PHK-
THANKS.
+Three decades with the greatest company I could have ever imagined. I have more than I ever thought possible. I left knowing what brought me to the company and kept me here so long is gone and until proven wrong, never coming back. I get that a company will change going from -$1B to +$36B. I get were a Footwear company trying to be an Apparel company. I get that change is constant. Evolve or die.
For the longest time it never felt like work, it was a lifestyle. No matter who, you could look around the room and know that the person next to you was talented, going to be respectful and had your back. We were in it to do what was right for the business vs. manage our career. For the longest time great work was recognized and rewarded. Promotions, new titles mostly made sense. That is not the case anymore. NIKE is a culture of career elevation for those who are really good at working at NIKE regardless if your able to deliver great work at NIKE. Its how you say it, how you present it, how great is the deck? What font is that? Who cares if it makes business sense or if we can activate it I have the best new shiny object and some great new NIKE acronyms to go with it. I win, I rule. Nepotism run wild. Point me to my new parking spot.
Retiring the "American Psycho" was a great first step. Nothing good happened for the greater good of folks under his tenure. It was no secret in the hallways as a previous post calls out, he wanted to get rid of 50% of those 50 years and older. Take a look at the lay off list, ask someone to show it to you. He was warned.
What is so disappointing is no change to JM4. Its worldwide news that we are going to layoff and it felt like the next internal email was "no change" on JM4. Really? Our greatest fear has been realized by this leadership team as the sleeping German giant has been given life and no change? How? Why? What does someone have to do to lose their job? In sports (its still about athletes and sports right?) the head coach and staff are the first to go ... at a distance these layoffs look to be about tenured workers. Why are those folks paying the price for poor leadership across all functions? JM4 is invisible to the masses. An occasional email to Keep it Tight but thats it ... we have know we would have layoffs for to long now, longer than 2009 and silence ... no one in front of the masses saying we have a plan hear it is. Sad, unacceptable really.
What would I do? If I were to pick three things here they are;
Fire TE, Fire JM, Fire and walk/run/push the Queen of Walmart.com out of the building
These are the three main culprits in creating everything described on these posts. TE / Rules with fear and intimidation. My way or your out. How was the presentation? What font was that? All style, no content. #fakebritishaccent Did he/she just disagree with me? Your out.
JM / See above. Same thing. Clone. Performance product has s---ed for to long. The world largest Sporting Goods retailers are relying on Sportswear to deliver the business. Not good, healthy or where we need to be. Perf should always out pace fashion. Its still about the athlete and sports right? Whats sad is this Fear and Intimidation behavior is cloned to other leaders. Ask anyone who works in the NIKE Women's org or pick up the GQ magazine where it was called out.
QUEEN OF WALMART.com / See above. Hey lets have an offsite in LA and I will show you my yacht. How did this type person end up leading @ NIKE? Purveyor and activator of the Fear and Intimidation offense. Also, the leader that thought it would be good to dominate headcount asks and build an organization with no footwear experience. Believe it or not, the answer to everything isn't take an item and blow it out in color. Its not a one size fits all world. We do not validate our brand internally. Consumer right assortments are Campus right assortments. How do phrases like Directed Assortment and Minimally Credible make it into the company acronym list?
I spent the last part of my career in Merchandising. We have struggled from day 1 to find a purpose for our function. Everything we were doing, sales was already doing and that just put two functions head to head fighting for survival. There is no Merch function at Adi ... (not that we ever want to follow what they do) You want to eliminate useless positions? Eliminate this function. Either the or activate all NIKE product being sold through NIKE Direct.
Rant over.
Good luck.