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How Leaders Lead with David Novak
#286: John Donahoe, Former CEO of Nike, Director of Athletics at Stanford – Create strategy from the outside in
01:23:06
Listen to this leadership podcast with John Donahoe, former CEO of Nike and Stanford Director of Athletics and discover how to build strategy from the outside in.
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- [00:01]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead with David Novak. Today we have John Donahoe on the show. And when it comes to disruptive change, John Donahoe really has seen it all. He served as a CEO of Nike, of eBay, and of ServiceNow. And today, he's navigating the crazy changes in college sports as the athletic director at Stanford University. In today's conversation, you'll learn how John navigates big changes with a strategy that focuses on what he calls outside in thinking. You'll also hear him share vulnerably about some of the mistakes that he made at Nike and about the mindset shift that has helped him frame adversity into opportunity. Enjoy this conversation with David and John, and I'll see you at the very end of the episode for the debrief.
- [00:53]
David Novak
John, I gotta tell you, you've got one of the best golf swings I have ever seen. Have you been able to translate that beautiful long backswing, flowing rhythm that you have? Good score lately?
- [01:04]
John Donahoe
The good news, David, is that my experience in golf doesn't resemble my experience in business. I had a caddy about 10 years ago say to me on the 14th hole at San Francisco, he said, hey, John, can I be honest with you? And I said, sure, Billy, what's up? He said, john, you have a beautiful golf swing, but I have never seen anyone get less out of a golf swing than you do. And I'm like, billy, you know my game. I'm going to stick to business rather than golf.
- [01:33]
David Novak
Well, I doubt if you're getting a whole lot of time to play golf, given the fact that, you know, when I was just doing a little bit of research. You've got to be more of a. Of a viewer than doer. You know, Stanford has, I believe, 36 athletic programs. The average for a university is 22. That's amazing. And I got to imagine you're watching more sports now than. Than you ever have in your life. Is that true?
- [01:59]
John Donahoe
Absolutely. It's been true. And it's been, David, it's been totally, totally fun. I've been to, I mean, in the last two weeks, I've been to lacrosse games, wrestling matches, men's gymnastics, women's gymnastics, obviously men and women's basketball, men's volleyball, softball, baseball. And so these. We got over 900 student athletes in these 36 sports. And each. Each one's a delight to watch because there's nothing like college athletics. It just has just a realness to it that makes it fun, you know?
- [02:35]
David Novak
And Stanford is the mecca for Olympic athletes and, you know, has there been a sport that you've really grown to love that you didn't know much about before you took the job, John?
- [02:45]
John Donahoe
Well, it's, you know, it's fun, as you said, you know, if Stanford would have been a country at the Paris Olympics, Stanford would have been the 8th largest country in terms of medal count.
- [02:58]
David Novak
That's amazing.
- [02:59]
John Donahoe
And so gymnastics, I'll just take that. Both men's and women's gymnastics, where we had medal winners in Paris, we had a gymnastics meet here in our basketball arena against UCLA on Sunday. And it was full, it was the largest crowd. As big a crowd as Duke. Stanford basketball was in Stanford, ucla, women's gymnastics. And the watching these athletes and the gymnasts, it's, you know, basketball. You're on a team, right? You make a mistake, your teammates cover for you, you go back up the court and the next time you're on the balance being, you make a mistake, everyone and it's unforgiving, or you're on the floor routine. And so I'm just picking that maybe because it's the most recent, but women's gymnastics and the same thing with men's gymnastics has been so fun to watch.
- [03:48]
David Novak
Yeah, those guys are absolutely so strong. It's incredible. You're the first big time CEO that I know of that's become an athletic director of a major college sports program. You know, you were the CEO at Bain, you know, eBay, ServiceNow, Nike. You know, on the surface, you'd think that maybe the Nike job prepared you the most for the role. But I'm curious, when, when you look back, what CEO job have you had that really taught you the most that is helping you as you move into this role and start to make your mark?
- [04:24]
John Donahoe
Well, David, I'll pull the camera lens back a little bit and I'll say that not just this role, but all the following roles. I learned so much at Bain. I feel so fortunate to have started my career there because what Bain taught me was the power of asking good questions. Because you're never the expert on day one. There's not a single situation you're walking into where you know more than the other people. And so the power of being curious, the power of asking good questions, the power of seeing situations from a360 point of view, holistic or an integrative point of view, just a functional point of view. I learned that at Bain and I think that's been, it's served me really well. I would say the other thing that I learned at Bain, you know, in business, getting the right answer is often only 20% of it. It's how do you get people to understand, align, buy in, work together to execute. And so I feel like so much of leadership is how do we get to the right answers? But how do we get to the right answers in a way that the team that needs to execute and make things happen feel motivated, aligned, and excited to do so? And I feel like Bain really helped me break down problems where you don't get overly focused on only what's the right answer, but also the human dimension is essential.
- [05:56]
David Novak
You also have talked about in the past when we have discussions about what you, what you call the outside in perspective that you picked up at Bain. Talk a little bit about that because every leader needs to develop that whether they work in a consulting firm or not.
- [06:10]
John Donahoe
Well, that's. We used to always say you always got to start outside in, right? You always got to start. Back then it was customers, competitors, costs, capabilities. But it's really natural for any organization to start with where they exist today. Like, how did we do last year? Oh, let's see if we can do 10% better next year than we did last year. And if that's your reference point, often you miss the changes that are occurring in a very dynamic market. And I don't care what industry you're in, David. And in college athletics being near the top of the list, there's disruptive change happening in almost every external landscape, every industry landscape, country company landscape and country landscape, now that I mention it. And so starting with a real sharp outside in of what's going on, what are the structural forces? What are the situational dynamics, what are the competing firms, both historical and new competing firms doing? What are customers or employees saying? That outside in point of view, I think has to be the starting point of all good strategies, certainly. And I think it also allows a higher degree of agility because so much of operating today is operating with agility. And if your focus is on the external, you can see things happening and coming. So you can adjust versus just sticking to some plan that you created six months ago that may be less relevant today than it was six months ago.
- [07:45]
David Novak
I know you'd never make a career move if you really didn't give it a lot of thought. A lot of thought and a lot of consideration. But when you, when you looked at the Stanford opportunity, what was your outside in perspective there before you really knew all the skinny that I'm sure you know now. But you, how do you, how did you look at that opportunity. And what enticed you to go?
