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As we we think about how much impact our products and initiatives can have, The Book of [YourCompany] offers a simple, powerful litmus test.
What is The Book of [YourCompany]?
Several great frameworks exist to estimate the impact of a new initiative and we’ve already Blueprinted two of our favourites, 
The Book of [YourCompany] is another Dan Shapero-inspired framework and serves as a qualitative sibling to the more quantitative Size of Prize.
This framework originated as “The Book of LinkedIn” roughly ten years ago when Dan pitched founding a new “Careers” R&D team to focus on transforming the way LinkedIn’s members could find jobs and accelerate their careers. Dan outlined how LinkedIn’s first decade had featured several critical chapters in what he coined “The Book of LinkedIn,” and proposed that investing in the Careers initiative would author a pivotal chapter in LinkedIn’s second decade.
Ever since then, I (James) have used this “The Book of LinkedIn” framing to consider the impact of projects I was working on and the products my teams were launching.
Most people reading this don’t work at LinkedIn, so The Book of [YourCompany] is using the reference point of your company - think The Book of OpenAI or The Book of Google etc. - and doing the following 10-second mental exercise:
Imagine that there’s a book written about your company in 2030 (or 2040). Now think about the major initiative you’re working on today. Is it going to be mentioned in the book at all? If so, is it going to be a tiny footnote? Or maybe a sentence or two? A paragraph? Perhaps a page or even two? Now, what would it take to warrant a Chapter?
We’re not suggesting everything we work on needs to be worthy of a chapter in the history book of our companies. However, by definition, some initiatives our company is working on right now will warrant a chapter, so why not work on something transformational?
When to Use The Book of [YourCompany]?
We can use The Book of [YourCompany] in various ways: individually or with teams, and to consider specific initiatives or more aggregated across all the initiatives we’re working on or even across quarters or even years. For example:
- Most simply, for a given initiative, we can ask ourselves how much ink we think it may warrant in our company's book. As we mentioned above, this doesn’t mean we all need to work on Chapter-worthy projects, but if they don’t even warrant a footnote, perhaps we can either change what we’re working on or expand our sights on the impact we can create.
- We can use it as a quick test as we think about promotion readyness or even compensation. Especially as we move from being Managers to Directors and from Directors to VPs and CXOs, the body of our work becomes more important. We can ask ourselves whether, across the past year or two, we/our teams have driven initiatives important enough to warrant being part of our company’s historical narrative. And if, for example, we’re expecting to receive large equity grants, our execs need to see us as proven and/or high potential performers; using The Book of [YourCompany] to test our impact works well. In addition, we can apply this to considering our team members’ impact as managers, too.
- We can use it to decide what teams to work on, including when joining new companies: perhaps we prefer to work on projects far from the focus of senior executives, but we’d bet that many people want to work in the center of the action, on what’s most important at a company. Calibrating potential teams using The Book of [YourCompany] is quick and easy. The framework is simple enough that we could even introduce it to others - e.g., to a senior executive at a company where we’ve received an offer - so we can then ask their perception of whether the team we’d be joining is poised for major impact.
- Finally, it’s a nice way to reflect on our tenure at a company that we’re leaving/have left: both of us spent a decade+ at LinkedIn, and while there’s no formal Book of LinkedIn, of course, we’re proud that several initiatives and teams we worked on over the years would warrant some ink here and there ;)
How do we use The Book of [Your Company]?
James:
I’ve found it helpful for thinking about products we’re building: it’s very easy to get into the minutiae of estimating the impact on a specific metric (often engagement or $$); The Book of [YourCompany] is a nice, easy way to take a more qualitative approach to the value we hope to see created.
Especially as we consider the history of our company, one feature is unlikely to warrant a Chapter in the book [unless it’s People You May Know or Address Book Import, two pivotal early features that propelled LinkedIn and were soon copied by every social network]. But a suite of features and capabilities built over several quarters or years could absolutely be integral to our company’s success. And, on the flip side, if that sustained amount of work isn’t adding up to something integral to our company’s success, it’s a good wake-up call for us.
John:
I like using this general approach for Performance Reviews. When I do my self-assessment, I like to think about every period (reviews often happen annually or semi-annually) as a chapter in my career story. What was the significance of this last chapter? What did I accomplish or learn? How do I want to story to play out in the next chapter? This helps frame both successes and failures as progress and helps me be intentional about the next play.
Interestingly, I’ve found that during interviews, I respond well to candidates who narrate their career with a storyline. “This happened, therefore I did this next.” It shows high agency and the ability to adapt and learn.
James:
The Book of [YourCompany] is a great way to motivate team members, whether we’re formally managing them or more informally mentoring them. It’s easy to ask, “How much ink do you think this warrants?” as a way to test whether people are thinking big enough. In my experience, people love to challenge themselves to envision what it would take to turn a footnote into a paragraph, for example.
And, as we progress to leading orgs, we can ask the same question about the entirety of what our team is achieving. If we lead hundreds of people and the joint contributions of our team are failing the The Book of [YourCompany] test, we need to lead them to a higher impact place by changing our team, our priorities, or both.
John:
Great point. I’m one week removed from our first global team summit in Boston where we brought the team together for training. Mike Derezin’s “Start with Why” was top of mind when I kicked off the session. It inspired me to think about the significance of the moment we are in as a company. What happens if we get this training right? We’ll look back at this event as a catalyst for a huge quarter which leads to a ground-breaking year, which leads to a category-winning movement and a career-defining job. If you always imagine you are on the verge of an inflection point, you’ll treat every moment with the importance it deserves.
Want to learn more?
WANT TO GO DEEPER ON RELATED FRAMEWORKS?
As we think about driving impact, The 11-Star Experience and the Priority Matrix are two of our favourites frameworks:
In addition, we love Mike Derezin’s two frameworks focused on ensuring that initiative that we will believe will have major impact do, in fact, have major impact:
Finally, since we like AI-created images as much as anybody - although ALL our Blueprint images are hand designed Mayhall Magic originals - here’s James’s DALL-E creation a little while back to showcase The Book of LinkedIn, the original inspiration for this Blueprint:
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