Looking Back on Nike’s Evolution from Startup to Global Enterprise

Summary

HBR On Leadership: Looking Back on Nike’s Evolution from Startup to Global Enterprise

Episode Overview

This episode features a conversation between HBR editor Dan McGinn and Nike’s co-founder and Chairman Emeritus, Phil Knight, discussing Nike’s remarkable growth from a modest startup into a global powerhouse. Knight candidly reflects on the company’s origins, Bill Bowerman’s relentless pursuit of shoe innovation, pivotal moments in leadership succession, and how Nike’s unique culture fostered ongoing transformation. The episode offers rich, practical insights for leaders on cultivating innovation, developing teams, and managing succession in mission-driven organizations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Entrepreneurial Origins of Nike

• Bill Bowerman’s Obsession with Footwear
  • Bowerman, Knight’s former track coach, was fixated on optimizing runners’ shoes for performance. Knight describes wearing prototype shoes Bowerman made in his workshop, noting Bowerman’s belief that even an ounce in shoe weight could affect race outcomes.

    "He believed, you know, an ounce and a pair of shoes was the same as a thousand pounds in the last five yards of 1500 meters." — Phil Knight [01:17]

• Early Experiments and the First Designs
  • Bowerman experimented with materials and designs, sometimes leading Knight to wear shoes made from goatskin with thin plating that left spikes palpable through the sole.

    "It was very lightweight and it was very odd looking, but it was light and it worked okay." — Phil Knight [02:11]

  • Validation came when Otis Davis won a championship wearing Bowerman’s homemade shoes, boosting Knight’s confidence in innovation.

    "You began to believe in them." — Phil Knight [02:34]

From Business School to Japanese Partnerships

• Knight’s Business School Revelation
  • The “running shoe thesis” at Stanford initiated Knight’s belief that superior shoes could be made more economically in Japan rather than Germany, mirroring what had happened in the camera industry.

    "Why are the quality running shoes made in Germany? ... Why aren't they made in Japan?" — Phil Knight [02:53]

• Partnership with Anitsuka and Bowerman
  • Knight traveled to Japan, brokered a deal with Anitsuka Co., and sent samples to Bowerman, seeking credibility and product validation rather than a celebrity endorsement.

    "If I could get him to approve the shoes... that would be the ultimate endorsement." — Phil Knight [04:07]

  • Unexpectedly, Bowerman proposed joining as a business partner.

    "How about letting your old coach in on this? Which pretty near floored me." — Phil Knight [05:08]

Breakthroughs in Innovation

• Creation of the Cortez Running Shoe [05:32]
  • Bowerman’s key innovation was reengineering a high jump shoe with a unique cushion, creating the “Cortez”—a landmark advancement in running shoe design.

    "That's a shoe we called the Cortez. It was really kind of the first major breakthrough in running shoes in 50 years." — Phil Knight [05:32]

• Inventing the Waffle Sole [07:05]
  • Seeking further outer sole innovation, Bowerman was inspired by a waffle iron, leading to the development of Nike’s iconic waffle outsole.

    "His wife had waffles the next day, said, maybe... Ultimately, it worked." — Phil Knight [07:07]

  • Humorous anecdote: The first attempt ruined a household waffle iron, frustrating Bowerman’s wife.

    "It got stuck... his wife was really mad because it cost her $12.95 to get a new waffle iron." — Phil Knight [07:19]

Overcoming Early Struggles and Defining Nike's Culture

• Financial and Legal Challenges [07:19]
  • The company weathered tough times with banks, suppliers, and lawsuits. Bowerman, while not day-to-day operationally involved, provided unwavering support, especially as a key witness in major litigation.
• Innovation over Bureaucracy
  • Bowerman and Knight’s collaboration thrived on a division of responsibilities: Bowerman focused on innovation, Knight handled operations and legal battles.

    "He basically left the day to day and the operations to me... his role was mostly to work on innovation." — Phil Knight [07:55]

Talent Development and Leadership at Nike

• Hiring Mark Parker [08:26]
  • Parker’s passion as a former collegiate runner made him a standout hire in the New Hampshire facility. Knight emphasized that deep product passion mattered more than abstract general management skills.

    "Ultimately the company is going to be what its people are." — Phil Knight [08:26]

• Company Culture: Passion over Pure Business Acumen [09:21]
  • Knight believed that to succeed at Nike, one needed a love for both the product and sport.

