When information broke of Elliott Hill’s triumphant return to Nike as its new CEO, I instantly considered Shoe Canine, the memoir by its founder Phil Knight. Throughout my days as a expertise administration director on the firm, the e-book was handed out to all staff.
In it, Phil defined what drove him to create one of many world’s most profitable manufacturers. Certain, as a younger man he had targets of constructing a household and getting cash, he wrote. “However deep down I used to be trying to find one thing else, one thing extra. I had an aching sense that our time is brief, shorter than we ever know, quick as a morning run, and I needed mine to be significant. And purposeful. And inventive.” Then, all of the sudden, “I noticed all of it earlier than me, precisely what I needed my life to be. Play. Sure, I assumed, that’s it. That’s the phrase. The key of happiness.”
That is greater than an origin story. It’s an ethos that Knight instilled all through the group. Above all, what has pushed individuals at Nike to work exhausting, experiment, and innovate is that shared sense of what the work is all about. The higher a job the corporate has achieved of constructing certain everybody feels their work is significant, the extra profitable Nike has been.
As I’ve labored elsewhere within the years since (whereas remaining a Nike shareholder), I’ve seen the identical phenomenon play out at numerous corporations. So for my doctoral dissertation from the College of Pennsylvania final 12 months, I explored dozens of research. My conclusion? Significant work—greater than some other measure—has the most important potential affect on worker motivation and efficiency.
Nike’s struggles over the previous couple of years have mirrored this. John Donahoe was chosen as CEO in 2018 (the 12 months after I left the corporate, so I didn’t work with him). He has been credited with serving to develop Nike’s digital efforts and guiding the model by means of the early days of the pandemic. Nevertheless it’s additionally lengthy been clear that his choice sacrificed the shared sense of which means on the core of the corporate.
He got here alongside as an outsider with expertise in tech and administration consulting, however none with Nike’s trade or what it stands for. Whereas his background and areas of focus ready him to make strategic selections on some essential issues, they did nothing to make him somebody who may characterize and unfold Nike’s ethos internally, conserving everybody impressed.
Nike’s government chairman Mark Parker alluded to the necessity for this sort of course correction in saying the brand new succession plan for Hill to take over. “Elliott’s world experience, management model, and deep understanding of our trade and companions, paired along with his ardour for sport, our manufacturers, merchandise, shoppers, athletes, and staff, make him the fitting individual to steer Nike’s subsequent stage of progress,” Parker mentioned.
The point out of “companions” is essential. As a part of Donahoe’s cost-cutting efforts, Nike reportedly ended relationships with lots of its wholesalers, creating a gap for rivals to maneuver into these vacated areas.
This wasn’t only a unhealthy name for the plain enterprise causes. When relationships are severed with individuals who have performed a job in an organization’s operations, work can really feel much less significant to those that are nonetheless there. In my analysis, I discovered that what makes work significant is not only the corporate’s objective and the way a person’s position pertains to it—it’s additionally the sense of neighborhood that folks develop with those that are like teammates going after a shared win.
Layoffs on the firm certainly had an analogous impact. The sense of neighborhood dissipates, and folks grow to be extra indifferent—which was echoed by laid-off workers in statements to the media.
Hill’s arrival offers Nike a possibility to repair all this. Nike workers celebrated the information as quickly because it broke. Already, staff are signaling hope. If the staff is something just like the one I as soon as oversaw there—and I consider it’s—then they’re not simply hoping for higher gross sales metrics and hovering shares on Wall Avenue. They’re additionally hoping to really feel nice once more about what they do every day—that what they do is significant, purposeful, and artistic. That’s how work turns into play, and the way happiness takes root inside an organization.
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