At LinkedIn: Supporting Hyper Growth Through Collaboration

The Context Of The Challenge

LinkedIn logo

Beginning in 2012, LinkedIn recognized it needed a framework to promote a collaborative culture across a quickly growing organization. They brought in SoDo Consulting to create a framework of common language, effective relationships, and improved time management to support their growth.

Building The Airplane While It's Being Flown

With growth comes accelerating deadlines, shifting demands, and strained resources. Having a structured way to reduce friction and increase productivity speeds up the resolution of these issues. Based on decades of experience working with technology innovators, SoDo Consulting ultimately recommended Insights® Discovery. By connecting more than 5500 LinkedIn team members with the common language of Insights, SoDo Consulting enabled LinkedIn to focus on their platform as SoDo focused on training.

Case study fact

One reason SoDo chose Insights Discovery for LinkedIn was its inclusion of 32 of global languages. SoDo thereby created levels of fluid team collaboration by connecting employees from locations around the globe.  When SoDo Consulting brought Insights to LinkedIn’s Latin American headquarters, almost every employee chose to learn it in Portuguese. Implementing Insights with a foundation of cultural competence allowed the Latin American office to seamlessly plug into the global organization and contribute their talents to support it.

An Experiment That Evolved Into A Partnership

What started as a single pilot session with the CFO of Linkedin turned into over six years of expansion of Insights throughout the global organization. SoDo Consulting’s efficient rollout of the common language of Insights built a firm foundation that LinkedIn could rely on in their continued growth as an organization.

"We appreciate SoDo's partnership and support and flexibility as we morphed and changed. One thing that remains constant is that this program continues to be one of the most successful aspects of L&D here at LinkedIn and something that is constantly referred to as a key both from an organizational/systemic level by our execs and a tactical/day-to-day level by the managers who have taken it. That’s a reflection of you and what you’ve been able to create here." ~ Jeremy Stover, LinkedIn

In an interview on an episode of The Career Cue's podcast, SoDo Consulting founder Amy Brown describes her experience facilitating the personal homepage activity for LinkedIn. This is a process that allows team members to see each other in a different light and connect on a deeper level. Participants share significant events, pivotal moments and personal values. In doing so, they tell their story, which builds trust, creates connection, and fosters self-understanding.