- He's the CEO of LinkedIn.
In 2011 he and Reid Hoffman
were the Ernst & Young
Entrepreneurs of Year
U.S. Overall winners.
In 2014 he was recognized as one
of the top ten CEOs at
U.S. Tech Companies.
He's Jeff Weiner and here are
his Top 10 Rules for Success.
(sweeping music)
- Because if you're a true
visionary, you're going to
be seeing something that
other people don't see
or feel threatened by, because it's going
to potentially disrupt the way
that they've always done things.
You have to believe in what you're doing.
You have to believe in your vision,
with truly every fiber of your being.
And that conviction provides the courage
to other people to pursue the same.
And if you don't feel
it, if you are just going
through the motions, if you're
using somebody else's words,
people will sense that
from a mile away. Right?
They need and want to
pursue authentic leadership.
First of all, it's a very human thing
to project your own
perspective on to others.
It's a very, I think, common thing.
And as a less experienced
executive or a leader
or for anyone in the audience
that works with other people,
the tendency will be to expect people
to do things the way you do them.
- [Interview Voiceover] Yeah.
- It's very natural and
it's not the right way
to approach it.
- Yeah.
- You need to take a moment
to manage compassionately.
Put yourself in their shoes,
understand why they're coming
with what they come with.
What is their background?
What is their baggage?
Where are their anxieties?
What inspires them?
Where are their strengths,
their weaknesses?
And that takes time and
it takes real investment,
and the knee-jerk reaction
is just to do things
the way you would normally do them.
And that's going to create
a lot of dissonance.
And so from that moment, going
forward, I kind of decided
that would be a first
principle of management,
would be managing compassionately.
First and foremost, is asking yourself
a pretty straightforward
question that sometimes
is a little more challenging to answer.
Which is ultimately, what is
it that you want to accomplish?
So, look out 20 or 30 years from now,
looking back on your career,
what do you want to say you did?
And, I think when you're
graduating school,
it's perfectly reasonable
to not necessarily
know the answer, but you'd be surprised
how many people 10, 15
years into their career,
still don't know the
answer to the question.
Because, they get swept up
this stream of opportunity.
You know, a promotion here, an offer
from a hot company over there,
and they wake up one day
and they're not happy and they're trying
to figure out why and it's
because they never stopped
to ask themselves what it is
that they ultimately want.
And if you don't know the
answer to that question,
try optimizing for two things.
One is passion and the other is skill.
And it's not one at the
exclusion of the other.
'Cause that'll lead to some
pretty suboptimal outcomes.
So, that's one, know what it
is that you want to accomplish.
As simple as it sounds, it's
really, really important.
Two is surround yourself
with great people.
I used think this was all
about finding the right boss
or the right mentor,
but it's not just about
the person above you, it's
about the people you work with,
your peers, and the
people that work for you.
It's all about talent in this day and age.
And so you have to surround
yourself with the best.
Only the best.
And then third is to always be learning.
And to take great passion, if you can,
in improving yourself and
to challenge yourself.
It's all about the conversation.
And it's very rarely, if
ever, about actually selling.
And as soon as someone comes in to see me
and they open up a PowerPoint presentation
they've essentially lost me.
I think most effective
interactions of this sort,
start with, first of
all, some ice breaking,
getting to know the other person.
But then, a simple question, which is
what can I help you with?
You know, what are your objectives?
What are your priorities?
What are you trying to solve for?
And then determining how, in this case,
if we're on the selling end,
how LinkedIn can benefit
your organization?
And really make it a conversation.
And I think that makes all
the difference in the world,
just starting from there.
Similarly, you know, I
feel all too often people
have a tendency, and this is kind of
classic public speaking,
effective public speaking,
but you got to know your audience.
And it's not necessarily
about what you know,
and what you want to present,
it's about what your
audience wants to hear.
And why they're there.
You know, they're taking
time out of their schedule
to be there, why have
they come to the meeting?
What are they hoping to get out it?
And as tempted as we're all going to be,
to stick to the material
that we've prepared,
that's really for our benefit.
And perhaps we're going to
end up using some of that
because it's relevant for the audience.
But I think it's really
important to understand
what it is that the folks
you're trying to connect with,
what they're trying to learn more about.
And how we can benefit them.
I think one of the things that all
really strong leaders have,
is extraordinary awareness.
And what I've noticed is these individuals
have the ability to
read and take the pulse
of a room, whether it's
talking to one individual,
their staffs of 10 or 12
people, or a group of 1800.
And to be able, in real time,
while expressing themselves,
and while communicating,
and while thinking,
to be able to take in what's happening.
- [Interviewer Voiceover] Yeah.
- And that awareness enables
them to course correct.
And that is such an
important part of leadership,
is that course correction.
In every moment, ideally, I don't know
that people always have that luxury,
but moment to moment,
hour to hour, day to day,
quarter to quarter, year to year.