- [08:07]
John Donahoe
Well, David, it was a funny, it was a funny circumstance and there were really, I'd say two, two parts to it. So I, you know, in September of, What was it, 2025, I retired from Nike. I was 65. I moved back to the Bay Area. My wife had been in the Biden administration, she had been living in D.C. she moved back and we said, right, we're ready for the next stage of life. We had four kids, six grandkids, all local. We both wanted to be really active in the next stage of our careers, but we thought we were done with full time roles. And one of the things I thought about doing was teaching at Stanford Business School. And I reached out to Tara Vandiver said, hey Tara, she's always been one of my heroes as a head coach and the winningest coach in college athletic history. Said, Tara, let's teach a class together on leadership and lessons from sports. And I draw from my Nike example, she draw from her 40 year coaching career. And then last summer out of the blue, I get a call from Tara and Tara says, hey John, you may not be aware, but we've just been doing this athletic director search and we, we've got some candidates. But as we sit down and look at it, the truth is college athletics is going through a period of intense disruption and it's not clear where it's going to land. So we don't really know what skills you need the next athletic director to have. And Stanford, to be honest, got caught a little bit on our heels when this disruption happened and we ended up in the acc. And you know, we've been a little bit on our heels and, and we really need someone to come in and help us navigate through the next couple of years and get back on our front foot. Would you be willing to do that? And I said, tara, I'm flattered, thank you. I've just spent this intensive internal experience the last nine months. I'm not going to do another full time role, but I'd be happy to help. And Tara says, you know, John, we were going to teach this class at Stanford together about leadership. Didn't you tell me what was your phrase that you really like were a disciple of servant leadership? Did I get that right? I said, yeah, Tara, I've always loved servant leadership. Tara says, are you telling me you don't want to serve Stanford? Like, oh, Tara, now I know how you recruit. Now I know how you recruited all those NCAA championship teams. And David, that was the first the minute I viewed it as, oh, this is service. This is service to a university. I love, I love college sports and think they play an essential role in our society. So service to trying to help propagate a better future for college sports. And so that was the first part of just seeing the why I wanted to do it and then learning outside in around what's going on. In the disruption of college athletics, it just struck me. I've spent most of my careers in disruptive industries, disruptive circumstances, and that's what college athletics is right now. You had a prevailing set of rules that more or less existed for 40 or 50 years. A flashpoint, in this case, a college ruling, or, I'm sorry, court ruling and a series of court rulings was this flash of disruption. So it looks like all the old rules get thrown out the window. You know, we'll eventually have a new set of rules that will make sense and be modern, but in the middle, you have this period of lawlessness, and that's where we are today. We got the new rules, but it's not clear do they really apply, Are people really following them? And so we're in that sort of uncomfortable middle. We will get to a good place. I was at the, at the, at the summit of the White House on Friday, and there's on saving college athletics. And everyone knows we need a new set of rules. It's just a matter of how, how, what's the path and how long it will take to get to them.
- [11:51]
David Novak
You know, college is looking more and more like professional sports every year. And as a leader, what aspects of amateur sports are you trying to protect?
- [12:01]
John Donahoe
Well, David, it starts with why are we here? I think like any good organization, any good institution, you gotta ask the why questions first. And college athletics exists first and foremost to serve student athletes at a, at a formative time in their lives. And frankly, many student athletes, historically and still today, are going to be the future leaders in our society and in our world beyond their athletic careers. And so the why college athletics exists, you've got to keep that front and center. Now, do college athletes, in particular college football and basketball players, deserve to be paid? In today's media and economic environment, the answer to that's probably yes. And so we got to figure out, how do we retain focus on the student athlete, but also finding a way they can get paid and share in some of the value that they're creating in a modern world? How do we ensure that if a student athlete wants to be mobile, that they can't ever transfer so you gotta make transferring a little bit easier than it used to be. It doesn't have to be every single year. And so I think the balance is keeping clear on we're here to exist for the student athlete. And now we've got to adopt some changes that are appropriate, but not throw the baby out with the bathwater, which is the risk today.
- [13:29]
David Novak
When I hear you talking about that, it reminds me of Jim Collins book where he talks about the magic of the end. You know, you've got things like nil paying college athletes. And then you got this, particularly at Stanford, which I would think the academic, we know the academic standards are so high, it's like what's going to be your process for trying to navigate that magic of the end?
- [13:55]
John Donahoe
So the first thing I did, David, because I was new to being an athletic director, is I do I go on a listening and learning tour. As I said, my number one priority is to do a lot of listening and a lot of learning. And I started with our head coaches and we have 36 sports, we have 31 head coaches. A few of them teach or a few of them coach, you know, a multiple track and field coach as cross country as well, for example, or our rowing coach does heavyweight and lightweight rowing. But I asked them what do we need to retain, what do we need to retain and what do we need to change? And every single one said, please do not reduce the admission standards because that differentiates us. There are enough outstanding high school athletes that are also outstanding students. And if we lower our admission standards, we're going to be just like everyone else. And so we'd rather target and focus on those that have excellence both academically and athletically and can get into Stanford because then once they're in, there's a source of identity and a source of pride. And that's what allowed Stanford, has allowed Stanford to punch above its weight for so many years. And so that was really reassuring to me, David. I expected to hear a little bit differently. I expected people to say, hey, John, by the way, we got to lower the emission standards if we're going to compete in today's era. And I heard the opposite. Let's make sure we continue to double down on our differentiation.
- [15:23]
David Novak
I would have expected that too. That had to be a surprise.
- [15:26]
John Donahoe
It was. But then the next part of the and is and we have to retain them. We can't, we can't bring them in and then have them all leave. We've got to deliver such a great experience that they say, you know what? Instead of going pro, I want to get my degree because that Stanford degree is a lifelong asset. Or instead of transferring to another school because they're going to pay me $50,000 more, I want to stay at Stanford because perhaps I'm getting some payment, but I'm being part. I'm learning life lessons, I'm being part of an institution, building relationships, developing a network that will be a lifelong asset. And that is one of the areas I think we do a good job, not a great job, and we're working on is how do we make sure that full end to end student athlete experience is highly differentiated and done in a way that only Stanford can.
- [16:17]
David Novak
I bet at Stanford. You know, I hadn't really thought about this, but hearing you talk about this at Stanford, you know, there had to be a lot of concern about the alumni, about paying an athlete, period, because you offer such a great education. So getting in the game of being able to pay athletes so that you can compete in sports like basketball and football, did you have a lot of resistance even to get people to buy into that?
- [16:42]
John Donahoe
This happened, you know, before I got here. But I think, I think anyone at Stanford would say Stanford was late for just the reasons you highlighted. When the changes went into effect in 2021, 2022 and 2023, Stanford was late paying athletes. And as a result, we lost a lot of athletes that transferred to other places because it was a case where they were going to get zero from Stanford or something from somewhere else. And our current president, John Levin, who's just been a tremendous. He's been in his role now for two years. He's a Stanford alum, maybe he's moving into his third year. He deeply believes in the importance of athletics at Stanford, along with the importance of academics, and you can have excellence in both. And he went to the Faculty Senate about probably 18 months ago, I'm guessing now, and said, this is something we need to be able to do. We believe we can fund it in a way it's not taking away from any of the academic departments. We can raise the money separately and we will do it in a way that is consistent with our values. And the Faculty Senate approved it. So we now are able, under the house rule, the $20.5 million revenue share, which is the primary way universities pay the athletes, we, we do as everyone else, we pay those athletes. But that if, you know, our coaches know with a recruit or with an existing athlete, if it ever is all about the money, that person's probably not the right fit for Stanford and Vice versa. And so it's, it's part of the value proposition or part of the equation we're offering, but it's not the whole thing. And, and so, you know, I think it was a. We were slow out of the gate and, and hopefully now we're, we're, we're in the game, if you will.
- [18:30]
David Novak
You know, big time. Athletic departments today operate a lot like media and entertainment companies because there's so much revenue to be generated from the great brand that you have with the media contracts, etc. Streaming, whatever. You know, your background had, had you get you ready for this?
- [18:51]
John Donahoe
Well, yeah, I think, I think the background you and I share of having been a public company CEO and it's at yum. You wanted to build great enduring company and you had to deliver financial results at eBay or ServiceNow or Nike. I wanted to build great enduring companies. Purpose driven companies. All three of them were very purpose driven. And by the way, you got to deliver strong financial results. And that, it's what you said a minute ago, it's the power of the. And, and so within an athletic department, how do we stay true to why we exist, that we're here to serve the student athlete, we're here to help them grow and develop themselves, both athletically but also academically. Their character, their experience. And we have the opportunity to generate more revenue than we did in prior eras, between sponsorships, between ticket sales. You know, next year they're going to be a patch on all NCAA uniforms. So, okay, we remember when that happened in the NBA, it was a little bit of a head turner the first year, but then people got used to it. And so we have to embrace, I would say, sustainable practices that allow us to also generate the revenue that allows us over time to serve and compensate our student athletes.
