The New World of Work: Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn CEO

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0:55Welcome to the brand new season of HBR's The New World of Work. I'm Adi Ignatius, Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Business Review. And each week on the show, I interview a top CEO to talk about how their company is handling its biggest challenges, from finding and retaining talent, to responding to economic uncertainty, to coping with hybrid work. We have a great guest this week, but before I introduce him, I'd like to read a word from Unisys, who sponsors the New World of Work. The way you see the world depends on how you look at it. Where some see barriers, others see breakthroughs. Unisys creates technology solutions so that you can see one breakthrough lead to another.

1:33Unisys, keep breaking through. All right, so our guest this week is Ryan Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn, the very platform that many of you are watching us on right now. Ryan has been at LinkedIn for more than 13 years, serving for a decade as chief product officer before becoming CEO about two and a half years ago. He leads a platform that now has 875 million members in more than 200 countries worldwide. Now, we usually do this show completely live, But for scheduling reasons, we had to pre-tape this one a few days ago as both Ryan and I had to travel. I'm actually broadcasting live right now from London, where HBR is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

2:15So now we're going to go to the tape. And so here in its entirety is my discussion with Ryan Ruslansky, CEO of LinkedIn, just a few days ago. So, Ryan, welcome to the new world of work. Hi, Adi. Thanks for having me. Yeah, no, I really appreciate your being here. Let's just leap right in. I mean, one of the questions I like to ask everybody is, how did you become this person? You know, tell us a little bit about your background and maybe, you know, one or two pivotal moments that led you to be becoming now CEO of one of the most important social networks in the world. Yeah, well, again, Adi, thanks for having me.

2:52I'm a huge fan of the program. And it is a true honor to be the CEO of LinkedIn, especially through what's a pretty pivotal time in the world of work. I don't know if there's one or two moments that I'd point to, but I would probably point to three things that have got me here. Number one is luck. I was born at the right time to the right set of parents that were loving and caring and taught me the value of work and set me up with a great education. So that was number one. Number two is also luck. I was lucky to be, you know, a freshman in college in 1996 when the internet was just starting to get going and meet a couple of people who, you know, together we started a company, taught myself how to code, and just was lucky to kind of be in that place at that time and really learn about the internet and learn about technology.

4:01And then number three is actually luck as well. So I was lucky that as a junior product manager a long time ago at Yahoo, I had the opportunity to work and meet a gentleman by the name of Jeff Weiner, who would go on to become the CEO of LinkedIn. I came with him as his first employee. And there's been a lot of hard work and choices along the way. But when you take a big step back on all of it. You know, I think luck, luck and luck were pretty pivotal to getting me to the position that I'm in today. So that's our first takeaway for our viewers. Just sit back and get lucky. No, but that's, you're being very modest and obviously you created opportunity.

4:41Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer.

5:18Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. opportunities where then luck could work your way. So that's great. I know you talk a lot about culture and values at LinkedIn. I'd love to know, though, what does that mean to you, actually, in terms of running a successful business? We all use those words. We know they're important, but what does it really mean to you? Yeah, I mean, it's a hot topic right now. And let me share why I think it's a hot topic, rightfully so. Take a look at what's happened over the last couple of years through the pandemic every company was thrown into this need to really rethink how the company works do we work remotely do we work hybrid um you know vaccines no vaccines time off in office uh etc and what everyone's actually doing when you're rethinking how your company works is you're rethinking your culture and your values that's what led to uh a thing that we call the great talent reshuffle over the past couple of years is, you know, not only companies are rethinking how they work, but employees are thinking about, you know, not only why they work or where they work, but how they work in general.

6:30For us, we define culture as the collective personality of our organization. It's who we are, but more importantly, it's who we aspire to be. Every organization has a personality, and it's really important, at least in my belief to define what that culture and what those values should be at your company in order to help this foundation be strong to make the right decisions on top of it and i think a lot of companies right now are just rightfully so as they go through uh this great reshuffle in this new world of work redefining what it means to work at their company redefining the values that are needed to make decisions, redefining how they want to work.

7:15And I led the company about a year ago through an exercise to rethink or to enhance our culture and values. And I have to tell you, it was a really difficult exercise for me. I've been at the company for over 13 years. Culture and values are embedded in everything that we do. It was the only culture and values that I'd ever known, but we found that it was a very valuable exercise because some of the culture and values and the words that we use, they were antiquated in the new world of work. So we took a very principled approach, a very thoughtful process involved the entire company in rethinking what's important to us as a company.

