Linkedin Blog

We’ve hosted many of today’s business and philanthropic leaders at our “InDay” guest speaker series over the years. As a Marine Corps veteran myself, it was an honor to welcome General (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal to our offices in Mountain View last Friday.

After a storied 35+ year military career General McChrystal is now focused on helping American companies succeed in today’s challenging global economic climate. During his time with us General McChrystal shared his views of leadership, the challenges facing the US in today’s global economy, and his personal passion for helping veterans returning to civilian life (his passion for “no man left behind” burns brightly).  Many of the General’s experiences translate very closely to today’s business challenges:

A few weeks ago, you wouldn’t have placed Jeremy Lin on any list of the top people to learn from in business. (“Jeremy who?”) But now that he’s gone from New York Knicks benchwarmer to NBA behemoth, people — even, or maybe especially, business people — want to learn from him. No surprise: His success seems to offer so many lessons for those who believe they are being overlooked or who want to believe they could have a secret star on their staff.

Forbes’ Eric Jackson finds 10 Lin-sights (sorry!)  in the No. 3 most-shared story by LinkedIn’s 150 million members. Here’s the full list:

We often make changes to LinkedIn to improve the experience based on feedback from our members. Today, we’re introducing two changes to the Profile that may have an impact on your completeness score.

First, the Profile will put more emphasis on Skills and Expertise. This means you can showcase your areas of expertise to easily connect with people that have similar skills or with companies looking for subject matter experts.

There are a few things we used to expect from managers and no longer can, according to the most-shared stories by LinkedIn’s 150 million-plus members.

No. 1: Managers used to be able to motivate by giving raises. (Better to motivate through clear goals and consistency, says Inc.) No. 2: Managers used to be able to set the course and expect people to follow. (Don’t even try it with the social media generation, says the Harvard Business Review.) No. 3: Managers used to provide people with … chairs.