- [20:09]
David Novak
Is there any other college program that you look at and say that's a model that we could learn from? Because I know from your outside in perspective at Bain, you would definitely look at compet.
- [20:19]
John Donahoe
Absolutely. I mean we look at what we call our peer institutions all the time. Obviously our peer institutions within the acc, which is by the way a very strong. The ACC has outstanding academic schools pretty much across the board. And so we're, you know, I could pick any one of them. You know, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, a, Boston College, virtually almost all of them. Notre Dame. Pete, the athletic director at Notre Dame has become a good friend. And Stanford and Notre Dame have a long, a long history. You look at what a Northwestern of Vanderbilt, other, other universities that hold themselves to really high Academic standards and are embracing this, this future world. And, and, and so we're looking to learn from really from anyone and you know, but in that process try to find out what is the right Stanford way of doing this that learns what's. Because I keep asking, hey, what does great look like? Tell me what you probably did this throughout your career, right? Tell me what great looks like. I want to know what the best practice is and then we can choose what elements of that best practice we want to embrace and through that process maybe create a new definition of a best practice. A new definition that's not quite as you know, it may not be exactly what someone else is doing, but it's what is right for us.
- [21:47]
David Novak
Yeah, that seems like to be a great example of pattern thinking. Looking at what's working somewhere else and saying how can you make it work? In a way that's Stanford. Do you have an example of where you've really done that to date, John?
- [21:57]
John Donahoe
Oh, I can think of. I'll give one example. So you know, there's talk about the over the cap nil, right Name, image and likeness, which in essence is how do you create sponsorship deals for student athletes where you have, it has to be a legitimate business in exchange for a service that at a market rate. And so there are a lot of deals being done out there where it's saying to a student athlete, hey, we're the local car dealership. If you do 10 Instagram posts we'll pay you X and you're almost creating activities. A Stanford version of a great nil deal for our student athletes is a summer internship at a technology company, at a venture capital firm at many of the firms here in Silicon Valley. And so what we're saying to our student athletes is great, you know what you're training here this summer we've got a great six week or eight week summer internship at this venture capital firm or this technology firm or this startup. By the way, they're going to pay you the same way they pay their other summer interns that you don't have to file that as an nil deal, interestingly. But that is a very, that's a very Stanford way of getting some payment to athletes. But in a way they're in exchange for a service that is building their career and building their relationships and building their network for post playing days. And so, and our athletes love that. They, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting. We do have some, we've been pilot with our women's gymnastics team. This another way of making the same point and around how they can build their personal brands on, on Instagram and TikTok and the social media, some social networks. And one of the student athletes was so great because she said to one of my colleagues, I'm not doing this for the money. I want to use this in my application for med school to show I'm taking initiative or another said, I want to use this when I interview for jobs to demonstrate that I understand how influencer marketing, social media and marketing is going to. And so the Stanford students, you know, I think they have maybe a little more focus on their longer term careers in addition to the desire to make some money, you know, while they're here.
- [24:29]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
I hope you are loving this conversation between David and John as always. Stay tuned to the very end of the episode. David and I will be debriefing his conversation with John so that you leave this episode with something really tangible to apply right away to your leadership and to your life. So stay tuned to the very end of the episode and I will see you at the debrief.
- [24:51]
David Novak
You know, I've heard you say, John, and I couldn't agree more, that in every company that you've led, you've never thought of yourself as the boss. You know, you thought of yourself as the head coach. Say more, David.
- [25:04]
John Donahoe
You know, it's funny, I'm, I'm sitting in my, my office here at, at, in the Stanford elect department and literally 100 yards away is the Stanford Business School. And I graduated from the Stanford business school literally 40 years ago this spring. I was 11 years old at the time. And, and one of the phrases I heard when I was in the business school was this concept of servant leadership. And it just lit me up because the notion of servant leadership is the job of the leader is to serve the purpose of the organization that you're part of, to serve your teammates, to serve your customers, to serve the society and community in which you operate. And it just, it just resonated with me because service was something that I could really connect with. And I feel like service is what I've learned over the years is an incredible source not only of inspiration but also of resilience. Because so much of leading is about having the resilience to work through the inevitable ups and downs. And relatively early in my career I was looking around for servant leaders that I thought I admired or I wanted to emulate. And you and I were both raised in the era, the Jack Welch era, where the CEO is kind of the dominant top down figure and for me, head coaches, the light bulb went on. It's like, wait a minute, I was. Phil Jackson was one of my early muses on this. And the job of a head coach, it's not about the coach. The job of the head coach is literally coach. Make their teammates better, make his or her team better. The head coach gets to define who makes the team, gets to define who starts, gets to define what plays they run, gets to define who gets to substitute who has to come out. But then after doing that, it's all about the players. And so head coaches have always been my muses. In fact, when I was at Nike, I had Phil Jackson, Coach K, Tara Van de Vere and John Thompson on my wall behind me. And every zoom I did over the five years there had them over my shoulders because the organization knew I called myself head coach and my muses were over my shoulders. And I've learned such amazing lessons, we. At some point, I'd love to share a couple Coach K stories as well as Tower of Andover stories whose office is now next to mine.
- [27:35]
David Novak
What would be your most impactful Coach K story?
- [27:37]
John Donahoe
Coach K story? First time I met Coach K, I'll tell two that happened right one, right after another. I met him. He was one of my heroes. I met him when I was at ServiceNow. He came to do a talk to our top customers and he said, you know, I want to meet with you ahead of time so I make sure I'm on target. Can you have lunch ahead of time? I said, yes, I'd love that. He walks into the conference room where and he shows me the phone. He says, he says, think about my life. He said, I spend my life recruiting 15, 16 and 17 year old boys to come to Duke increasingly for one year. He said, I have to understand how they communicate, what music they like. He said, I've had to reinvent myself 10 times in the last 20 years now. Coach K, by the way, at this stage is 72. He said, I'm currently texting with the number one high school sophomore in the country. And he barely uses words, he uses emojis. And he said, I didn't even know what an emoji was a couple weeks ago till my granddaughter taught me. And he just thought it was hilarious. So this notion of reinvention, that here's the winningest male coach in college history. A second example, I said, you know, Coach K, and this just gets adaptability. I just love Duke basketball. I love the values of Duke basketball, the fundamentals, your focus on defense and teamwork and he kind of rolls his eyes. He says, yeah, Duke basketball culture. He said, you remember when the three point shot came in? And I said, yeah. He said, remember it was Rick Pitino in Kentucky who sort of made it famous, the run and gun, that team. He said, you know, at first I thought three point shot was inconsistent with the values of Duke basketball and the culture of Duke basketball. We pass the ball three times before we shoot. We tried to work it inside so we didn't adapt the three point shot. And then we started losing. So I had to figure out how to incorporate the three point shot into Duke basketball culture and values. He said, you remember one and done when that came in? He said, that was absolutely antithetical to Duke basketball values and culture. Our athletes graduate, our seniors teach, our freshmen. We want people who are going to be here over time. So we did not embrace one and done.
- [29:55]
David Novak
Yeah, I remember Coach Calipari, who was leading the way of one and dones at Kentucky, said Coach K called him and talked to him for an hour or two. Just on the whole one and done and what's working, what doesn't work, but he was a seeker of knowledge and one that wanted to adapt.
- [30:12]
John Donahoe
That's the point. He figured out how to embrace it. And I think that's what these coaches, you know, every year they have different sets of players, they have different competition. So they have to be incredibly adaptive and curious. They can't just depend upon what got them there. And so Coach K was such a wonderful example. I'll say one final thing. He said, then Nil comes along and I decided to retire.
