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Perspective 13
LinkedIn the Work It Out Way
For goodness sake, stop promoting and selling!
For a long time, LinkedIn was the place where we tried to look professional. We polished our profiles, listed our achievements, and made sure we used the right buzzwords. Then we started pushing content, trying to be visible, trying to get noticed or trying to get a better or new job. And then came the messages. The cold approaches. The automated follow-ups. Suddenly, the whole place now feels less like a community and more like a marketplace with everyone shouting over each other.
But something is shifting. People are tired of being pitched at. They’re tired of the noise. I think what many of us are looking for now is something more real, like a connection with a like-minded person, a kind voice, or a genuine conversation with someone who has the same concerns we do. I think we are looking to shift out of the isolated prospecting mode into the friendship mode. It’s fun here with new learning, joint discovery and no pressure or hidden agenda.
This is where the Work It Out Way gives us a different path forward. It invites us to stop thinking about LinkedIn as a tool for business and to start seeing it as a space for linking up with the right people. It’s a space to show up, as we are. Think of it as a place to begin (or extend) our community, rather than a prospect database.
So how do we do that? We start by rethinking how we position ourselves. Our role on LinkedIn isn’t to sell or impress. It’s to show up with kindness. It’s to be someone that others want to chat with or to be a gentle voice in someone’s noisy day. We can talk about what we do, of course but we do it through the lens of why we care, what we’re learning, and how we’re trying to help others. We are clear about our motives. We’re here to build a kinder world where we all look after everyone.
This then changes how we write our About section, too. Instead of a list of qualifications or achievements, it becomes a quiet introduction. It’s a friendly “hello.” It might be a short personal story about why we do the work we do. It might include a few lines about the people we love to work with, and why. It might talk about what we care about most, our pet project or the challenge we are working through. And maybe even a little invitation: “If you’re figuring things out too, I’d love to hear your story.”
And when it comes to posting, we forget about reach and engagement. We focus on starting conversations. We ask honest questions. We share quiet insights. We speak from the heart. We give our personal perspective. We show up as we are and you never know who we will bump into.
We don’t need to produce 100 posts on AI content calendars and auto posting. We just need to be present, to show up in small, honest ways, to speak when we have something to share, and to see who is speaking to us.
We stop thinking of LinkedIn as a prospecting machine or a step in a funnel and start looking out over the water. For LinkedIn is a lake where we can create ripples rather than build pipelines. We can applaud the integrity and commitment of those who are a positive force for good in our world. We engage with posts or comments with friendship and encouragement, as if we were meeting in that ‘Global Café of Collaboration’. We feel aligned not just connected.
And in our direct messages, we must resist the old pressure to sell. We use messages to reach out, to say thanks or to acknowledge. A simple: ‘I appreciated your post today’ or ‘I really like your comment about’ or ‘thanks for sharing your ideas’, is enough in itself. We are not responding to get something or to try and build a relationship.
We start by recognising and acknowledging the other person. They have shown up for us.
This isn’t a strategy. It’s a way of being. It’s showing up with kindness and gentleness in a space where many people seem to be trying to look important and want us to buy their service. We seem to get lots of ‘glossy versions’ of people on LinkedIn and yet it’s only part of their story. This is not being authentic. It’s playing the ABC game of algorithms, bots and clicks to get attention.
On the other hand, we need to recognise that some people may be lonely, struggling or their own, or battling with a family or personal situation. Our task is often simply to be there, to respond, to reach out, to share our story, and to offer encouragement and friendship.
The LinkedIn Work it Out Way is a global partnership for good and a place of discovery that sparks creativity and collaboration. We don’t need LinkedIn to promote ourselves. We can use LinkedIn to help us to build the kind of world and business that we actually want to be part of. And we do it one post, one comment and one message, at a time.
For a long time, LinkedIn was the place where we tried to look professional. We polished our profiles, listed our achievements, and made sure we used the right buzzwords. Then we started pushing content, trying to be visible, trying to get noticed or trying to get a better or new job. And then came the messages. The cold approaches. The automated follow-ups. Suddenly, the whole place now feels less like a community and more like a marketplace with everyone shouting over each other.
But something is shifting. People are tired of being pitched at. They’re tired of the noise. I think what many of us are looking for now is something more real, like a connection with a like-minded person, a kind voice, or a genuine conversation with someone who has the same concerns we do. I think we are looking to shift out of the isolated prospecting mode into the friendship mode. It’s fun here with new learning, joint discovery and no pressure or hidden agenda.
This is where the Work It Out Way gives us a different path forward. It invites us to stop thinking about LinkedIn as a tool for business and to start seeing it as a space for linking up with the right people. It’s a space to show up, as we are. Think of it as a place to begin (or extend) our community, rather than a prospect database.
So how do we do that? We start by rethinking how we position ourselves. Our role on LinkedIn isn’t to sell or impress. It’s to show up with kindness. It’s to be someone that others want to chat with or to be a gentle voice in someone’s noisy day. We can talk about what we do, of course but we do it through the lens of why we care, what we’re learning, and how we’re trying to help others. We are clear about our motives. We’re here to build a kinder world where we all look after everyone.
This then changes how we write our About section, too. Instead of a list of qualifications or achievements, it becomes a quiet introduction. It’s a friendly “hello.” It might be a short personal story about why we do the work we do. It might include a few lines about the people we love to work with, and why. It might talk about what we care about most, our pet project or the challenge we are working through. And maybe even a little invitation: “If you’re figuring things out too, I’d love to hear your story.”
And when it comes to posting, we forget about reach and engagement. We focus on starting conversations. We ask honest questions. We share quiet insights. We speak from the heart. We give our personal perspective. We show up as we are and you never know who we will bump into.
We don’t need to produce 100 posts on AI content calendars and auto posting. We just need to be present, to show up in small, honest ways, to speak when we have something to share, and to see who is speaking to us.
We stop thinking of LinkedIn as a prospecting machine or a step in a funnel and start looking out over the water. For LinkedIn is a lake where we can create ripples rather than build pipelines. We can applaud the integrity and commitment of those who are a positive force for good in our world. We engage with posts or comments with friendship and encouragement, as if we were meeting in that ‘Global Café of Collaboration’. We feel aligned not just connected.
And in our direct messages, we must resist the old pressure to sell. We use messages to reach out, to say thanks or to acknowledge. A simple: ‘I appreciated your post today’ or ‘I really like your comment about’ or ‘thanks for sharing your ideas’, is enough in itself. We are not responding to get something or to try and build a relationship.
We start by recognising and acknowledging the other person. They have shown up for us.
This isn’t a strategy. It’s a way of being. It’s showing up with kindness and gentleness in a space where many people seem to be trying to look important and want us to buy their service. We seem to get lots of ‘glossy versions’ of people on LinkedIn and yet it’s only part of their story. This is not being authentic. It’s playing the ABC game of algorithms, bots and clicks to get attention.
On the other hand, we need to recognise that some people may be lonely, struggling or their own, or battling with a family or personal situation. Our task is often simply to be there, to respond, to reach out, to share our story, and to offer encouragement and friendship.
The LinkedIn Work it Out Way is a global partnership for good and a place of discovery that sparks creativity and collaboration. We don’t need LinkedIn to promote ourselves. We can use LinkedIn to help us to build the kind of world and business that we actually want to be part of. And we do it one post, one comment and one message, at a time.
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Work it Out! is part of Diversiton and is non profit making.
Copyright © Diversiton 2003-2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Copyright © Diversiton 2003-2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.