Sketchbook CEO

22 Aug 2010 – Mark Lee

In a recent post to this blog titled Go West, I questioned the potential for US-based sustainability leadership, especially whether unique American attributes like open borders and brainpower (i.e. talent inflow via immigration and numerous ‘smart nodes’ as Richard Florida labels US metros) will conspire to generate the innovation on which such leadership depends. Overall, I’m optimistic, but I noted also Po Bronson’s recent essay in Newsweek suggesting America faces nothing less than a Creativity Crisis, and suggested we will need to watch weather vanes closely to determine trends, then work actively to accelerate those where creativity and sustainability collide to good effect.

As if on cue, the next issue of Fast Company put Mark Parker of Nike on the cover, heralding him as The World’s Most Creative CEO. What’s going on in Oregon?

Behind the Berm

The Nike campus is in suburban Beaverton, outside better-known Portland’s varyingly gritty, urbane and creative heart. An earthen berm encircling the entire campus increases an initial sense of insularity (though of course, being Nike, the berm has a running track on its crest too!). But to visit campus is to feel a crackle of positive energy and to witness active, energetic collaboration and engagement in offices and in the cafeteria, as well as on the playing fields.

To hear Fast Company render the story, Parker embodies and applies the attributes required to keep his company open to new ideas, inspired by others’ excellence (as often that of artists as athletes), and conscious how hard it must work to remain cutting edge – no small feat when leadership entails divining, interpreting and then continually redefining the limits of where performance and function meet fashion.

Designer at Heart

The Fast Company profile relates how Parker, who came to Nike as a footwear designer, still carries a sketchbook with him – and constantly puts it to use. Two pages of the sketchbook are reproduced in the article, one showing a list of the many opposites Parker strains to keep in balance: the short and long term; art and science; physical and digital; inspiration and innovation. The article also relates his ‘edit and amplify’ mantra, meaning he and Nike must ‘…amplify the innovation agenda further, and short-list the things that will make the biggest difference’. And Parker applies the mantra to sustainability, suggesting that design done right (e.g. the application of Nike’s Considered Index) will ensure that ‘the entire process becomes sustainable’ in time.

Artist and Student

I have met Parker just once, and I was impressed because, as the most senior guy in the room among a diverse group of external Nike stakeholders, he didn’t say much – he listened (which too many other CEOs seem pathologically unable to do). The article’s anecdotes about the extraordinarily diverse relationships he maintains (and the dinner parties he hosts!) make it seem that to listen – and to be curious – is part of his nature. If these traits are emulated by the larger Nike team, they could compose a living, global learning network, simultaneously plugged into myriad different sources of inspiration, with the opportunity to learn from mentors as diverse as graffiti artists, Steve Jobs, waiters and Lance Armstrong. You literally can’t buy that kind of consumer and societal insight. Parker and Nike are surrounding themselves with people and ideas capable of inspiration, and turning that inspiration into (progressively more sustainable) products that thrill consumers and shareholders.

Wish List

I ‘sketch’ more in words than images, but I finished the Parker article determined to attempt more of the latter in the notebooks I carry with me even in this digital age. And I couldn’t help but wonder: Would injecting more artistry help spur greater creativity in other boardrooms across America and around the world?