- [30:40]
David Novak
He's leaving that to you to figure out. Okay, you know, John Shire, you know, as a, as a servant leader, you know, I'm sure one of the things you want to do is support your coaches. So I would imagine one of the big roles that you have is to do the business stuff so that they can take time to focus on the players. Is. Is that a fair assumption to make or is it too simplistic?
- [31:06]
John Donahoe
It's both. Back to your end. So we had a head coaches meeting this morning. The head coaches know I came in on day one and I said, here's how I think of organization structure my whole career. Most people think an organization structure is a pyramid where the quote unquote leaders on top, everyone else is underneath. I believe in an upside down triangle. I believe the people at the top of the organization chart are the people that for whom you exist. So in a business, it's your customer. In our case, Our student athletes. We exist to serve our student athletes. Then the top of our internal organization chart are our head coaches because they are the ones that recruit our athletes and help them perform. And then everyone else in the athletic department exists to help our coaches help our student athletes. And I'm at the very bottom as the servant leader. And so I treat our coaches as my boss. And they know that I learn from them, I support them. It turns out that, by the way, David, each of them are mini CEOs. And you know, guess what? Being a CEO is a lonely job. And especially after some tough losses. Our men's basketball team lost yesterday in the first round of the accident tournament to pit on a tip in. We were up one and with less than one second to go, pit tipped a ball in. We lost like those Kyle Smith and Eric Revenue and that coaching staff or our women's basketball team lost in overtime, you know, last week. And so the coaches were building community of support for one another because it's a lonely job. Now, many of them have won NCAA championships and high highs, but you also have lows. And so one of the more enjoyable parts of this role thus far has been the engagement with our coaches, building community, sharing experiences. They're some of the most extraordinary servant leaders I've ever seen. But it's also really heartening to see how they reach out and help each other through what is inevitable, the ups and downs of sports.
- [33:13]
David Novak
Did that culture exist or are you driving that culture of collaboration and support?
- [33:17]
John Donahoe
I think I'm re. Enabling it. You know, some of them said that it, it existed before, but they were sort of missing it. And I, you know, David, I think that's probably a little bit a symptom of COVID You know, you just got into, we all got into patterns. And it was sort of the, maybe it was the before when work from home was still the thing. When you got back together, you know, in a company or in an organization, it allowed a more spontaneous interaction, more in person engagement. And now what we're doing is each coach says, by the way, here's. We call them our gold games. We have so many events going on like this weekend, I literally think we have 15 different games going on, many of them at the same time, Saturday and Sunday. But our coaches saying this is the most important. You know, our lacrosse. Our women's lacrosse coach, Danielle, fabulous later, she's playing, she's undefeated. They're undefeated thus far. They play Notre Dame this weekend. She said, please come out to the Notre Dame game. You don't need to come to the game the next day, but come to the Notre Dame game. And so our athletes and our coaches are also showing up for each other, which is really inspiring.
- [34:31]
David Novak
You know, you have to humble yourself to be a servant leader. And you know, what advice can you give people on just how to keep the ego out of it? Where, you know, so many times, you know, leaders, they, they want the ball, you know, when their real job is to actually coach, you know, you know, not take the shot, you know, but a lot of leaders, they, they, they want that ball. They want to, they want to get the credit for, for taking the shot. I mean, what coaching can you give others on that?
- [35:03]
John Donahoe
You know, David, I guess that gets to be such a personal thing. I, I look at it and you sort of say, well, why am I a leader and why do I exist? If you're, if you're, if a head coach is your, is your muse and you think about, oh yes, I want to be the head coach and keep the attention on my team. I think a second thing that you and I both know is there's nothing like getting your ass kicked really badly. The ego. You know, you can have a great season where you win, but you can also have some losing seasons and losing streaks and losing games where you're the goat, the bad goat. And those are humbling experiences. But those are also, they remind us that it actually has far more to do about us, far less to do about us, and far more to do about the preparation, about luck, about circumstance. And so anyone that feels like the ego's starting to creep in, just remember there's at some point something's going to happen and you're going to fall flat on your face. Your day's coming and probably quite visibly. And that's okay too. By the way, those are great learning experiences. They're painful learning experiences, but they're important ones. And then the last thing I just say is ask yourself if you're a young leader, ask yourself who are the leaders you wanted to follow, you wanted to, that inspired you? Odds are that in many cases it's going to be a servant leader, someone to put your interest before theirs, someone that you trusted. And I would just make the observation over time. I think the most talented people, the greatest talent, follow authentic leaders and servant leaders more than they follow self centered leaders. And so it's also just, I heard Colin Powell, I'll never forget. I was lucky to get a chance to interact with him multiple times. And he used to say this publicly. I remember him Saying it to me, I was at ebay at the time. He said, john, it's not about leadership. It's about followership. Your job's to build followership. So when you think about it that way, all of a sudden the focus is not you, the leader. That was his way of talking about servant leadership. Right. It's not about you. It's about followership and how you enlist, in his case, the troops or the people at the State Department to follow. And almost always that's by values based, principles based servant leadership.
- [37:42]
David Novak
I want to shift gears a bit, John, and I want to take you back. What's a story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today?
- [37:51]
John Donahoe
You know, I'd say two things, David, come to mind. One is my father had a profound impact on me. I didn't think of my father as a role model, but I now realize he was. In some ways, he was a senior person at Pricewaterhouse in Chicago. He spent his entire career there. Ended up being one of the top two or three people in the firm. And a couple things I realized in hindsight, I learned from my father. He used to take my sister. I have two sisters. One that's two years younger, one that's 12. The sister is two years younger. And he would take us downtown to his office in downtown Chicago on a weekend where he had to do some work. And we'd play in the typewriters. Back in the days, there were typewriters and have hot chocolate. This would have been the late 60s. And I remember we'd pull into the parking lot, parking garage under the building. And he'd say to the weekend parking attendant, hey, Billy, how you doing? How's the family? We'd ride up the escalator and the guy would light up. Mr. D. Call Mr. D. There'd be the receptionist, hey, Marge, is he out of the hospital yet? Why don't. You know, I've been thinking of him, and my dad just had this way he treated. Oh, then. Then we'd be walking down the hallway and it'd be the governor of Illinois, Governor Ogilvy. He'd say, governor, come meet my children. And my dad treated the parking lot attendant the same way he treated the governor. He treated everyone the same. And I didn't notice it. I did. I wasn't conscious of this as a child, but people would light up when they saw him because they saw that he was treating them. He treated everyone with the same kind of attention and kindness, and that brought the best out of them. And then I would say the second thing I learned from my dad is he didn't. It's to what we talked about earlier. He didn't have the word I in his vocabulary. And so we'd go to some dinner or whatever, and I'd be the young person that was brought at the table. He'd bring me along to learn, and he would immediately launch into, tell me about yourself. What's going on over here, David, you've got this gift too, right? It's always asking curious questions about others, and the focus is on the other people, never on him. And I didn't. As I said, it wasn't till many years later that I heard the phrase servant leadership. But in many ways, my dad, I had this beautiful role model of what a servant leader was.
- [40:18]
David Novak
That's awesome. You know, and you know, John, when I was doing my research and I obviously known a little bit about your career, you know, it's pretty decorated. But, you know, I thought about it.
- [40:27]
John Donahoe
I don't.
- [40:27]
David Novak
I don't know if there's anybody that's really made a bigger dent across more significant categories in business, in the history of business, than you. I mean, you've really, really covered the gamut of great companies. And I thought it'd be interesting if I just went through some of your experiences and just got your single biggest leadership lesson from the places that you had such a huge impact on. And. And you know, you stepped into the SEAL role at ebay to turn that business around. Tell us a story that would represent the. The biggest leadership lesson you got out of ebay.
