How Failed JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson Is Redeeming Himself

The man who helped make Target cool and Apple Stores the most successful retail concept ever was severely humbled after flaming out at JCPenney. Only a startup could save him.

- Max Chafkin

Most mornings, Ron Johnson rises just after 4 a.m., without the use of an alarm clock, and sets off on a five-mile run. “My strategy is if I wake up before 3 a.m., I go back to sleep,” he explains to a group of his employees, a dozen men and women in their twenties who listen with a mix of awe and a little horror. Next, he hits 50 chip shots in his backyard in Atherton, California—“because your short game matters”—and then, as the sun is coming up, he spends a couple of hours answering emails.

Johnson’s goal is to get his blood flowing before he ever sets foot in the offices of Enjoy, the Silicon Valley e-commerce startup he founded last year and which officially launched in May. He tries to spend the entire workday in meetings, usually receiving updates and conducting informal reviews with groups of employees like this one.

Johnson has a desk with a computer on top of it, but he almost never sits there, and although he carries an iPhone, he mostly gestures with it. In my time with him, I never once saw him even glance at the screen. “Anytime you’re going to your phone, it’s a withdrawal from a relationship,” Johnson says. “The team needs to feel your presence, your concentration, your interest.”

 

Johnson, 56, has found that he can be efficient this way, so much so that on most days he heads home around 3 p.m. Family matters to him—he’s married and has a daughter, 20, and a son who’s 18—and, as he explains, he’s not as young as he once was. “You’ll find, when you get older, the cycles tend to get the better of you,” he says, leaning back in his chair, allowing his legs to slide forward and his hands to fall behind his head, as he breaks into a wide smile.