    "For the most part I think you really have to have a passion for the business you're in." — Phil Knight [09:21]

Leadership & Succession Planning

• Grooming and Promoting Talent [11:10]
  • Initially, Parker was viewed strictly as a designer with limited business potential, but he showed natural general management capabilities.

    "Hey, this guy's half businessman, half designer. Those combinations are few and far between." — Phil Knight [11:44]

  • The informal training: “on the job training by crisis,” with new leaders thrown into general management responsibilities as needs arose.

    "Our training program was we got a problem, go fix it." — Phil Knight [12:22]

• Board Pressure and Succession Decisions [14:02]
  • After nearly four decades at the helm, Knight began serious succession planning as energy waned with age. The board pushed for external candidates, leading to the short-lived appointment of Bill Perez of Wrigley.
  • Perez struggled with Nike’s informal, team-based culture, honed from athletic origins, compared to the rigid structures he was used to.

    "When we're working really well, it's a very collaborative atmosphere here... He was more used to strict boundaries between positions... That was just different on who we were." — Phil Knight [15:31]

  • Ultimately, the internal candidate, Mark Parker, was promoted to CEO, a decision affirmed by trust, mutual understanding, and cultural fit.

    "With Mark, I had a few meetings and realized... we could kind of, after all these years together, finish each other's sentences." — Phil Knight [16:44]

Nike’s Unique Culture and Future Leadership

• Communication and Trust with Successors [16:57]
  • Knight described a relationship with Parker that was informal but tightly aligned, allowing for highly autonomous leadership and infrequent formal meetings.
• Embracing Mistakes as Learning Opportunities [17:37]
  • Parker’s willingness to admit and correct mistakes was highlighted as a cultural asset at Nike.

    "You don't get in trouble for making mistakes, you get in trouble for covering up mistakes." — Phil Knight [18:11]

• Maintaining Youthful Relevance [18:41]
  • Both leaders, despite their age, focused on deeply respecting the consumer base and keeping the company young through its people.

    "Nike is young and irreverent and I'm neither. But we both have a lot of respect for the consumer." — Phil Knight [18:41]

• Commitment to Internal Leadership [19:05]
  • Knight expressed strong conviction that future Nike CEOs would come from within, ensuring cultural continuity.

    "I think the next CEO from Nike will come from the inside." — Phil Knight [19:12]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Bowerman’s approach to innovation:

  "Nike makes the worst shoes in the world, except for everybody else's." — Phil Knight [09:48]

• On the secret to developing executive talent at Nike:

  "Our training program was we got a problem, go fix it. It was on the job training by crisis." — Phil Knight [12:22]

• On cultural fit and leadership:

  "Nike is a unique culture and it's not for everybody." — Phil Knight [15:01]

• On openness about mistakes:

  "You don't get in trouble for making mistakes, you get in trouble for covering up mistakes." — Phil Knight [18:11]

• On what Bowerman would say about $700 self-lacing shoes:

  "First thing he'd say is humph, a gimmick... And he'd come back with an improvement." — Phil Knight [19:32]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Nike’s origin and Bowerman’s obsession — [01:17] to [03:19]
• Business school thesis and Japanese partnerships — [02:53] to [04:00]
• Bowerman joins as partner; early innovation — [05:00] to [06:12]
• The waffle sole story — [07:05]
• Mark Parker joins Nike; culture and hiring — [08:26]
• Nike’s unique talent philosophy — [09:21]
• Succession planning, external CEO challenges — [14:02] to [16:15]
• Trust and management style with Mark Parker — [16:44] to [17:37]
• On being open and admitting mistakes — [18:11]
• Reflections on Nike’s evolution and culture — [18:41] onward

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Conclusion

This episode offers a vivid, practical portrait of leadership longevity, product innovation, and succession at Nike. Phil Knight’s storytelling affirms that deep product passion, collaborative culture, openness about mistakes, and homegrown talent underlie Nike’s extraordinary resilience and brand strength. For leaders, this is a masterclass in building enduring organizations that remain true to their founding spirit while constantly evolving.

