Decisions reveal culture
In the early years of LinkedIn, when the company was making a conscious shift from being a scrappy start-up to a legitimate multinational, CEO Jeff Weiner faced a moment of truth. A blue chip financial services firm put a highly compelling offer on the table, proposing a partnership model that could address an emerging market need. The timing was perfect, they said, to capture this opportunity through a combination of their customer information and LinkedIn's rapidly-growing member data.
Think about how tempting this must have been for Weiner, whose overarching mandate was to stand up new lines of business and build a sustainable customer base from scratch. Imagine how much more efficiently he could have done so with a channel partner whose brand was impeccable and globally established.
And yet he declined the offer as a matter of principle.
Two principles in particular made this a straightforward 'no thank you'. First and foremost was LinkedIn's cardinal commitment to Members First. Any decision that compromised the sanctity of member privacy would undermine trust — perhaps not immediately, but certainly over time.
Second, Weiner was deeply animated by LinkedIn's vision of creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. As attractive as the partnership financials seemed, they paled in comparison to the longer-term realization of LinkedIn's vision. To Weiner, that was the appropriate frame of reference.
Decisions, at least the big ones, reveal the truth about company culture. They clarify what matters most.
"Culture" has unfortunately become a slippery, even slightly suspicious, term. It's often associated with performative posturing and tedious jargon. Frank Slootman's definition is perhaps the most concrete: "a pattern of behaviors, beliefs, norms, and values of a workplace community."
Big decisions expose such patterns. Top-down and capricious decisions signal a culture of fear and intimidation. Transparent and collaborative decisions reveal a culture of courtesy and respect. Principles-based decisions are a sign the company knows what it stands for.
This can be a powerful prism through which to understand what you and those around you implicitly value.