7:55Who are we? Who do we aspire to be? And we made a couple of changes and enhancements to our set of culture and values. And I think it's really benefited us well because every day there's roughly 20 ,000 employees at LinkedIn. People need to make decisions, and you have to come back to something common, a common framework upon which to make those decisions. And I feel great about the culture and values that we've laid out that's going to help us move into the future right now. And I know a lot of companies are doing the same also. So you're talking about what you are. Then how important is where you are?

8:26How important is it that people are present to kind of establish and build on these kind of cultural definitions and values? So the where is interesting. And the where is, you know, I don't care who you are or, you know, where you're leading right now in the world. This is the question that everyone is asking themselves. So this is where culture and values is really important. When you make a tough decision, like where should our company work, you don't want it to be some subjective thing. You want it to be built on top of a foundation. So one of our values is we trust and care about each other.

9:05Because that's the value in terms of how we make decisions in the company, we got to a position of where we work that's based on that trust and that care. We trust each other to work where it works best for us and our teams. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto.

9:52Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. That's our hybrid work policy. I'm not your dad. I'm not your babysitter. I trust you to get your job done based on where it works best for you. And we've seen a lot of success. You know, our offices are open. A lot of employees come into the office. We have the great tools that help collaboration and video conferencing make it easy. but we found that we can be successful as a company, you know, based on that work policy.

10:34Again, and it's rooted in our values. It doesn't work for every company, but based on who we are and who we aspire to be, that's how we operate LinkedIn. So that's pretty similar, I think, to what we're doing at Harvard Business Review, and it's all about flexibility. But, you know, there are plenty of companies, as you suggested, who, you know, they don't buy that. And there's still a fear that if workers aren't kind of there and present, that somehow they won't be giving their all. What would be your advice to people who are thinking that way? Well, I mean, first and foremost, I really go back to culture and values.

11:10And there's not a right or wrong way. It's the type of company you want to run, the type of company you want to be. And that work style has to fit that. But I will tell you something fascinating. I was recently in London with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and we were discussing with companies in London this really fascinating dynamic that came out of Microsoft data. 87 % of employees report that they are productive at work in a hybrid work environment right now. Yet 85 % of managers believe that their employees are not being productive. And it's what Satya coined as productivity paranoia. And I think what's really going on there is when everyone was in the office years ago, the job of a manager, you know, you'd walk around.

12:03That's how you'd see if someone was, you know, productive or getting work done or being in the office. So a lot of the role of the manager was just to make sure that you're there, to make sure that you're physically present. And we moved to a hybrid world that requires a much different management and leadership style, I actually think there's a lot of new pressure and learning and a different way of thinking that has to go upon managers in this time where you can't just focus on someone being in the office. You can't ground yourself in physical presence being whether or not someone is being productive and effective.

12:44It has to be based on whether or not someone is being effective at the job. So that requires number one, ensuring that if you're a manager, you're very clear, you have clarity on what a role entails. Why do I have this role to begin with? And what's required for the person in this role to be successful? And then ultimately, you need to focus on outcomes. You focus on whether or not that person is being successful in the role as it's been laid out, versus whether or not they are in or out of the office. And we're going through this process at LinkedIn to help managers understand this and train managers on it.

13:19It's not an easy transition for anyone, but I think in order to be successful in a hybrid world, it's really all about managers and leaders thinking differently about their role and really based on, you know, success based on outcomes instead of time in office. So that's interesting. So beyond managing the kind of a hybrid question. This seems like a tough time to be a leader. You know, you've got recession looming, maybe you have inflation, definitely political uncertainty. It feels like wave after wave of kind of social upheaval. What is it, you know, what does it take to be a successful business leader now, you know, in this, in this complex context?

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14:42Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. And you can't only be a leader when the sun is shining, and the sun is definitely not, you know, shining these days. So I think the key, it's really about, you know, uncertainty. Yes, it's challenging, but I think the right leaders that are going to really be above in all of this are the ones that see this as an opportunity. People who get good at managing through the cycles, they understand that they're playing in the right markets. They understand where to set themselves up for success.

