How diverse minds build stronger creative teams (with Gina Wolf from LinkedIn)

What happens when you take a global team of strategists and turn them into a creative studio overnight? Gina Wolf, global director of BrandWorks Creative Studio at LinkedIn, joins Nathan Friedman to talk about leading through that transformation and creating space for different communication and working styles. 

Gina discusses authentic leadership and shares an exercise that helped her global team navigate different styles of conflict, collaboration, and processing time, including insights from neurodivergent teammates that changed how she leads. She and Nathan also dig into how AI is accelerating upskilling, reshaping creative workflows, and giving more voices a seat at the table.

Nathan Friedman: Welcome to "Minds at Work", the podcast for leaders who embrace neurodiversity in business. I'm your host, Nathan Friedman, co-president and chief marketing officer of Understood.org, the leading nonprofit focused on helping those who learn and think differently thrive.

Each week, we're here exploring how neurodiversity sparks innovation and how we as leaders across industries can relate to a more inclusive future for all. Today, I'm excited to be talking with Gina Wolf. Gina is the head of global content strategy at LinkedIn. There, she leads a team working with top companies worldwide to develop data-driven campaigns and to strengthen how they engage audiences on that platform.

In this conversation, we'll be talking about the power of authenticity and inclusion for brand development and growth, as well as for making us better leaders. And we'd be remiss if we didn't also touch on this little thing called AI. Gina, welcome to "Minds at Work".

Gina Wolf: Thank you so much for having me, Nathan. It's great to be here.

Nathan: It's great to connect with you again. For those listeners who probably don't know, Gina and I go back a few years to previous lives.

Gina: Just a few.

Nathan: Just a couple. But before we dive deep into this conversation, I'd love to know what you've been up to and tell us a bit more about yourself and the work you do.

Gina: Sure. I've been at LinkedIn for a little over 10 years at this point, and both the platform and myself as a leader have evolved significantly in that time. It's interesting because I was recently at Cannes with you and sat down and had the opportunity to chat with a few customers.

One of them started off by saying to me, "So, LinkedIn and creativity? I'm just not buying it." And I said, "You know, that's fair if you had maybe been looking at the platform a few years back. But today, I think the platform looks, feels, and operates significantly differently and has really embraced content and creative in ways that perhaps none of us would have expected."

Today, video in particular is the top medium that people use to engage with content on the platform. That's one of the core areas where my team helps our customers to show up more effectively. Most recently, we've evolved with our advertising business into a full-on creative studio.

My team is part of a newly formed organization called BrandWorks, and BrandWorks exists to help our customers take advantage of all that LinkedIn has to offer for the moments that matter to them.

Nathan: People are now viewing LinkedIn as more and more of a creative outlet to articulate their message. Can you talk a bit about creativity in terms of how you view it personally and how that translates to LinkedIn's view of creativity?

Gina: Absolutely. I think creativity is more important than ever. As I look at LinkedIn as a platform, it's pretty different from other platforms in the sense that people come to LinkedIn with a particular purpose in mind. It isn't just to waste time. People come here to learn something or to inform a decision that they're making for their own organization or for their boss.

Or they come to make a decision like changing a job that could impact their entire life. So the responsibility of customers and members to provide value in what they're saying is enormous if you think about the fact that on the end of what you're publishing or saying is a person who's just trying to do something to help themselves in some way.

I think with today's advent of AI in creative in particular, and the fact that content generation is easier than ever for anybody, that quality and creativity are what drive attention.

Nathan: And I think part of it is around authenticity as well. You want to engage people authentically. I know you and LinkedIn talk a lot about the importance of leaders being not only visible, but doing it authentically to them, authentically to how the company, a product, or whatever they're trying to do relates to their stakeholders. Can you share more about that, about what LinkedIn's doing around authenticity, ensuring that's being possible and why authenticity is a cornerstone for you all?

Gina: I think the first thing I'll say is that as a platform, we're trying to make it easier than ever for people to show up as themselves and share a perspective, a point of view, whatever it might be. And that's through a lot of the tools that have been built directly into the platform — so when you go to the platform and you want to post something, it's easier than ever to do that as a video, to do that in a way that AI can help you to craft a message.

I know a lot of leaders who are not yet comfortable with video and some who have simply embraced it from day one. Wherever you are on that spectrum of comfort with putting yourself out there is fine. I think the whole point, though, is to show up as yourself, to not be afraid to express your opinion or perspective on something.