- [41:05]
John Donahoe
Oh, so many, David, so many. I learned a ton from Meg Whitman. I got to work for Meg for a couple years before becoming CEO, and I learned about courage. Meg had courage still to this date. Courage about making hard decisions, bold decisions, about owning up to mistakes. I think, you know, the lesson that I may have been the most stayed with me the most around ebay was just the role adversity plays in our lives. And ebay, you know, for me was a very stressful time. At the beginning of it, it was very. Was a turnaround. I was getting skewered in the media. And there was a media. Back then, I was. I never forget. It was the first year Glassdoor came out in the New York Times business section. It had lowest rated CEO in Silicon Valley. It had my picture. And that's back when people actually read the newspaper.
- [42:04]
David Novak
Well, I hope it was a good picture. Anyway,
- [42:07]
John Donahoe
it was not. You know, I run into people in the grocery store and they like, go into the other aisle, because you know how that happens, is what they read about you is what they think is your reality. But I, you know, I came to the realization I had some friends help me do this, and frankly, my therapist helped me do this. Often moments of adversity, phases of adversity are often the phases that in hindsight, we look back on with most fondness and pride. And she had me think about what were the things in my career when I look back, that I was most proud of in hindsight, and what were the things that. And I look back in my life, in my personal life, that I was most proud of in hindsight? And she said, was that when things were going really well, John? No. Were those periods of adversity? And I said, yeah. She said, so just remember that it's periods of adversity that give you the opportunity to have the most meaningful moments and the moments you, in hindsight, are most proud of. And it was a powerful shift for me because I hate adversity. I want it to all be going well. I want people to get along. And I was living in this world. I was fearful of future adversity. And when I was in adversity, I was so anxious to get out of it. And it helped me realize that's just not a sustainable model. And so what I learned at ebay, and I still try to do today, is I don't like adversity. I don't want adversity. No one does. But adversity is a fact of life. It's a fact of life in our personal life. You and I have talked about that. It's a fact of life in our professional lives. And so now when adversity avails itself, I just say to myself, all right, I don't like this, but all I can do is put one foot in front of the other and carry myself in a way that I will be proud of in hindsight. I don't know how it's going to turn out. I don't know when it's going to change. But I do know I. I can make myself proud by carrying myself in the best possible way through this difficult circumstance. And ebay really taught me that that's a great learning.
- [44:14]
David Novak
And. And you've also been the chairman of PayPal for almost a decade. What's the key leadership story there?
- [44:20]
John Donahoe
PayPal was one part consumer product, one part payments, one part technology, one part consumer product. And it was a very ill defined market. And so you always had to be doing. We did these, these constant game Boarding what we called game boarding process. You know, a good friend, a mutual good friend of ours, Dave Dorman was, was on this board and he's now chair of the board and our annual board retreats, I was chair for a number of years. We would do game boarding and industry game boarding because you couldn't predict how it was going, what was going to happen exactly when. So you had to think through. It was the ultimate in having a dynamic approach to strategy and outside in view of the market and how the industry chessboard, I guess that's what we used to call it, industry chessboard. And that you could never be too confident in your short term success because we'd have these periods of intense success. We'd get a network effect, things would happen. But you always had to be conscious that you can be getting disrupted while you're having success.
- [45:27]
David Novak
Yeah, that's a great lesson. How about ServiceNow?
- [45:32]
John Donahoe
If I've learned one thing from ServiceNow, there's nothing like a good tailwind with the old phrase, when a good manager meets a bad business, a bad business wins every time. When a mediocre manager meets a good business, a good business wins every time. ServiceNow and Fred Luddy, the founder, deserves credit for this. And my predecessor, Frank Slootman and now my successor, Bill McDermott's just done amazing things, but it's a born in the cloud platform that just had unfair advantages by being a modern technology platform now. I think we did a good job of not growing too fast. The founder, Fred Letty really wanted to build an enduring company and so making sure that customer success and customers getting real results and that we were taking care of our customers not because we were the hot technology that everyone needed, but because our technology had the power of helping them achieve tangible value. I learned that and then I had another leadership lesson there, David, that was totally unanticipated. I my direct report team, I inherited three or four of them that had been there for the long term, at least in servicenow language. I had two or three of them that joined a year or two before I got there and then I hired two or three and we did this off site that was going to be a storming and norming off site to build team. And I said I really want to develop a set of operating principles or collective operating principles. And I had a facilitator there and we had a break and the facilitator would come back after the break. Facilitator says, john, the team would like you to leave. I'm like, what like you to leave. And so I leave the room and I'm out for three hours. I'm like, Jesus, I think there's a coup going on. And I come back in and the team said we have built a social contract with each other. We want to share it with you. And it was important to us that we didn't do this because of you or for you. This is for us. And the first phrase of their social contract is we commit to work east west before we go north south. Which is to say we're not going to run to you, John, to fix all of our problems. We commit to try to work with each other. We commit to have each other's back. We'll debate freely when we're in the room, support each other when we're out of the room. And there were 7 or 8 of statements in the social contract. They said, we want you to know this is what we're signing up to. And next week at our all hands to the company, we're going to tell the entire company they can hold us accountable for the social contract. And it was so much more powerful than anything that I could have helped create or encourage that they create. It was a true case in a team self organizing and doing it in a way where it had real grit and meaning for them.
- [48:42]
David Novak
Well, I love that and I love the idea of going east west before you go north. I think that's fantastic, you know. And how about Nike?
- [48:49]
John Donahoe
Oh, I learned so many things at Nike, David. I, you know, obviously I got exposed to one of the greatest brands in the world and how the company thought about brand and, and advance the brand and by the way kept the brand contemporary. That's one of the I think real hidden secrets of Nike. It's still a young brand in its 53rd or 54th, maybe it's 55th year now. I learned a lot about innovation and just a company that really puts innovation at front and center. I also learned a lot personally through Covid, through leadership and I learned a lot in a very humbling way. I got my butt kicked toward the end and both very publicly and also, also you know, learning where I, I, I, you know, lost the locker room a little bit and, and so the, and had to just sort of confront that and you know, we did certain things very, very well and then toward the end our, our results weren't what they needed to be and, and, and we, we weren't living up to our, our promises and, and frankly it was time for me to move on. And so that was a You know, I. I learned a lot through that experience, both personally and professionally.
- [50:05]
David Novak
Where did you. Once you learn the ability to do just what you did, which was be vulnerable, you know, and be so open about that, that experience like that, and, you know, I mean, that makes me want to get. Get on the John Donahoe team. I mean, but, you know, people talk about the power of being vulnerable and open all the time, but you don't see it.
