Safari we were sitting in the fertile plains of Linkedin when in wandered the Valley’s own big five apex, Linkedin CEO Jeff Weiner.
Our Teutonic guide had warned us that he might appear, and that if he did he typically responded best to ‘an interactive engagement’ of questions and answers rather than a one-way dialogue.
So as the charismatic and approachable CEO moved to the head of the room the group leaned forward with a tentative question on Linkedin’s values and culture.
Weiner didn’t disappoint, and demonstrated why he was at the top of the pyramid by distinguishing the difference between Values and Culture, and reminding everyone that to maintain your success as a leader in a business you have to spend a lot of time on ‘some very unsexy stuff, specifically people, process and infrastructure.’
He then offered to take the group through the core values behind Linkedin, and with pens and fingers tapping like camera shutters on a safari we listened.
Linkedin operates with six specific values.
- Members First,
- Relationships Matter,
- Be open, honest and constructive
- Demand excellence
- Take intelligent risks
- Act like an owner
Importantly these values are framed by a culture that encourages results, transformational behaviour, integrity, collaboration and humour.
The key, said Jeff, was to ensure that everything the company did was gated through these values, and most importantly, that people were hired against them.
Now on the surface you might think these fairly straightforward, but what made Jeff Weiner’s explanation different was the depth of engagement and delivery from the CEO throughout the entire organisation and product experience.
They were being lived, breathed and delivered, and staff could recite the mantra and give examples of it impacting the organisation and their behaviour. We didn’t need to see any posters or screen savers promoting the driving forces behind Linkedin, we could feel it in the buildings and the people we met, and it was encapsulated in the humble energy of its CEO.
The tour of the Valley was a little like looking through a window into the future of our industry, but the time with Jeff Weiner was a reminder that whilst technology and communication platforms change, leadership and culture always have, and always will, keep a company at the top of the food chain.
Steve Harris (@onecrowded) is the Managing Director of STW Group company The Brand Agency. He attended the STW Group Silicon Valley Study Tour in October 2013.