Do Jae-sang - I want to take the lead now.

1. Not a housewife with a different appearance

People are needed for key leadership positions. It's natural to want the best possible person for that position. But what kind of person?

You will have experienced it. The person is this person. The task is this task. The way of doing it is the same. But in one situation, he was able to succeed and in another situation, he failed. They say that a good horse becomes a tortoise. So, just because he has been successful does not guarantee that he will be the best for the leadership position. This is a problem that must be considered when choosing the best person for the leadership position.

To answer this question, let's take a look at the interesting story of Bill Pires. Who is he?

His full name is William D. Bill Perret, and I will refer to him as Perret in this article. He is a chief executive officer, or CEO, who is the head of the company. He rose through the ranks to become CEO of consumer goods giant S.C. Johnson & Sons. He was recruited by Nike Inc. to be the CEO. He had been working at Nike Inc. and had been fired, so he had to resign. He later became CEO of W.M. Wrigley Jr. and became a successful entrepreneur.

Let's go back to 1959 and start the story. The place is in Weaverton, Oregon, USA. There is a 21-year-old middle-distance runner named Fennek, who is a strong athlete on the University of Oregon track and field team. His coach, Bill Bowman, is crazy about how to make running shoes lighter and more durable, and if only he could do that, his team would perform better. His coach's craze for athletic shoes has infected Fennek. Years later, Fennek is studying at Stanford Business School and has to submit a paper in class. In it, Fennek writes a paper titled "Starting a New Startup Company."

"Just as Japanese cameras can beat German cameras, Japanese sports shoes can beat German sports shoes, right?"

He wrote the paper with this perspective.

He proposed in the paper that a potential new business venture would be to import and sell inexpensive but high-quality running shoes from Japan to the United States.

He traveled the world, including Japan, and in 1963, to implement his thesis, he invested five hundred dollars and founded Blue Ribbon Sports Inc. The company imported and sold running shoes called Tiger from Japan to the United States. To meet the required investment, Finite persuaded Bowman to invest as well, and Bowman became a co-founder.

The budding entrepreneur Knight started out where he knew how. He would load his shoes in the back of his car and sell them at the University of Oregon track and field, where he had once run. The company made just $364 in revenue in its first year. But by 1969, Blue Ribbon Sports Inc. was generating more than $1 million in revenue. Its main product was a pair of high-performance, waffle-soled running shoes. In 1972, Knight changed the company’s name to “Nike.” The name was a reference to the Greek goddess of victory, Zeus. The company’s logo was a brushstroke that resembled the ubiquitous symbol of the true god. It was actually a drawing of one wing of Zeus, and the logo had been designed before the company changed its name. The logo is interpreted as representing "the spirit of the Winged Goddess, who is the most courageous, helpful, and supportive spirit in the cultural scene."

Nike has been riding the wave of the fitness movement trend for years, with the endorsement of famous athletes. Some even say that Nike is driving the trend. Because Nike is constantly introducing new products to support the trend.

The company's CEO, Finite, always wearing sunglasses and with his signature red-gold hair, is a man who makes his colleagues feel like they're part of a team. In 1980, he led the company's initial public offering, taking it public. The company surpassed the $1 billion mark in revenue in 1986. The influential Sports Illustrated magazine featured the headline "How One Man Went from Small Business to the Most Powerful Man in Sports" in its August 1993 issue.

By 2004, 45 years after graduating from the University of Oregon, the company's revenue had surpassed $12 billion. Knight was the company's biggest, richest, and most respected philanthropist. At 66, he was preparing to hand over the reins.

Knight and Nike's board of directors reviewed the company's approach to developing new products, marketing them to consumers, and selling them to retailers. They unanimously agreed that Nike was lagging behind the best practices of other successful consumer goods companies. They decided that they needed to change their approach to working in line with the times.

There were two potential successors to Knight. They were Charlie Danson and Mark Parker, who were both co-chief executives at Nike. They were the company’s young lads. They didn’t have the world-class marketing skills of consumer giants like Procter & Gamble and Unilever. If they did, they were only at the rudimentary level. So Knight had to go out and find someone to replace him. He secretly searched for someone to replace him.

He reviewed 75 CVs and interviewed 15 of them in person. From those, he selected four candidates and met with them several times. All four were senior executives at some of the world’s most well-known consumer goods companies. Of the four, Knight chose one as his favorite. The candidate was Bill Peretz. He is listed among the most admired CEOs. He had worked for SC Johnson for 34 years. SC Johnson, founded in 1886 as a privately held company, is a giant that makes dozens of household products brands, including Johnson & Johnson, Windex, Drano, and Plaid. He rose through the ranks of the $6.5 billion consumer goods company, eventually becoming CEO. When Nike announced that he had been CEO for only eight years, it came as a surprise to Nike employees. Investors were also surprised. The sports industry was also shocked.

Piret was a respected CEO, but at Nike, he was an outsider, so could he run a marathon while taking on the responsibilities of a giant company? Could he wear Nike running shoes long enough to run a marathon? Of course, there are obstacles. He is a true late bloomer among the old guys, isn't he?

But Nike chose Pirak to master management techniques and to have a systematic approach to marketing packaged consumer goods, developing new products, and conducting market research.

Although Peretz was appointed, Knight remains as chairman, so it's questionable whether Peretz will be given the full reins of the company. It's also questionable whether he'll actually hand over the reins. The company's already strong culture requires him to overcome the barriers that are foreign to him and integrate deeply. The company's traditional culture doesn't often give outsiders high positions. Other large companies that have established themselves as market leaders often hire outsiders to fill key positions like chief financial officer, but at Nike, that's rare.

“Nike’s culture is so unique that it has its strengths and weaknesses. It’s easy for people to make mistakes that can lead to death, even if they know about it.”

A high-ranking Nike official once said.

Over the course of a year, Knight and Perez met to get to know each other and had dinner together twice. They discussed management concepts. They discussed branding from the perspective of the culture of their respective industries. They also discussed Knight’s vision for the company and how they could work together. One evening, Knight visited Perez and his wife at their home. There, Perez accepted Knight’s offer to come to Nike as CEO.

Although the traditions at Peret's current job and the industry are different, Peret made the final decision to become CEO because he believed that the marketing, management, and brand building experience he had gained over the years would be useful at Nike.

"I'm going to learn from the people at Nike and understand the culture. The last thing I want to do is do something that will break the culture."

He said it clearly.

The intention was good. Both sides tried hard. But it didn't work out.