- [50:25]
John Donahoe
I've never thought of it that way. I've tried to always try to be honest. I think my father was that way. It's what a good coach does. What worked well in the first half, and what do we need to fix? And then. I don't know. David, I'll tell you a story that comes to mind. When I was right after I was named CEO of eBay, we were at the beginning of the turnaround. I announced on my first day as CEO, this is a turnaround. And everyone knew it to be true, but everyone hated that word. The employees hated that word. In Silicon Valley, no one wanted to be called a turnaround. And we had our. Even our. I'll call them customers. We had this once a year, we'd have this conference that was called ebay live, where 25,000 eBay sellers would come together. This would be in 2008, spring of 2008, 20,000 eBay sellers come together and share experience. And the ebay security team says, and it was at McCormick Place in Chicago that particular year. And the ebay security team comes to me, says, I don't think we can let you get up on stage because they're so angry at you, because we'd announced some changes that were for the good of the community. And I said, no, I have to stand up in front of them. And by the way, my parents are going to be there. I grew up in Chicago, so I fly to Chicago. I land, and the head of comms tells me, you got to check YouTube because one of the ebay sellers threatened one of our employees at registration. Like, oh. So I open up my laptop, I go to YouTube, which I, that point, never went to. I type in ebay, and the first 10 YouTube search results are hate videos about me. And the number one video was. And it had over 100,000 views, was a ebay seller, had taken scenes from the movie Schindler's list and had the scene of a German guard shooting a Jewish prisoner, and superimposed Donahoe on the forehead of the German guard, an ebay seller on the chest of the Jewish prince. Prisoner. And I will never forget talk about adversity. Being in my hotel room that night just thinking, holy cow, this is real. This is how these people feel. This is, yes, we're making changes that are good for the community, but it's painful for some to go through it. And the next morning I went on stage and I just shared that story. I just said, let me just tell you what I, I said, I almost don't know what to say. And you know what happens in these things. People are paying attention, whatever. But I shared that story because I didn't, I was literally speechless knowing what other to say. And I said, I'm here for the good of the community. I think of myself as a mayor, head coach, servant leader. And I care deeply about this community. And I want you to know I have a better understanding of your pain than I did 24 hours ago. And, and, and you should know I feel that pain as well and wasn't intentional. I didn't use vulnerability for an outcome or for, but by being vulnerable. It began us, I think it was the turning beginning of a turning point of all right, how we're in this together, how as human beings can we move forward together?
- [53:58]
David Novak
That's a great story. And one thing that I know you did at Nike, which was very, very challenging, is you led a digital transformation. You took Nike into the digital world when they were falling behind there. What did you learn through that process that would save other leaders some heartache as they try to deal with AI?
- [54:23]
John Donahoe
You know, David, it was a great learning experience. And let me, I'm going to frame good learnings and then bad learnings or learnings of things that I would say were good in hindsight and ones that were less good in hindsight. So the principles I had coming in was, and I learned this at ebay, that in today's world, consumers want to get what they want, when they want it, how they want it. We consume our media. It's not no longer just about newspapers or magazines. We want media or watching a TV or in a movie theater or on my iPad or on my laptop, or I want to get the media I want, when I want it, how I want it, where I want it. And commerce is that way. So there's I want to get when I want it, how I want it, where I want it. There's no such thing as an online shopper versus a physical shopper versus a multi brand shopper versus a model brand shopper. Most, most consumers, and I would say this about Nike. My guess is, David, the last 10 things you bought in Nike you probably bought, you don't even remember a couple online. Maybe one or two in the Nike store in New York or one or two at a Dick's Sporting Goods. So one was the principle of giving consumers choice. The second, and I think that is a good, we should all keep that in mind. In almost every business consumers want to be able to get what they want, when they want it, how they want it. The second is you have to know who your consumers are in this day and age. And we sold exclusively through retail and when we sold through retail we didn't know who the consumer was. And that's dangerous in this day and age because otherwise others can come in and give more targeted personalized offerings. And so part of the goal of going digital was to establish their Nike account and then we did shared membership with Dick's Sporting Goods, with our JD Sports so that it wasn't we only learned about the consumers choices when they came directly to us. But we also can learn when they came through our, our third party partners and then gave the consumers choice. Those two things I think were right and I think they continue to be important things. What I didn't get right is it was labeled as Donahoe's direct to consumer strategy. And the presumption was I didn't care about offline retail, I didn't care about our retail partners. And although I was in their boardroom saying I did, the perception and therefore became the reality is that Nike was less committed to the retail partners and other competitors came in and took share office space or I'm sorry shelf space. And then I would say the second learning I had is I didn't understand that by saying we were measuring our digital growth, we were measuring our mono brand owned stores growth internally. Our organization was optimizing to that. And so we were actually making some non consumer friendly choices to tilt the playing field. And it was a case where I didn't have enough of a balanced scorecard and I wasn't fully cognizant that part of the reason our online sales grew as much as they did was because we were saving some of our most scarce inventory for our own online only. You know, I think that the importance of being balanced as a leader and thinking about okay great we're going in this direction, how might I or the organization be perceived as going too far and what do I do to make sure we don't overdo? It was a painful lesson. Now the risk of course is it goes back now and says oh digital's bad. It's all about our partners. Neither are we true consumers, as I said earlier, consumers. We want to be able to get our Nikes and the next purchase. However, I want to get it and I think my successor, Elliot Hill, is doing a great job of ensuring it gets back to more of a balanced marketplace.
- [58:18]
David Novak
So how do you think about that and the learnings there as it relates to how leaders should deal with AI and go forward there with their companies or with their teams?
- [58:27]
John Donahoe
You know, a little bit similar. The word AI is just a, I don't think it's that useful a word in this moment. It promotes fear. Everyone has a different definition. Everyone. The question is where can technology enhance your customer experience? Where can it enhance your employee experience? Where can it enhance or shift your business model and your economics? And if you simply think of AI as another advance in technology that allows us to. It should be delivering more consumer friendly or if you're an enterprise business, customer friendly experience. Whether it's more self help, it's faster service, whatever the value is, more enhanced value added, more information for your employees. It's the same thing. It's, you know, I think about in when I was at ServiceNow, what was then born in the cloud enterprise software. We could deliver a better onboarding experience for new employees or a better ask a question, get an answer experience. Well, now with AI, you can just do it. It can be even better. Don't call it AI. It's simply the focus is. Shouldn't be on the technology. The focus should be on the customer experience, employee experience, business model.
- [59:49]
David Novak
Efficiency makes so much sense. And one of the things that you talk about is what you call the inner journey of leadership. What does that mean to you? Where are you at on it?
- [60:02]
John Donahoe
Your listeners don't know. When we're together, it's what we spend most of our time on. And you and I both know it doesn't get talked about enough. It's the, you know how I could say life is hard and life is so beautiful. Leadership is hard. Leadership is so beautiful. Yeah, there's all the external stuff and all the external successes and failures and ups and downs and skills you want to build and capabilities you want to build. There's also an inner dimension to life and to leadership. And for me at least the inner journey I think has been as important or maybe even more important to my success or my growth, my, my enjoyment. I'm still learning. I'm Catholic. So learning how to enjoy the moment, in the moment is still one of the things I'M working on. And. But it is. And it's messy. I mean, I still, to this day, I, I, you know, I've had different practices over time. I get up every morning, and I did this this morning now. And my current morning practice is I take 10, 10 or 15 minutes. And I have a little black book. I have a, A chair in our home where I sit and have my coffee, you know, quietly in the morning. And I write three things in the book. I write. I try to check in with myself and say, okay, let me just reflect on the last 24 hours. Is there anything that stood out? And I just, I just write it. Don't. Not, not compl. You know, oh, I had this interaction, or, wow, I had this tough meeting, or, wow, I had this surprisingly nice experience. And then, and then I write gratitude. What am I grateful about in the last 24 hours? Or. And I write out, I'm grateful I had this experience. I'm grateful I get to be at Stanford, which is in what has been the most nourishing role I think I've had in the last 40 years. I'm grateful for my wife and I had a really nice conversation last night. And then I write, what are my intentions for today? How do I want to. And my intentions. I said, today I want to be. I get to be with David on his podcast. I want to be present. I don't want to be in my head. I want to be present. I want to be calm with my team. I want to be positive because I know I'm going to be with a couple of our teams that had heartbreaking losses over the last couple days. And just each more. It's not fancy. It's, you know, it's 10 minutes. And over time, I think I'm. It helps me be more grateful. You know, it just helps. It's just a little bit of consciousness. It's not every day I have bad days, but it. And that the inner journey, making friends with our shadow, making friends, whatever, with. With the inner parts of ourselves, I think is. And then the last thing I'll say about that is it opens up the capacity for relationships, right? You and I, right? We had one round of golf where it took a very nice relationship. We had. We had a friendship, whatever we had. All of a sudden, it was almost like we were soulmates. Four hours later, you were incredibly open in sharing some very vulnerable moments in your life, and I was so drawn in. And then I shared mine. And all of a sudden our relationship went from, hey, David, what'd You shoot yesterday, how's the weather? To how you doing? And now every time I see you, my heart feels that. And my sense is a little bit vice versa.
