LinkedIn founder and triple billionaire Reid Hoffman has two endearing mannerisms that reveal the way he sees--and reasons with--the strategic environment. First, he peppers his statements with the word so. Almost a verbal tic that would grate on a speaking coach like the overuse of the dreaded uh ... but he uses it more like therefore. That is, he lays out a logical flow for you as he explains his experience. "This happens, so... that happens, so... this happens... and so on." Really, he is a great communicator of ideas and how they interconnect. 

Second, his hand gestures often seem to indicate the existence of an invisible chess board upon which he lays the moving pieces. In a recent interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, Hoffman laid out the pieces of a global enterprise that can become impedimenta dragging down efforts toward a massive scale-up of a business... hiring, management, international coordination, customer support. As Hoffman brought each element of the strategic environment to mind he gestured at the table between himself and Zakaria, as if he were placing chess pieces on a strategic board.

Every chess player understands the importance of controlling the central four squares of the board early in the game. Once in control of the center, a player simply has far more options than the opponent. True to the chess metaphor, Hoffman advises those with bright, active minds and high ambitions to attend to the importance of connecting oneself to the "central nodes" of human networks (such as LinkedIn). He recommends that we do whatever it takes to meet interesting people and find a position near the core of the network. 

Hoffman told Zakaria a story from his own seminal days at Apple... his first job. Realizing that his job as a user experience designer was not close to the real center of things, he "volunteered" himself to work in Product Development. He told managers there that he had ideas for products, would work through his ideas on the side, and asked only for instruction and feedback in return. In today's only slightly more mature and structured corporate environments, Hoffman suggests internships and job rotations as ways of getting connected to the central players. LinkedIn, of course, is a great way to find connections in any network of minds, internal or external. 

Hoffman's upcoming book will explore the historic blitzkrieg as a metaphor for the way Silicon Valley startups can swoop in and scale up sans infrastructure like an attacking army outrunning its supply chain. But much of the advice Hoffman shared with Zakaria conjures up a different historical stratagem: Napoleon's priority of exploiting the strategic center.

In what was called the “Strategy of the Central Position,” Napoleon placed his men between two armies, often by identifying a weak position in which to penetrate between the two. He then assigned a relatively small portion of his army to “hold” one army at bay, while he used his best forces to defeat the other army “in detail.” Subsequently, he would turn the other way and defeat the remaining opponent, now with all his forces available. 

On a grander scale--where companies, not individuals, make up the competitive environment--the strategic advantage of the central position is just as clear. Hoffman emphasizes the central position that software and digital information processes will play in all the mega-industries that will continue to grow. Again, Hoffman emphasizes the importance of the central node in the battlescape of industries. For example, the intersection of IT with more traditional industries like taxi services and lodging has resulted in Uber and AirBnB. In the future, massive amounts of "human index data" will help us navigate the worlds of education, entertainment and health just as WAZE helps us navigate the road and highway network. Finding your way to the intersection between one industry and another can be the path to the sweet spot... the central position.

Finding the Central Position

So... What to do? Here are four takeaways from Reid Hoffman's advice:

  1. Understand that on today's career chessboard, it is work-creation, not job-creation, that matters. More and more people are entrepreneurs working in a networked world. As Hoffman suggests, put yourself in the middle of interesting information flows and among creative people. The success of LinkedIn points to the importance of networking. As Hoffman says, it is the "nature of the age."
  2. Think of the networks and ecosystems such as LinkedIn as your chessboard. To excel in a human network you must build an intuitive understanding of what is going on in your industry at the edges of intersection with other industries. Biographers of Napoleon Bonaparte talk about his ability to size up a strategic situation with a single coup d'oeil, (pronounced koo-DOY, meaning “a stroke of the eye” or “glance"). Napoleon was so knowledgeable about his strategic situation—the landscape, the enemy, available technology, similar situations from the past—that he could understand and respond quickly to ever-changing circumstances. The "central position" was always obvious to him, 
  3. Leverage LinkedIn for Business Intelligence. Use connections and their articles and posts to learn what is going on in your strategic environment. Who are the "players" now occupying the central position and what are they doing right? Where do gaps and weaknesses exist in the competitive environment?
  4. Consider your personal brand and how you will differentiate yourself in these grand  networks. Hoffman advises people to "Find your break-in strategy." 

The key to success in today's highly networked world is to decide your next move carefully. As Sun Tzu says “weigh the situation, then move.”

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