#286: John Donahoe, Former CEO of Nike, Director of Athletics at Stanford – Create strategy from the outside in

How Leaders Lead with David Novak

David Novak Leadership

Entrepreneurship, Business, Management

4.8 • 596 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2026

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Most organizations look inward when they build strategy. How did we do last year? Can we do 10% better this year? But that internal focus makes you miss the big changes happening in your market. When it comes to disruptive change, John Donahoe has seen it all — as the CEO of Nike, eBay, and ServiceNow. Today, he’s navigating the seismic changes in college sports as Athletic Director at Stanford. In this conversation, he’ll unpack how to navigate big changes with smart strategy and servant-minded leadership. Plus, he gets vulnerable about the mistakes he made at Nike and the 10-minute ritual he starts every morning with. You’ll also learn: How to create strategy from the outside in A powerful way to reframe AI (hint: it’s not about AI) The mindset shift that helps you see adversity as opportunity The leadership lessons he learned from Colin Powell and Coach K Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The How Leaders Lead App⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Daily Insight Emails⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead with David Novak.
0:05.0	Today we have John Donahoe on the show. And when it comes to disruptive change,
0:10.2	John Donahoe really has seen it all. He's served as a CEO of Nike, of eBay, and of service now.
0:16.2	And today, he's navigating the crazy changes in college sports as the athletic director at Stanford University.
0:23.3	In today's conversation, you'll learn how John navigates big changes with a strategy that focuses
0:28.0	on what he calls outside in thinking. You'll also hear him share vulnerably about some of the
0:33.7	mistakes that he made at Nike and about the mindset shift that has helped him frame
0:38.1	adversity into opportunity. Enjoy this conversation with David and John, and I'll see you at the
0:44.5	very end of the episode for the debrief.
0:52.3	John, I got to tell you, you've got one of the best golf swings I have ever seen.
0:56.9	Have you been able to translate that beautiful, long, back swing, flowing rhythm that you have into a good score lately?
1:04.2	The good news, David, is that my experience in golf doesn't resemble my experience in business.
1:10.0	I had a caddy about 10 years ago say
1:12.5	to me on the 14th hole at San Francisco. He said, hey, John, can I be honest with you? And I said,
1:19.8	sure, Billy, what's up? He said, John, you have a beautiful golf swing. But I have never seen anyone
1:25.3	get less out of a golf swing than you do.
1:30.3	And I'm like, Billy, you know my game.
1:33.1	I'm going to pick the business rather than golf.
1:36.7	Well, I doubt if you're getting a whole lot of time to play golf,
1:40.8	given the fact that, you know, when I was just doing a little bit of research,
1:45.3	you've got to be more 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
1:53.1	to imagine you're watching more sports now than than you ever have in your life. Is that true?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from David Novak Leadership, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of David Novak Leadership and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.