The reality is, whatever it might be, we're all learning and we're all coming at this from the best of intentions to help each other. That might sound naive in some way. I don't care. I believe that. I really do. And I think from the more professionals and executives that I talk to, the more folks are not afraid to express a little vulnerability and to also help others along that path, whatever it might be.

Nathan: For me, when I see LinkedIn, I think of it as a bit more broader than just what I do at work. There's a bit of expansion around that in a somewhat blurring of personal and professional. I talk about neurodivergence and how I'm neurodivergent on LinkedIn. And it's about learning, sharing your learnings with others so others can learn. It might be a point of view, it might be something that you discovered throughout your career. It's great to engage with different people and share that.

07:13 Gina explains the "Culture Map" exercise used to help her global team communicate effectively during major changes.

Nathan: In your role or within your team, how do you think about different types of audiences or how do you advise on doing that? Whether it's different genders, different age groups, neurotypes — what are your thoughts there?

Gina: One of the things that has been a constant through my time at LinkedIn is change. Recently, in particular, we have gone through an incredible evolution as a team from more of a strategist role in content into a full-on creative studio role. During that transition, teammates have had to embrace change, show up differently, communicate differently.

One of the things that we did as a team in preparation for a lot of the transition that we were going to be coming up against was an exercise called "Culture Map", where we spent a lot of time reading the book "Culture Map" and going through some of the exercises to uncover how different people on my global team communicate, how they address conflict, how they like to collaborate.

All of these things enabled us to ensure that as we were going through a variety of different transitions, we were meeting people where they are and helping them along the change curve in a way that would ensure that they were successful at the end. This was both from my perspective and my leaders' perspective, but also as peers.

Because to do the things that we were doing and to build the different offering categories that we are bringing to customers now, it was all hands on deck a year ago. We needed the entire global team to roll up sleeves, to dive into work that they were relatively unfamiliar with, and to build things from the ground up.

You can't do that if you don't have a shared language, a shared understanding of how people approach work, how they approach change, how they approach conflict and collaboration. That was one of the things that we did as a team to help us become more successful. It was a really solid exercise.

Nathan: Can you give us a couple of examples of the feedback you received?

Gina: Sure. So in the "Culture Map" exercise, it was really interesting because some of the folks in my teams in the Asia-Pacific region, for example, they experienced the world and their professional lives in a way that conflict resolution was not something that they were really comfortable with.

They shied away from it because there was an underlying desire not to offend anybody. There was sort of underlying, "Let's keep the peace and move forward." And then conversely, I have had some folks on my team from other parts of the world — LatAm, Europe — where there is a bluntness, a candor that they grew up with culturally.

And that is something that just permeates the way that they communicate. So you put those two folks together on a team — one of them thinks that they're just being honest and moving through the project, the other one feels attacked and like they can't speak up.

So then what do you do to bring those folks together? We spent a lot of time as a global team uncovering some of these nuances in communication using some of our cultural tenets, like assuming good intent from people, for example. Open, honest, and constructive is another core tenet of our culture.

Working through: How might you view this particular statement if it was coming from the very best place possible? Or what is an example of a way that you have previously addressed conflict in a way that felt like you were able to speak up and didn't offend someone? How can we bring more of those principles to the table when you're working with an individual who might communicate differently than you? So that was one example that we saw a lot of throughout the global team, depending on where you live in the world and how you experience the world.

13:24 Universal design and how neurodivergent employees offer valuable feedback on workplace processes.

Nathan: One build on that is something I find super interesting. At Understood.org, we talk about that a lot with neurodivergence. When somebody is neurodivergent, they may interpret something different or maybe be more blunt. I think I've learned how to adjust my emails because people used to think I was angry at them. I was just replying to them because I was moving quickly.

But there's those nuances which help everybody. Because regardless if it's different cultures, different ways of thinking, different backgrounds — the commonality here is you're working toward a universal design application, meaning you help the most marginalized groups that are most farthest apart. You help everybody regardless of the way they think, regardless of what culture they're from. And that's what we hope to get through to a lot of our listeners here — if you take those steps to help apply those universal design concepts, you help your entire team grow.

Gina: That's right. Some of the feedback from my neurodivergent teammates was that it was just a very simple timing thing, where I would ask for feedback from the global team on XYZ topic by a certain time.