- [63:49]
David Novak
Absolutely.
- [63:50]
John Donahoe
That that's part of our shared inner journey.
- [63:53]
David Novak
Yeah. Couldn't agree more. And I love it. And just hearing this conversation, having this conversation has meant so much to me and I value it and it's been a lot of fun. Now I have a little more fun with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this, John? Okay. All right. The three words of best describe you.
- [64:09]
John Donahoe
I'm tall, I'm gray haired, and I have a loud voice.
- [64:13]
David Novak
If you could be one person besides yourself, who would it be?
- [64:17]
John Donahoe
Oh, it's gotta be Coach K. Tara. Phil Jackson. Coach Coach Thompson.
- [64:23]
David Novak
What's your biggest pet peeve?
- [64:25]
John Donahoe
Politics. I don't know. Not, not national politics, but it's, you know, building a. Building being part of a strong team is like so fulfilling and rewarding and it's very hard to do. And so a pet peeve is when it seems so hard to build a team.
- [64:44]
David Novak
Who would play you in a movie?
- [64:45]
John Donahoe
Christian Bale. Because whatever character he gets into, it's like, wow, how did that guy get into character so well?
- [64:52]
David Novak
Who's the best athlete you've watched up close?
- [64:55]
John Donahoe
Michael, Kobe, LeBron, Steph in the men's basketball lineage. Watching Caitlin and Asia Wilson in women's basketball, watching Serena. In tennis, watching Tiger today, Scotty Scheffler, Rory. These exceptional athletes, what they do is just. And I'm just picking a few, it's just remarkable.
- [65:17]
David Novak
What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work?
- [65:22]
John Donahoe
I think part of what we talked about is AI and the impact on society and how do we move from. It's provoking fear at the moment. Am I going to have my job? Will there be any jobs? Is it a good thing or is it a bad thing? And how do we reframe it in a way that we have? There's something called here at Stanford, Human Centered AI that you start with the fact that we're humans. And now AI is a technology and a capability that I think we need to be committed to make sure it's enhancing the quality of our lives and of life itself.
- [65:59]
David Novak
You know, besides that 15 minutes you spend in the morning with your, your black book, what's one thing that you do just for you, you know, working
- [66:07]
John Donahoe
out, I think is sort of the only sport I can do anymore is really, you know, golf. I used to play basketball, but I have no more cartilage in my knees. So. So. So I enjoy. I enjoy working out, and it's kind of for me. And then, you know, I would say my wife and I are enjoying watching. There's so much good. The quality of content, these shows, you know, so, you know, a great. We just finished watching the pit. It's like, wow, this is really high quality, and I can lose myself in that. And so there's really high quality, you know, content being produced these days, and I think we enjoy that.
- [66:49]
David Novak
Besides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession?
- [66:53]
John Donahoe
I don't think there's anything that comes close to those two things.
- [66:57]
David Novak
That's fine. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?
- [67:02]
John Donahoe
Well, A, I'm probably the only guy using radio, but B, Van Morrison. Ben Morrison is my favorite musician. I've probably seen him 15 times, including two or three weeks ago in San Francisco. He's 80 years old. Every time I listen to a Van Morrison song, it evokes something in me.
- [67:17]
David Novak
What's something about you? Few people would know.
- [67:19]
John Donahoe
Well, I would characterize myself as maybe more spiritual than people realize, and spiritual with a small S. A little bit what we talked about. Because people project a lot onto us and assume that, oh, if you've had success, or, oh, if you've had. That you care about things that I don't really care that much about.
- [67:42]
David Novak
All right, we're out of the lightning round. Great job. Now, I got a few more questions. I'll let you go. I know you've got something to run to, which is not a big surprise. You know, you and your. Your wife Eileen, you have four kids. What's something about leadership that you've carried home with you? I mean, how. How do you try to lead at home?
- [67:59]
John Donahoe
Well, it's almost the opposite, David. We had. We had our youngest. Our oldest child's now 40. He'll be 42 this year. So we had them in my first year of Stanford Business School, I had my first child at 24. Arlene was 25. So we had family before career. And I would say I learned more about being from being a father and a husband to being a leader than the other way around. And so it's like your friends don't give. I'm sorry, your family, your kids don't give a shit what you do. They don't care about title. They don't. It's. It's the ultimate humbling, you know, humbling experience, and it's the ultimate lesson in resilience like a marriage over time, you know, that you. It's. It's a marathon, not a sprint. And so I feel lucky that my personal life has taught me about leadership. Every time I try to lead at home, I fail miserably. And my kids and wife tell me that
- [68:57]
David Novak
you've accomplished so much in your career already, and now you're in your ultimate servant leadership role. That's how you got in it. What do you see as your unfinished business? John?
- [69:08]
John Donahoe
Enjoying the moment in the moment. I remember it was about 10 years ago. I took a sabbatical 10 years ago. And I remember watching Steph Curry play, and I'm like, he plays with joy. And he plays with the same joy in a night that he's 1 for 10 that he does on a night that he's 10 for 10. And I feel like I've accomplished a lot, but I didn't play. I. I dove on every loose ball. I fought really hard. Maybe we won. But at, like, the end of the season, like, dude, did you enjoy it? And so learning to play with joy, to love the discipline, love competing, love being on the playing field, but try to enjoy the moment in the moment is my current highest mantra. It turns out it's a lot harder to do than it is to say.
- [69:51]
David Novak
Fantastic. Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?
- [69:59]
John Donahoe
Embrace yourself and keep learning. And those both are true. Everyone has the ingredients to be a great leader, and you do that by embracing your authenticity. You've got to never stop learning. And those two both being true to who you are and keeping learning. The combination of those two things, I think, is what differentiates the best leaders that were able to the. To keep a strong balance of both.
- [70:23]
David Novak
You know, John, one of the things that I'm really trying to work on now is just. It's called the precious present. You know, just recognizing that the present is precious and, you know, don't get ahead of yourself. Don't get in the future. The now is really what matters. And that sounds maybe a little spiritual, I don't know. But it. But it's so true. And enjoying the moment in the moment is really incredible. And I'm so glad that we did have that round of golf at Fisher's island and Fisher's island, and it was fantastic. And I'm so glad we got to know each other. And I've certainly enjoyed this moment. It's been very special, and I appreciate you taking so much time out to share it with Me.
- [71:06]
John Donahoe
Thank you, David. I feel the same way.
- [71:10]
David Novak
Foreign.
- [71:14]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
What a fascinating conversation. I love that John has had this incredible career at the very top of companies like Nike and ebay, and now he's navigating all of these insane changes that are happening in college sports as the athletic director at Stanford. This. This conversation was just fascinating to me.
- [71:34]
David Novak
Yeah, well, I think John has demonstrated that he's capable of going into any kind of business and making a significant difference. And I'm sure what he's going to do at Stanford will become textbook over time. He's a tremendous leader. He really understands the importance of knowing his business cold, knowing his constituencies cold, and then putting together a strategy that's going to take whatever business he's leading forward. And I'm sure he's going to do a great job. I also love the fact he's enormously vulnerable, constantly learning about himself as a leader, and views himself as unfinished business, which I think is great.