Transcript

[Alison Beard]

Hire right the first time. Post your job for [e-mail] onleadership. Then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's LinkedIn.com onleadership to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to HBR on Leadership. These episodes include case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts. Hand selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. I'm HBR Executive Editor Alison Beard. What does it take to start and build one of the world's most recognizable consumer brands? In the case of Nike, it was the inspiration of an entrepreneurship class, a business partnership rooted and running, and the creative use of a waffle iron. In this IdeaCast episode from 2017, HBR editor Dan McGinn speaks with Nike co founder and Chairman emeritus Phil Knight about creating a culture of ongoing innovation and how he passed the baton to his successor, Mark Parker. Knight is the author of the book Shoe Dog, and he started the conversation describing how he came to team up with his former track coach, Bill Bowerman to begin designing and selling shoes.

[Phil Knight]

The shoe is the one piece of equipment that really matters to a runner. There's no ball involved, there's no racket, there's no helmet. Bowerman was obsessed with it. He believed, you know, an ounce and a pair of shoes was the same as a thousand pounds in the last five yards of 1500 meters. So he was obsessed with it and it got me quite interested in it.

[Dan McGinn]

Sounds like as far back as the 50s he was sort of tinkering and experimenting with all kinds of weird shoes. You had to wear some of these as one of his runners.

[Phil Knight]

Yes, in about my senior year, he had begun to believe that shoes should be lighter than the shoes that were coming in from Adidas and Puma, the two main suppliers in running. And so he began to make some shoes in his home workshop and he didn't want to try them out on his Olympic athletes. He tried them out on me and so it got me quite focused on the shoes.

[Dan McGinn]

What was the weirdest pair of shoes he ever had you wear?

[Phil Knight]

Well, it was probably a pair of goatskin shoes with a very thin plate. You could feel the spikes through the thin plate. But it was very lightweight and it was very odd looking, but it was light and it worked okay.

[Dan McGinn]

Some of this must have cost you some time, I would think. In races. Was there ever tension in the fact that he's making you wear these things and they might be hurting your performance?

[Phil Knight]

He had me convinced it wasn't hurting my performance. And that came home to register very strongly when Otis Davis won the conference championship wearing a pair of Bowerman's homemade shoes. You began to believe in them.

[Dan McGinn]

Now, your fascination with shoes and the idea that there might be a business there, that's something you thought about at Stanford during business school?

[Phil Knight]

That's right. I took a class in entrepreneurship and took the running shoe idea with the thought that, why are shoes. Why are the quality running shoes made in Germany? That's not a place to make shoes. And why aren't they? They made in Japan, which was very much more economic as far as the stitching, which is the most expensive part of a shoe. So I used that as sort of a thesis of the paper, and the professor liked it. And that's the way it began.

[Dan McGinn]

And it seems like when you began, the idea was mostly about importing as opposed to putting your own design ideas into it. Is that true?

[Phil Knight]

Yeah. Yes. It was mainly focused on economics and manufacturing.

[Dan McGinn]

So after Stanford, you went on a sort of a whirlwind tour and ended up talking sneakers in Japan. How did that come about?

[Phil Knight]

Well, I had written the paper. The Japanese ought to be able to make inroads into the German shoe market, just as the Japanese had made inroads into the camera market. Picked out a sequence of factories that I was going to call on. And the first One was Anitsuka Co. Ltd. In Kobe. And I called on them and got a great response, and I ordered some samples, and away we go.

[Dan McGinn]

So eventually you sent a couple of them to your old coach. He was one of the first people you shared them with. Why did you do that?

[Phil Knight]

Well, obviously he was by that time really recognized as one of the best distance coaches in the world. And so I thought if I could get him to approve the shoes, to buy a few pair of shoes, that would be the ultimate endorsement and see if I can get Bowerman to buy a few pair.

[Dan McGinn]

So celebrity endorsements have become a driving factor in athletic shoes and athletic gear of all sorts. You didn't really think of him as more than that in the beginning. This was just about getting him to sign on and say these were the right kind of shoes.

[Phil Knight]

Well, the endorsements, they were already out there long before I ever got in the game. But I thought of it more as basically an approval of the quality of the product more than the endorsement. The endorsement I was more interested in. If we get a Bowerman to sign off on it, could we ever get Burleson to wear a Pair. That's kind of the way I thought about it.

[Dan McGinn]

How did it evolve to be an actual deal, like a partnership?

[Phil Knight]

Well, when I sent the shoes down to him, he said, let's get together for lunch. And I said, by all means, and went to the lunch, still hoping that I'd get an order.

[Dan McGinn]

And it turned out to be more

[Phil Knight]

than that, much more than that. He said, how about letting your old coach in on this? Which pretty near floored me. But I thought about it for about 30 seconds, and I said, what better partner to have?