15:20And it's a phrase I've been using around adaptive leadership. you can be adaptive or you can be reactive i mean you know trust me on a daily basis there are 10 new decisions that you have to make right now as a ceo that you never have had to make before in your life and no one's had to make them before and so the question is do you try and get ahead of it in an adaptive way or do you let it happen to you so you know i think adaptive leadership is really rooted in three things number one you can decide to play up or play down um you know a lot of people when something bad happens they play down they play to the lowest common denominator i think adaptive leaders they play up um they play to win uh they stay positive and though the plays may be different they understand that they have to be running different plays i think reactive leaders you know they're aggressively cycling between playing to win or hunkering down and not really playing up but getting pulled down and i think that that's the wrong way to do it.

16:21I think adaptive leaders see these cycles as an opportunity. There's always an opportunity in some of this, especially as there's uncertainty and things are moving around versus change as some kind of tax or a burden to be dealt with. I think last but not least, it's just constantly pivoting. Adaptive leaders constantly pivot. They iterate, they adjust. Instead of, I think reactive leaders, they over rotate and they thrash. And, you know, in general, it's not easy. It's human nature to get, you know, kind of pulled into the cycle. But the more that you can stay adaptive, I think the better folks are going to be.

17:01And one of the most important areas where I think right now that we see across the global labor market, where more adaptive thinking and leadership is needed, is around what I've been calling a skills first mentality. I think companies that focus on skills as the currency, companies that shift away from, you know, more antiquated signals like, you know, only degree or pedigree or where someone worked will help ensure that the right people can be in the right roles with the right skills doing the best work. I think it's going to create a much more efficient, a much more equitable labor market, which then creates better opportunity for all.

17:39But that's part of that adaptive mindset shift as well. Well, let's talk about skills. I mean, as we're in this new world of work and what is, what's your advice? What are the skills that people should be developing if they're trying to succeed in the new world of workplace? Yeah, I mean, be it because of COVID or digital transformation or looking at kind of what's going on in the AI space right now, a fourth industrial revolution, what's really happening, and again, I think at LinkedIn we have really great data to see the shifts happening, but roles are being created and displaced at truly a record pace right now.

18:17So whatever your role, whatever your company, whatever your industry, you need to keep up with these really quick and big changes that are going on. And even if you aren't changing your job, your job is most likely changing on you. So for far too long, we've used degrees. Oh, this person went to this great school, so they must be good. Or a previous company, This person, you know, worked at this great company, so they must know what they're doing or networks. I know someone that knows this person. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self.

18:58What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling, smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. And so they must be great at it. So, you know, we didn't have anything better to do to assess talent.

19:34But when the labor market is moving much quicker, we really need to figure out something to focus on. And I think that alternative, flexible, accessible path is really going to be based on skills. And it's not just actually about new entrance to the job market. One of the things we've been looking at recently in the LinkedIn data is the fact that if you take the same role from 2015 to 2022 that existed in the world, roughly 25 % of the skills that are required for that role have changed. It's pretty obvious that a lot of those are technical skills that are now needed. A lot is moving kind of into the digital space, but that is moving.

20:15And coming out of the pandemic, there's one really fascinating anecdote that I saw in the data to show why this could be more valuable for the world. So when the pandemic hit on LinkedIn, we saw a ton of food service workers out of work. And that makes sense. Restaurants are closing, no one's going in, no one's going out to eat, except you have this huge pool of people that are out of work. On the flip side, the most in-demand roles that we saw get created as the pandemic kicked off were digital customer service roles. That makes a lot of sense. You know, things are moving more digital, people need customer service in their companies, so they have to like ramp up on customer service agents inside of those roles.

21:02Now what's fascinating is if you took the average food service worker in that period, they had 70 % of the skills that are needed to be an entry-level customer service agent. However, what happened is a lot of these food service workers went unemployed and stayed unemployed and a lot of these customer service jobs went unfilled because there wasn't enough talent to fill them if we had just taken a view on what are the skills necessary who has those skills how can we help them acquire a couple of skills to help them become employed we would have found ourselves in a much more efficient labor market you take a big step back that dynamic is happening across every industry job function geography etc where there's this labor imbalance if you were to focus more on skills, it'd be much more productive and efficient.