It's being able to
understand your environment,
the competitive landscape,
the technical landscape,
the talent landscape, the
people you're working with,
what motivates them?
And to be able to course correct.
And that starts with awareness.
So, I couldn't agree more in that respect.
Why I joined LinkedIn, was the ability
to make a difference in the
world in a very positive way.
You look at the platform,
you look at the vision
about creating economic opportunity.
I can't think of a more worth
while purpose than investing
in tools that create economic
opportunity for people.
There's no more
sustainable or profound way
to change the quality
of an individual's life,
in my opinion, than creating
economic opportunity
for them, and in turn,
improving the quality
of the lives of their family,
the lives of the people
that they can create
economic opportunity for.
And in developing
countries, you're creating
role models for the next generation
that didn't even know it was possible.
And that's pretty appealing,
to be able to make a difference.
And it starts by asking
yourself the question,
what would it take to make that dream,
or that vision statement a reality?
And that question, what would it take?
It's incredibly powerful and liberating.
And if you set your sights too low,
sometimes you'll never challenge yourself
to think bigger, sometimes you'll never
challenge yourself to
question conventional wisdom.
But, by asking the question,
what would it take?
It unleashes all of this creative energy.
And it unleashes this sense
that anything is possible.
And so we started asking
ourselves the question,
what would it take to
make the vision a reality?
What would it take, to not just connect
the world's professional
780 million people,
but create economic opportunity
for over 3 billion people
in the global world?
You know, I personally,
believe that leadership
is about the ability to inspire others
to achieve shared objectives.
And I think the most important
word there is inspire.
And I think that's what separates leaders
from managers, managers
tell people what to do.
And leaders inspire them to do it.
And I think inspiration largely emanates
from three dimensions.
The first is the clarity of your vision.
And what mountain you're
trying to summit and climb.
And the second is the
courage of your conviction.
Because if you have true vision,
and you want to try something
that hasn't been done before,
there's going to be a lot
of naysayers, there's going
to be a lot of skeptics,
there's going to be a lot of
people who feel threatened
and try to get in your way.
And you have to feel it
deeply, to be able to overcome
those challenges, and for
people to want to follow you.
And if you're not
authentic in that belief,
and you don't have true conviction,
they're not going to be behind you.
And then lastly, is the ability
to effectively communicate
that vision and that conviction.
And I think if leaders are in a position
where they can do those three things,
they can effectively inspire.
And when you can inspire,
it's just a matter
of what objective you're
trying to achieve.
And then ensuring that
you're surrounding yourself
with the absolute best talent
you can, to make it a reality.
When you're in the moment,
and someone's doing something
that upsets you or frustrates you,
we all have a natural tendency
to become very emotional.
And part of managing compassionately
is having the wherewithal
to be a spectator
to your own thoughts, especially
when you become emotional.
And get a little bit of that distance.
And enables you to put
yourself in their shoes
and ask yourself, why are they behaving
the way that they're behaving?
- [Interviewer Voiceover]
And that there's a wisdom,
potentially, or rightness
to how they're behaving.
- It could be a wisdom, it
could be, in your parlance,
a rightness, it could be a wrongness,
but they're not to be
blamed for the wrongness.
It's not a blame game.
If they're angry at
you, maybe they're angry
by virtue of something
that took place years ago
that had nothing to do with you.
And when that anger comes
your way, the knee-jerk
is going to be to become
angry in response.
Now they're angry and you're
angry and guess what happens?
I mean, every single one of us has been
in that situation, probably every day.
I was just, someone just wrote
me an email the other day,
and they were angry about something.
And, I knee-jerked, and I was frustrated,
if not outright angry that they
were expressing themselves like that.
And then I took a minute
before I responded,
thought to myself, I wonder why
they're so emotional about this?
And what can we do about it?
And I ended up, gettin'
on the phone with them,
and I said "Are you
trying to solve a problem
"or are you just trying to vent?"
Said, "Well, I'd like
to solve this problem,
"but I think it's too late,
"and as a result I'm very angry."
I said, "It's never too late,
"let's focus on solving the
problem, and then after that
"let's come back to how
you expressed yourself."
My advice would be, don't
just optimize for passion,
you have to optimize for
both passion and skill.
And for the entrepreneur, I would add
a third dimension, which is the market.
And if you can find the
convergence, the nexus
of those three elements,
your passion, your skill,
and the market, and you've got
the right timing, of course,
you know, anything's possible.
And for me, it's all
about knowing what it is
you ultimately want to accomplish.
- Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because
Jason Bruton asked me to,
so if there's a famous
entrepreneur that you
want me to profile next,
leave it in the comments below
and I'll see what I can do.
I'd also love to know
which of Jeff Weiners'
Top 10 Rules you liked the best
and most resonated with you.
Leave it in the comments below,
I'm going to join in the discussion.
Thank you guys so much for watching,
continue to believe,
and I'll see you soon.
(sweeping music)