[Dan McGinn]

So there's no downside to this in your mind?

[Phil Knight]

No, absolutely none.

[Dan McGinn]

Of the various ideas he had when the. When the shoes were still coming over from Japan, what were the most important things he added to the design and the innovation?

[Phil Knight]

Well, in the early years, the factory had a. What they called a high jump shoe, which had a unique cushion in it, which they called it the spring up, which gave the. It was supposed to give the jumper more spring. It was. It really didn't do much of that. But when we looked at it, he said, you know that that is an innovation for a running shoe to give a layer of cushion between the outer sole and the upper. And so he tore it apart and rebuilt it as a running shoe and sent it off and said, make it like this. And that's a shoe we called the Cortez. It was really kind of the first major breakthrough in running shoes in 50 years, and it's still an important shoe in the line.

[Dan McGinn]

And much of the idea for it

[Phil Knight]

came from him, basically all of it.

[Dan McGinn]

Where did the waffle iron come into

[Phil Knight]

play almost 10 years later? We were a distributor for Tiger shoes. And then we set up our own line, Nike, after we had a breakup with the original manufacturer and he had come up, he had done some other innovative things with Tiger, including picking a nylon for the upper rather than just a leather. And so we said, what we really need in this new company and this new brand is really another breakthrough in shoes, something good. So we had a meeting up in Portland, Bob Waddell and I and Bill Bower, and we said, you know, there hasn't been an outer sole innovation. We had a midsole innovation, but we'd never had an outer sole innovation in running shoes forever. So driving home to Eugene, he got to thinking about it, and he couldn't come up with anything. But then his wife had waffles the next day, said, maybe.

[Dan McGinn]

And it worked.

[Phil Knight]

Ultimately, it worked. The original waffle iron, which is now in a trophy case here, stuck because he didn't have a catalyst in it and it couldn't release and it got stuck. And his wife was really mad because it cost her $12.95 to get a new waffle iron.

[Dan McGinn]

In the 60s and then the 70s, you faced a ton of financial issues. You were constantly dealing with banks that wouldn't lend you money. You had very complex negotiations and even lawsuits with Japanese suppliers. How involved was Bowerman with those aspects of the company?

[Phil Knight]

He wasn't personally involved, but he was quite aware of it and he was always there for support. He was obviously in the major lawsuit against Initska. He was a key witness. He was always totally supportive and always fully informed. But I was the one getting us into trouble.

[Dan McGinn]

What did you two disagree on?

[Phil Knight]

Oh, almost nothing. He basically left the day to day and the operations to me. So I didn't have any trouble with him that way. And so his role was mostly to work on innovation. And he was good at it and I was quite happy with that arrangement.

[Dan McGinn]

So by the mid-1970s, the company was now Nike. And you built a facility up in New Hampshire. So that's where Mark Parker was first hired into the company. Tell me about the first recollection of him you had.

[Phil Knight]

Well, he was very likable that we're always looking for promising young talent. Ultimately the company is going to be what its people are. And he was completely dedicated to getting better shoes and we were glad to have him on board.

[Dan McGinn]

How important was it that he'd been a collegiate runner? Very.

[Phil Knight]

I think in the early days almost all the employees were ex runners or still runners or hoped for to be even better runners. But they all had a touch of that. And I think that what made them so absolutely dedicated to building a better shoe because they knew how important it was.

[Dan McGinn]

Some businesses think that a good business person can work in any kind of company. You think of a company like Procter and Gambler where it doesn't matter if you're marketing cake batter one day or potato chips the next day. The theory is you don't need to have any particular passion for the product. Do you disagree with that?

[Phil Knight]

Pretty much. I do believe there's such a thing as a good general manager that can go across industries and categories. But for the most part I think you really have to have a passion for the business you're in. I consider myself a pretty good businessman.

[Dan McGinn]

I.

[Phil Knight]

But I get fired at Microsoft.

[Dan McGinn]

You just don't get interested in the technology.

[Phil Knight]

It's completely above me.

[Dan McGinn]

Now, obviously they were on different coasts in those early years. But did Bowerman and Parker develop much of a relationship?