My neurodivergent folks, some of them reached out and said, "Here's what I think of this." But it came at me at way different hours and times. And I asked out of curiosity, "Help me understand your workday, because I'm hopeful that you're responding at 11:00 at night because you're not so overwhelmed with work that you can't get to it."

And they said, "No, no, it's not that. It's just I have space to think about some of these things at times of the day that are different than other people on the team." And I thought, "Wow, that's something I wouldn't have thought about because sometimes I try to get all the work stuff done and then I switch my brain over to personal and it's bathtime and all the things."

And for them, it just operates a little bit differently, and I thought, "That's great." So now I know when I need feedback on something that I can expect it at a different time, and that's okay. And I also can then build in different times to account for the fact that folks are coming at this a little bit differently in a way that works for their brain and the way that they need to think about things.

Nathan: Exactly. And that's flexibility. That's one of the tenets. If you need it by 5:30, how do you give people the right amount of processing time? Whether it's sending a pre-read in advance. One thing that bothers me or I can't process on the spot a lot of the times — so if I read something in advance, I can actually participate constructively in a meeting versus getting it, having to read it, and then come back later with some type of insight or my thoughts.

Gina: 1,000%. I always start my meetings with, "I am not the smartest person in this room. And the only way that we're going to get through this and get to where we need to be is if I can lean on the collective wisdom and brilliance of this team."

Because there is nothing that we can't solve for together. But to tap into that brilliance at the time and in the space where people have access to it themselves is the real trick and the real magic. And we're just trying to get that right.

Nathan: Sometimes there's no right or wrong. It's how do you get that? Do you have any tricks of how you pull that brilliance out? Because that's the not necessarily secret sauce, but this is what makes content, marketing, sales enablement — all of that stuff together is about how you make it all sing.

Gina: Part of it with the team, I have the benefit of having worked with a lot of folks on my team for a number of years. And so there's a shared trust there that if we're in a meeting and I call someone out for their opinion, it's because they're the quiet person naturally, but I know that that perspective is there.

And I know that it's going to help us shape something in a really positive way. And I also appreciate detractors so much in my professional life.

Nathan: We call them hole punchers.

Gina: Yeah! I love a good hole punch, particularly when it comes with, "Here's an idea that I had for that." Hole punching in itself repeatedly can become negative. But if you then tap into the "What else do you have to say on the back of that? How do you think we could make it better?" and engage and involve people in building that solution, I think that's really the important thing there.

Now from a customer perspective, you're absolutely right because oftentimes brands will want to speak the language of the brand. They have a certain way, a certain perspective, a certain language that they have approved. It has gone through a number of different corporate cross-functional stakeholders to get to the end point.

What's missing a lot of times is the audience and how they like to hear it. So the same principles that I apply to ensuring that the messages that I'm sharing with my team are landing, we try to use with our customers to help them ensure that the messages that they're trying to convey about a product, about an announcement, about whatever it might be, are also landing with their audiences.

And so we do message mapping sessions, for example, to help them really think through and define. If you're a financial services company selling insurance, what is your target customer thinking about before they even consider a policy?

In some instances, they can be thinking about teaching their children how to swim. And you can take that feeling, that mindset of where they're at, and really pull that through into how they should think about protecting their family, protecting their life when they get to a policy. How do you carry through a very human thought and emotion into a campaign?

20:10 The intersection of AI and human creativity in the workplace.

Nathan: Let's pivot there to talk about AI for a second. Because I think there's a lot of AI that's enabling the work you do, I do, we all do. And working for a digital platform, I'm sure it must be fascinating not only to see how things are accelerating, but for your team itself, how they do the work and what they do. What guidance are you bringing to your teams as they navigate this change?

Gina: First and foremost, I encourage experimentation. Because I want people to feel comfortable with AI as part of how they do their jobs. And I have folks on the team who are tip-of-spear with how they think about operationalize using AI in their day-to-day.

And then I have folks on the completely opposite end of the spectrum who are laser-focused on the environmental impact of AI. And all of the folks on the team, in some capacity, are still using AI tools. And what I'm doing as a leader to help them embrace it is to create some tools and workflows that we should all be using, just as foundational to the role.

And then in addition to that, taking advantage of the folks who are more tip-of-spear comfortable and then pulling out the nuggets and things that they're discovering that can apply across the whole team in a way that's comfortable for everybody.

