I see a lot of posts saying today’s managers or leaders aren’t that amazing. Just wondering, what was so great about the ones in the past? Like, how were they different? What did they do that helped Nike do well? Or were they not really that different from the ones we have now? Is it the same quality of managers or leaders and just different business circumstances now? Are Nikes woes really to blame on just a handful of names or is it a more widespread issue? I haven’t been here long enough to compare.
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@aw YES! You nailed it! This statement alone….” They were our LEADERS, we could talk to them.”
Yesterday’s leaders cared about doing a good job for the business and their teams. Today’s leaders only care about making their managers think they’re doing a good job so they can get that next promotion .
Like Jobs said, A players hire A players. B players hire C players.
Need to be uncompromising in hiring top performers since they attract and demand excellence from others. In contrast, if you hire mediocre people, they tend to feel threatened and will hire even less capable people to protect themselves, lowering the overall talent level of the organization.
This company now has a plethora of Bs and Cs. The problem is that when these Bs and Cs are in the positions of power, they use reorgs to sideline A players they feel threatened by. Thus, Nike is unable to rebound unless all the Bs and Cs at the upper echelons are removed, which isn’t happening fast enough.
Those so called great leaders hired the current group of so called leaders. That’s all you need to know about those past leaders.
Nike got lucky with timing, weak competition and great marketing. Something that goes on your feet shouldn’t be this expensive
When three letters of false piety took precedence over genuine merit, it certainly didn’t help.
When the requirment for managment became "have an Indian accent" everything started going downhill.
@aw while I disagree on the senior director part, I never had someone who referred to themselves as that on my team… it was either Director or VP. I do agree on the tenure part.
My first day someone got their 20 year award. He was the sweetest guy ever, started in a store and worked his way up. I was inspired from that day on and never thought about working any where else. My second year at Nike I worked on a team that had a minimum tenure of 15 years the next youngest to me was 45. It was the supportive team I ever worked with. After a certain tenure level you lose the need to prove to everyone how smart you are. If you have moved correctly your reputation speaks for itself so its more common to see leaders and tenured employees step out of the spotlight to give the nervous newbies a chance to fumble through presenting their own work.
That’s a culture that laying off when age+tenure>40 will never get you. No matter what you pay people.
Having been here for 15 years and having 7 different leaders, I’ve had awful leaders but ‘good people’ meaning they couldn’t navigate themselves out of a wet paper bag but involved in my development. I’ve had excellent leaders and ok developers, meaning great understanding of the business but personal development wasn’t their thing. Then the “worst” leader and personal development, ie: looking out for themselves.
Unfortunately either they’ve all been impacted by reorgs or left the company. Right now I’m riding high with good management but who knows how long that will last. Just have to ride the wave until it ends. It will eventually end whether you like it or not.
TLDR; Leaders come and go, it’s essentially just a moment in time for all of us.
This is what changed, and NO this is not about GT (is anyone else on here besides them & the CS hater?) I digress, Managers ( directors) were managed by talented SENIOR directors. SD's had experience usually w/in Nike & had been a round a few + years or so, thus making them qualified to a)know what they are doing b)how to lead greener talent c) knowledgeable of the brand and have relationships in many areas of the company . Being an SR was a GREAT role and came with a lot of responsibility (like- start to mentor, get in the trenches and DO the work and get support and give D's opportunity to develop. SD's reported to very talented, experienced and most often time, Nike veterans. These people had been at Nike for YEARS, earned their stripes buy most of the time having worked cross functionally giving them the experience with other brands in the brand, cultivating solid relationships with other employees ( at this point they have worked with dozens of SD's, D's... with the top creative /marketing/design chiefs). VP's were the BEST at prioritizing, vision, creating, motivating and hiring quality talent. They have worked maybe for Converse, Hurley, Cole Haan - they were the SOUL of the company. They used to inspire by "doing" alongside us, exampling for us. Not from far away. They were our LEADERS, we could talk to them. They knew Nike in & out. When you needed a change, it was encouraged to work on special projects with other groups, apply to work with other groups. They were leading the Nike family. When they left, left with the knowledge, the experience on how to push projects through, they were relationship builders in the company, the culture creators. It's crazy to think Nike has been hiring outside of Nike for critical brand and design roles. WHAT????!!!! It's like suddenly getting a new step parent you never met before and being forced to like them. It's been awkward, forced, to be honest, un motivating. Why didn't WE get those roles! I was hoping with EH back that he would bring back our thought leaders, design phenoms that left us (you know the ones -they quit or were laid off) I mean seriously now... We used to bring up our own in Nike. People were here for 15, 20, 25+ years. Look, to newish, young people this seems lame or that tenured nike creatives are stale. It's not, it's experience that matters, leadership that matters, relationships that matter, camaraderie that matters, team spirit drove us. Look at us now, we have only few experienced real design / brand marketing Nike family left. The ones who know Nike .... the vibe is shot. Our athletes look at our brand as a meal ticket now, they are not a part of our team. It's been a real loss for us culturally.
Managers have no authority. Managers are given no information. Managers are swapped around as much as much as independent contributors so relationships are only 4 to 8 quarter’s deep.
You can’t even buy an icecream for $2 in today’s economy.
In the past managers would have enough time to get to know their team. Time to plan how to develop individual’s skills, create learning opportunities, share their network, etc. All my “old school Nike” managers regularly invited me to lunch, paid for it, and made sure to invite another 1 or 2 people from other areas of the company. Often times those were other leaders that knew they had teams to expand or holes to fill within the next 3-6 months.
That’s how ‘hiring from within’ works. How people feel like there’s a career path, even if the company has f-all formally put in place on paper. That’s how you create people that are personally invested in the company and the company’s culture. People that spend their personal time learning skills that will be useful in the future.
All we have now is a sack of skin getting drained by consulting mosquitos. Every senior leader wants their pound of flesh. White VPs stroke their consulting buddies. Indian VPs fluff and fake metrics to lie about how successful offshoring has been. Tech VPs have us buy their buddy’s trendy startup. None of them care about Nike 10 years from now. We fired the senior leaders that did a decade ago, they fired the middle managers that did 5 years ago, and today 80% of the company is an ETW or working 3 remote jobs simultaneously in Bangalore.
During my tenure (7yrs), the management has never been effective which was masked by high product demand and great revenue generation. Now that both of those things are in decline, we are realizing that sh---y management is unable to turn our fortunes around.
Everyone should expect layoffs to continue, each quarter for at least the next two quarters.