[Phil Knight]

In the early days, when you're presenting shoes to Bowerman, there was always a certain amount of tension in the air. And Bowerman's attitude was that Nike makes the worst shoes in the world, except for everybody else's, and so it could always be better. So it was never really kind of good enough. And so it was always the student presenting to the professor sort of relationship. Even for me, that sounds like it

[Dan McGinn]

must have been frustrating.

[Phil Knight]

It was for some people. That's a true statement. It was not for Mark Parker and it was not for me.

[Alison Beard]

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[Dan McGinn]

Do you recall a moment when you first said to yourself, gosh, this guy might be more than a designer. He could have the potential to be more broadly involved in running the business?

[Phil Knight]

Yeah, I don't remember the exact time, but he came back with some shoe ideas, and it was quite clear that he was thinking more broadly than just in terms of the shoe. He was also thinking of the marketing aspects and the general management aspects of it. And he said, this could be a

[Dan McGinn]

rising superstar, your own background, having an mba, having spent years as an accountant. You have sort of a very foundational grounding in business. Was it a concern that, hey, this guy's a designer, he doesn't have that kind of business training. Maybe there is a limit to how much responsibility he could assume.

[Phil Knight]

It wasn't a concern, but it was the way we thought of him originally. That's absolutely a fair assessment of how he was looked at and his early stardom. I guess he was on his way up, but we thought it was sort of a limitation. He could be head of design or something like that. And it was only after we got to know him a little bit. Hey, this guy's half businessman, half designer. Those combinations are few and far between.

[Dan McGinn]

So it sounds like it was a process where you sort of recognized a natural talent that you didn't know he had. But was there any sort of cultivation or training or did you do anything intentional to try to develop that side of him?

[Phil Knight]

Well, our training program was we got a problem, go fix it. We were growing really fast in those early days and we had really demands for people that kind of outran what we saw as our capabilities. So we were always pushing people beyond their limits. And so we didn't really have a training program per se, but we had to throw them into general management problems and general management responsibilities. And he always handled them well. So that was basically his training program. It was on the job training by crisis.

[Dan McGinn]

Now I want to jump back to Bowerman. So he died in 1999. Was he active with Nike? Right up until his death he had

[Phil Knight]

backed off quite a bit about, I would say about three or four years before that he would. Literally six months before he died, he came out, we had an all hands meeting where all the company employees got together and we had an interview with Bowerman on stage. So he was still involved? Absolutely. And he seemed to be in good shape and he seemed to enjoy the meeting. He always had this sort of quirky sense of humor and he got a few of those jokes in and told about his role in the company and what he saw in the future and gave us a blast on how bad our shoes were. And it was sort of typical Bowerman that everybody enjoyed.

[Dan McGinn]

So even in 1999 he thought Nike shoes were terrible.

[Phil Knight]

Absolutely.

[Dan McGinn]

By 1999, when Bowerman died, you'd been running the company that was Now Nike for 37, 38 years or so, pushing close to 40. At what point in all this did you start to think about succession and a time when you might not be the CEO?

[Phil Knight]

We've always, since we've been a public company, we've always had what I considered a really good board of directors, so that they've always pushed me on succession plan. What would happen if something happened to you, et cetera, et cetera. I really didn't really start thinking about it until. Till I was right around 65 years old. And it wasn't the number after my age, but it was the fact that I was beginning to lose energy and that the company really needed a more active CEO than what I was able to give. And that's when I began to think about it seriously.

[Dan McGinn]

So your first move at succession was with Bill Perez from Wrigley in 2004. Tell me about that.

[Phil Knight]

Well, we thought the company would benefit from a look from the outside. Whatever my idiosyncrasies were, the company worked around them and didn't even know they were idiosyncrasies anymore. And we thought that we could benefit from somebody from the outside. So we interviewed several high profile people and ultimately picked Bill Perez.

[Dan McGinn]

What happened?

[Phil Knight]

It didn't work. It didn't work. Bill Perez and I had had long talks and one of the things that I warned about is that Nike is a unique culture and it's not for everybody. Some people adapt to that culture and some people don't and he didn't.

[Dan McGinn]

You know, we talked earlier about whether somebody really needs to love athletic footwear to succeed at a company like Nike. Was that part of the issue that he came from outside the industry and, you know, doesn't seem any evidence that he particularly likes sneakers.

[Phil Knight]

That was something that didn't help. Yes, I think that's true. But I do think over and apart that Nike is a unique culture and that he really, it was so different from his culture. When we're working really well, it's a very collaborative atmosphere here. Very kind of team oriented. Like from the athletic field, he was more used to strict boundaries between positions and strict responsibility for that little box on the organization chart. That was just different on who we were and we didn't want to be like that other company.

