Shane Parrish

sit with that last line for a second having told him what to do i hope that he would surprise me this is the difference between managing and leaving if you tell someone how to do something you cap the upside at your own imagination but if you tell them what to do and you leave them alone there's room for their imagination they could surprise you his people rewarded that trust with devotion

They called themselves buttfaces, a name from their brutally honest retreats where no idea was sacred and everyone was fair game.

They were a band of misfits who had walked through the fire for the company.

Not because Nike paid them well, he didn't, for years.

Not because he praised them constantly, he wasn't the type.

They did it because he saw something in each of them that the world had missed.

He bet on them when nobody else would.

There seems to be two competing worldviews around trust.

Some people think that you earn it, and some people think that you give it.

In this case, Phil gave it generously with real responsibility and real autonomy, and people moved mountains to prove him right.

Knight's team didn't just work for Nike, they were Nike.

Lesson 4, make work play.

Everyone talks about work-life balance, but Knight wanted the opposite.

Listen to what he writes here.

I was putting in six days a week at Price Waterhouse, spending early mornings and late nights and all weekends and vacations at Blue Ribbon.

No friends, no exercise, no social life.

And holy content.

My life was out of balance, sure, but I didn't care.

In fact, I wanted even more imbalance.

Or a different kind of imbalance.