Overview
Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.
Key Takeaways
Travel as much as possible while young. Travelling allows you to see various different things outside of the norm and lets you think outside the box
Example: Phil Knight travelling all across the world before coming back to Oregon to start his business. His travels was something he was able to reflect on as he worked hard throughout his career
Surround yourself with motivated people as your employees/team who will be critical to your success
Example: Johnson and Woodlands were critical to Phil Knight's success, dedicating all their time and effort to his success and at some points not even taking a paycheck
They felt as though the business was their own and they were vested in its success
Find strong mentors and mentees in life
Example: Bowerman was Phil Knight's mentor who ended up not only helping him during is early track and field training but significantly as a business partner later on and Phil as his mentee allowed Bowerman to achieve success in the late stages in his Bowerman’s career
Have a commonality with your fellow partners
Example: Phil's whole management team was all from Oregon or were also runners that helped them connect to the firm beyond just pay
Ensure you recruit a team with various different skill-sets than you
Example: Phil recruiting different lawyers, athletes to compliment his experience
Create strong relationships throughout your career because you can work with those individuals again in the future
Example: Phil working with his former coach, accounting managers and business school classmate
Keep chatting with your parents as a sounding board, energizes your parents as they age and also provides a new perspective
Example: Phil calling his dad every night to chat about his problems. Further developed their relationship and also kept his father energized thinking about Phil's business
Keep changing people into different roles so they don’t become stale
Example: Phil moving his employees to different offices and from different roles. Ie. Lawyer into sales
Key Tip: Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their result
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