[Dan McGinn]

So how did Bill come to leave the job and what was the process that led to Mark becoming CEO?

[Phil Knight]

Well, I made the decision that this was not working and was not going to work. And if allowed to continue for another six months, it was going to be detrimental. So I recommended to the board that we make a change, that we terminate Bill Perez and put Mark Parker in the CEO's job.

[Dan McGinn]

Did you resolve to be more hands on in this period than you might have been? Did you think that instead of a chairman who shows up every once in a while that you needed to be a more active chairman in those first years?

[Phil Knight]

Kind of just the reverse with Mark, I had a few meetings and realized that we were sort of on the same wavelength and could kind of, after all these years together, finish each other's sentences. So I didn't have to meet with him very often.

[Dan McGinn]

I read somewhere that it's not unusual for you to go a month without talking to Parker. That seems really extraordinary for a founder chairman to go a month without talking to the CEO of the company. How do you manage that and why do you do that?

[Phil Knight]

There may have been a time or two when it's been a month, but I talk to him whenever I want or he calls me at the same time. So I don't know. There Isn't such a thing as a regular scheduled meeting. There wasn't back 10 years ago and there isn't now. It's just kind of as necessary. And I wander, I walk around the company with access to anybody I want so I know what's going on.

[Dan McGinn]

When you look at Parker's track record as the CEO from a financial standpoint, it's been fairly extraordinary. From a brand strength of brand standpoint, it's been extraordinary. At the same time, he's noted for being able to admit a mistake when he makes one. Whether it's an acquisition that doesn't work out, whether it's the foray into golf that you've undone. What is it like when he tells you that a project that Nike has spent in some cases probably billions of dollars on was a mistake and he's going to undo it? How do you respond to that?

[Phil Knight]

Favorably. There's no such thing as a perfect manager and nobody bats 1000. And one of the real nice things about him and what I like to think is the culture of the company. It's open and honest. As a general rule, not just Mark Parker, but anybody in the company. You don't get in trouble for making mistakes, you get in trouble for covering up mistakes. So I'm quite comfortable with that process.

[Dan McGinn]

Mark is now in his 60s. You're I think, in your late 70s. Is it hard for two gentlemen of your age to run a brand that's so youth oriented?

[Phil Knight]

Better not be. As I said, Nike is young and irreverent and I'm neither. But we both have a lot of respect for the consumer and I think we know who he or she is and we better have that consumer in mind at all times. And I think we have the average age of an employee at Nike is still right around 30 years. So I think we're okay there.

[Dan McGinn]

Do you continue to believe that the Nike culture is so unique that the next CEO has to be coming from inside?

[Phil Knight]

I think the next CEO from Nike will come from the inside.

[Dan McGinn]

As you think back on the way your products have evolved over 40, 50 years now, what do you think Bill Bowerman would say if he saw a self lacing pair of shoes that cost $720?

[Phil Knight]

First thing he'd say is humph, a gimmick. And then he'd pick them up and look at them and try them on and say, hmm, I want to take these home and think about them. And he'd come back with an improvement.

[Dan McGinn]

You think he'd still hate Nikes and say they're terrible.

[Phil Knight]

I didn't say he hated Nike, I just said he thought they're the worst shoes in the world except for everybody else's and I think he'd still think the same. Yes,

[Alison Beard]

That was Phil Knight. He's the co founder and Chairman Emeritus of Nike and the author of the book Shoe Dog. He was interviewed by HBR editor Dan McGinn in 2017. HBR on Leadership will be back next Wednesday with another hand picked conversation from Harvard Business Review. If this episode helped you, please share it with your friends and colleagues and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen while you're there. Consider leaving us a review when you're ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books and videos with the world's top business and management experts, find it [e-mail] this episode was produced by Mary Du On. Leadership's team includes Maureen Hoke, Rob Eckhart, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Gabaz, and Ann Bartholomew. Music is by Coma Media. If you've ever hired for your small business, you know how important it is to find the right person. That's why LinkedIn Jobs is stepping things up with their new AI assistant, so you can feel confident you're finding top talent that you can't find anywhere else. Hire right the first time. Post your job for [e-mail] onleadership, then promote it to use LinkedInjobs new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's LinkedIn.com onleadership to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.