At the same time, we have a lot of individual experimentation on my team, across teams at the company level, and that's something that Microsoft and LinkedIn very much encourage. And I really love that because there's so many tools every single day that are either getting built, updated, merged, and integrated into different LLMs.

How can you possibly keep up? And I think it comes down to us as a team in creative studio understanding what our strategy is, what are our core objectives, and then how can AI help us to achieve those things more successfully, quickly, efficiently, et cetera.

Now, LinkedIn across all of its different products and services, lines of business, is incorporating AI at the product and platform level. In the hiring space, for example, we have LinkedIn Hiring Assistant that has launched about a year ago to help our recruiter customers to be able to identify and attract and hire talent more efficiently.

It's really been a game changer for the industry, and it's something that will continue to involve. So I think from that to, in the advertising platform like I was saying earlier, there are a lot of different ways that the platform has built in tools for you, for me, for our customers to be able to publish content really seamlessly. So there's a whole spectrum of ways that we're incorporating AI into the platform and what we do.

Nathan: When you think about reskilling or upskilling, how has that played a part in your own career? You talked about when you started LinkedIn, you were in a very different role and you've grown tremendously. New skills, refining the current skills you have — how has that really come to bear?

Gina: Oh gosh. I mean, the reskilling portion in particular is very top of mind for me at the moment. Because as I mentioned, we've taken the team from more of a content strategy function into a proper creative studio. That requires skills that the team by and large has not spent their entire career building.

And so a question that I have to answer is, how do I take a group of enormously talented people and teach them how to respond to creative briefs differently than they would have as a strategist? How do I help them to provide feedback to our ecosystem of partners who have spent their careers in creative and do it in such a way that moves the assets forward and answers the brief for the customer?

And also, how do I help this team to understand the foundations and nuances of post-sale asset development and production? Not all of them come from agency environments where they had the pleasure of working side-by-side with creatives before. So how do you do that, right?

And AI for me is playing a central role in helping me to build out a creative studio academy that is going to help my team to be able to develop those skills. And it's everything from helping me to identify required reading that can help them to understand at a high level or even a tactical level how some of this works, to identifying exercises that we can do together as a team of evaluating creative against a brief.

So that's something I'm building right now literally side-by-side with Claude. And if I didn't have Claude to help me, I don't know where I would have begun, honestly. Probably would have just picked up the phone to a lot of my creative folks in my network and said, "Help me build this." But now I can do it in such a way that's at speed and produces a lot of answers that I personally would just never have gotten to. So that's how I'm thinking about reskilling right now, and it's very top of mind for me.

Nathan: Last question, Gina. Is there anything else we haven't touched on that you want to talk about?

Gina: I think the idea that diverse teams win. And my perspective on diversity has evolved significantly from then to now. Whether, as you had said previously, it's gender, neurodiversity, where you come from, your culture, your background through some of the exercises that we've done as a team.

And it's never wrong that a different perspective on something will make you, your ideas, your strategy stronger. And that is something that I absolutely lead with. It's something I expect my leaders to lead with and something that I'm proud to say LinkedIn leads with as a culture within the company.

And I hope — and what I've observed so far — is that the tools that are there are helping folks with different voices, different perspectives, different approaches to be able to participate and bring some more of that brilliance to the table in ways that perhaps previously they wouldn't have known how. And so that's something that gives me a lot of optimism and hope and gratitude, really, for how we're approaching work today.

Nathan: Well, and I'm grateful for you for being here today, Gina. Thank you so much for having me. This is such a pleasure. I appreciate it.

Gina: Of course. Of course.

Nathan: Thanks for tuning in to "Minds at Work". I hope today's conversation inspired you to think differently about how to harness the power of neurodiversity in business. If you want to know more about our guest today or the work we're doing here at Understood.org, please check out the show notes.

For those looking for resources to better advocate for themselves and others, please visit u.org/forward-slash-work. "Minds at Work" is brought to you by Understood.org, the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. To help us continue and expand our work, please donate at Understood.org/give. That's the letter u.org/give.

The show is produced by Julie Subrin, Alison Hochlander, Max McKenzie, and me, Nathan Friedman. Mixing is by Justin D. Wright. Briana Berry is our production director and Laura Key is our executive director. And I'm your host, Nathan Friedman. Please join us next time when we'll continue exploring how differences can spark connection and shape a more inclusive and creative future of business.