CEO as Boundary Crosser

Mark Parker is the CEO of Nike. Last week, he was profiled in the Wall Street Journal as someone who turns to many worlds for inspiration, including interior design, cuisine, art and music. According to the article, he's as comfortable hanging out with a DJ or an art gallery owner as he is with business executives. He's worked at Nike since 1979, coming up the ranks from research, product development, and marketing. According to the article:

"His Beaverton office is a menagerie of oddball toys that he has obsessively collected of years. A huge caricature painting of Keith Richards by German artist Sebastian Kruger looms behind his desk. Leaning in a corner, matter-of-factly, is a beat-up Stratocaster guitar once owned by Jimi Hendrix....He once paid a call to the novelist Ken Kesey--who was a star wrestler in college--to get "some ideas" on wrestling shoes."

The result of his boundary crossing is that Nike has continued to be considered hip, with collaborators for some its more successful products coming from a Los Angeles tattoo artist (Mister Cartoon) and Brazilian twins who specialize in street murals.

The best line in the article comes from quoting Parker: "[It's about] looking peripherally, not just straight ahead."  Innovation comes from the side trips, not the path laid out.