21:53Yeah, interesting. So then there's the question of retaining talent. You know, you're in a, I assume, a very competitive market. You're basically a tech company. You're out in Silicon Valley and competing against other giants trying to retain top kind of engineer talent. What's your secret or what's your playbook for retaining the best people? Yeah, you know, I don't have any secrets except going back to where we started this conversation. The key for me is being intentional and authentic about our vision, which is our why, and our culture and values, which is our how. And you attract and retain people who are inspired by why we do things and what we do.

22:35I think that's the key to all of this, which is you want to align people with what you do as a company to have the most productive workforce, to have the most retention. People believe in what you're doing as a company. They will stay longer. So my role is to try and bring together the most talented set of individuals possible who care about building LinkedIn, care about building a platform that exists to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. I think something that is important right now more than ever as well is just understanding that inside of your company, it's really important to help people find their next career and their career path.

23:19So internal mobility is just a really big topic for us right now. I truly believe that your next best employee is most likely your current employee in many situations. And again, this is a reason why if you focus on skills and understand the skills of your existing workforce and then where you need to go as a company, there's just a lot of great work that can be done there to help existing employees find different roles inside of your company as long as they're aligned to the mission and vision. So I want to talk about LinkedIn a little bit. And I guess my first question is, what is LinkedIn at this point?

23:54I mean, is it a social network? Is it a job search platform? Is it a professional self-branding app? I mean, what is LinkedIn? So LinkedIn is a platform that exists to create opportunity for every member of the global workforce. And I know that sounds like a tagline, but that is actually the vision of the company. It's what we aspire to every day. We believe that the really valuable way to get there, I know you've spoken to Reid Hoffman in the past, who's the founder of LinkedIn along with Alan Blue, is that we can help people become more productive and successful via other people. You can learn from other people, you can hire with other people, you can help sell or buy with other people, you can help connect and start coming to other people.

24:41So how do we create at the core, a platform that helps professionals show who they are and connect for a variety of purposes. And, you know, if we just were on a fiscal calendar as of Q1 FY23, which we just ended, our trailing 12-month revenue surpassed$14 billion, which is up roughly 17 % year over year, which is a great testament, especially in this market, to how mission-critical the platform has become to help professionals for all of those use cases. I mean, right now, every single minute on LinkedIn, more than 9 ,000 connections were formed, Nearly 10 hires are made, more than 100 hours of learning content are consumed.

25:23And, you know, we have a diverse set of business models throughout those different, you know, marketplaces of connecting people that align to really help companies find value and members find value. And what's valuable, and what's interesting about that is, and what I think is probably one of our core competitive advantages is, I think right now, especially, you know, in 2022, in the world of work that we see, I think companies that are naturally aligned with doing good and doing well, they have massive competitive advantages built in. So for companies that start just by focusing on doing well in business, doing good for the world becomes a compromise.

26:08It's the last slide of a PowerPoint presentation or it's the creation of a.org website. But when you can seamlessly unify doing good for the world and doing well in business inside of the product you build, I think it's a real strong competitive advantage. And when we build products at LinkedIn, people find jobs, they hire, they learn skills, they make deals, they start companies. It's an ecosystem that creates value for members, customers, the world, and for LinkedIn. So I'm very proud of kind of that ethos and world that we occupy right now in the world. So before the interview, you know, we usually do these live and weren't able to do this one live.

26:47But before the interview, we announced that we were going to do it and solicited some questions. I have a question from Eileen from Palo Alto. And the question is, you know, can you talk about any long-term plans you may have to make LinkedIn more work-friendly? So, for example, you know, could users use LinkedIn for video calls, you know, share their screens with business presentations and negotiations or anything else? Are there thoughts to make, you know, it more of the sort of the flow of work platform? Yeah, you know, I mean, for a variety of professionals, it is in their flow of work. So absolutely for recruiters, for L &D professionals, for marketers, for sellers, you know, LinkedIn is a tool that people have open on a daily basis.

27:31As it relates to general collaboration, to general communication, we are very fortunate to be part of, you know, Microsoft. And, you know, I think that Microsoft has the best in breed tools through Teams and through Office, et cetera, to help people do that kind of general communication and collaboration. We want to help through our products, whatever we can to make those products more valuable. But that's really for Microsoft Inc. the focus in terms of what we do. For LinkedIn specifically, you know, in order for the world of work to move forward, in order for labor markets to grow and continue, there's really three, in my opinion, three key things that are critical to get right.