- [72:16]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
David, as we do in every debrief of our episodes, we're going to give our listeners some real practical tools that they can apply right away to their leadership and to their life. And so I want to break down some of these concepts that you and John discussed in the episode. The first one being kind of this main theme that I recognized throughout the entire episode. And it's the importance of John's outside in approach. John talks about how important it is to first look at external forces like customers and culture, instead of starting with internal numbers that you just want to beat when it comes to building out a strategy. And I'm curious, David, how would you coach your team on how to be more outside in. In their thinking?
- [72:59]
David Novak
Well, I think the first responsibility of leadership is always to define reality. And the only way you can define reality is to see the world the way it really is, not the way you want it to be. And that means you have to look at the world. You have to look outside of your own domain and look at the world and see how you fit within it. And when you do that, then you can really define reality. And then you're at the beginning stages of being able to develop an effective plan to cope with that reality and, and change the game for your company or yourself. So, you know, I big believer in being externally focused. And in my world, it was always customers. And, you know, one of my edicts was listen and respond to the voice of the customer. What's the customer telling us? What's the customer want? What problems are we trying to solve for the customer? You know, if you do that, you're focused on what really matters. And people will many times say, in business, you don't exist without customers. And that's true. So, you know, how do you act that way? Well, you act that way by being focused on the customers, not the way how you see yourself internally or how you want customers to think about you. You start by understanding how they think about you, and then you get them to think about you the way you want them to because you've addressed their needs.
- [74:22]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
He also reiterates the importance of doing that on a continual basis, because at the rate that things are changing so, so quickly in our world today, especially in his world with college athletics, he says, you know what, what happened six months ago sometimes is irrelevant today. So I love this, this notion of not just one time looking externally, seeing what the market is doing, seeing what your customers are doing, and then creating your strategy based on that, and then never looking at the external forces again. It's a constant input of knowledge and information about what's actually happening in the world that continues to shape the strategy on an ongoing basis.
- [75:00]
David Novak
Yeah, the. One of the. One of the guys that I really admire on that front is Jamie Dimon. He's constantly got his ear to the ground. He's constantly listening to his customers, his clients. He's listening to his people. And, you know, he's, you know, he's listening to world leaders, but he really develops a perspective that's grounded in what's really, really happening out, not necessarily inside. Of course, I'm not saying you put your head in the sand in terms of what's going on internally. You need to understand your people, just like you understand customers, so that you can take them with you to address any kind of change initiative or any kind of project that you really want to get done. So, yeah, you got to know what's going on inside your company and how people are thinking, but you want to make sure that what you're doing is you're driving the people inside of your company to address what's happening out there with your customers. And that that's really the key.
- [75:51]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
The next topic that I found super interesting that John talked about was this idea of the inner journey of leadership. Everyone knows the external journey, so to speak, that a leader experiences, the challenges that come along with being the one in charge, all of the different tasks that you're up against every single day. But what I love that he focuses on, too, is this inner journey of leadership. And he talks about some of the ways that he tends to that in his own life. And David, I want to know, what do you do to listen to and tend to your inner journey as a leader?
- [76:25]
David Novak
Yeah, well, I, I think John talked about his journal that he writes about what he learned and, and how he's going to put it to use, you know, as he, as he goes forward into, into the day. And he, he does that on a daily basis. What did I learn yesterday? And, and how can I evolve? And I love that. I think all leaders have got to find a way to find that quiet time that they need to reflect on their leadership. One of the things that I'm really focused on this year, which I put in my three by five card, which is always like, what am I today? How do I want to be more effective tomorrow? Is I'm really focused on evolving from being someone that has spent a little bit too much time thinking about the future in terms of what I want to have happen as an outcome, and too much time looking back at what I could have done better, which I think you can learn from. But the one thing I can tell you is the past is over and the future you can't predict. So I'm really focused on trying to be in the precious present. I call it the precious present. Really being focused on, on what's happening in my life right now. Like, right now, we're having this podcast, we're having this discussion. I'm engaged 1000% with you and doing it with whatever skill I have and. But I'm really focused in the mornings. You know, like John, I really try to journal. I have three things that I read every morning and, you know, and write in. I have my gratitude journal where I write down three things that I'm grateful for, at least three things. Then I have a devotional that I read, you know, that tells me how Jesus led. And, you know, I write down a prayer every morning. And then, you know, I'm reading this book on stoicism, and so I'm reading what happened this day, you know, you know, I read not what happened this day, but I read like, you know, if it's March 29th, I read that passage in March 29th, and I learn from stoicism. So I'm just trying to constantly learn and evolve, but get my mind ready to attack the day and to make the most of each day.
- [78:39]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
David. We recently had an event here in Nashville where we invited a group of educators that are part of our Lead for Change program. And in some of the program that we delivered to them, we talked about the importance of having a practice, a morning practice, and it doesn't matter what it looks like, but just something that you can return to every day that grounds you in the present moment and sets the stage for the rest of your day. And so, you know, I, we've done over 280 of these podcast episodes. And I think every single leader that we've, that we've interviewed says that they have some sort of morning practice. And it's been unbelievably impactful for my life as well, just to have something that I know is going to set the stage and get my mood and being right for whatever the day has to offer.
- [79:28]
David Novak
Yeah. And, you know, and I think tomorrow morning when I wake up, I'm going to write down to my gratitude journal that I'm grateful for all the Lead for Change teachers that out there that are teaching students how to be better leaders. And you know, this is a program we started years ago where we have thousands of teachers signed out, signed up, teaching millions of kids, you know, how to, how to be better leaders. And you know, I think that's, that's so exciting. And I'm so thrilled that we as a team were able to bring the teachers into Nashville and spend three days developing them. And, you know, that's very, very gratifying. So shout out to all the great teachers out there.
- [80:11]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
Absolutely. And by the way, if you are listening to this and you're an educator or you know, an educator who could use some free professional development, send them to leadforchange.org and we'd love to serve them. David, the last point that I want to bring up is this idea of role models. And John talks a lot in the episode about his leadership muses. He says when he has CEO of Nike, he had pictures of coach K, Phil Jackson, Tara vanderveer and John Thompson on the wall in his office. And I want to know, David, who's to going, going on your wall of leadership inspiration? Who are your muses?
- [80:46]
David Novak
I don't have a wall of leaders that have been inspirational to me, but it's very easy for me to think about who would be on it. Number one would be Andy Pearson, person I co founded Young Brands with. I mean, he taught me, you know, so much about business. Great decision maker, great, great leader, you know, great inspirer, coached me, helped me believe myself before I even knew what I was capable of doing. That would be Wayne Calloway, the chairman of PepsiCo. So wise. I tell many stories about him all the time on, on, on this podcast. But, but Wayne was really the one that helped me realize that I was going to have to evolve from being a marketing person into a general manager before I could run A division at PepsiCo. And he gave me great coaching to that end. And then I just love Ken Langone, the co founder of Home Depot. Guy who made NYU Langone what it is today, number one hospital in the world working with Bob Grossman. But he's really taught me the power of just a kind gesture. You know, this guy is all about kindness. As tough as he is. And he is tough, he's tough binded. But man, there's nobody that can love on you like a kid Langone. And he's taught me the power of that. So those three right off the top would be on my wall. You know, stepping back, I think we've talked about three things that are pretty important. Number one, we gotta, as leaders, we gotta keep looking on the outsides. See the world the way it really is, not the way you want it to be. Number two, constantly reflect on where we are at in our journey of leadership. And number three, be inspired by those that have come before us and invested in us and, you know, have those heroes that we can think about, not just think about them, but emulate them and the kind of impact that they've had on our life. Let's do the same thing for others.
- [82:49]
Podcast Host (Interviewer)
David, thank you much, so, so much for another excellent episode. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to How Leaders Lead. We will see you next Thursday.