Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

This is a major problem in the strategy function

You are right. But that mean someone in Nike wouldhave to admit they had no idea what they were doing when they hired (they probably didn’t). And Nike leadership (think S and above exponentially) will never admit! So, you and your hard working colleagues will have to do the work, deal with the new incompetence, go through the drama and hear the big boss claim how create of a ‘change’ it has all been. Seen it for 20 plus years at the COO level and it will never go away.

The problems start to multiple when it’s a leader who hires others. What I have always seen is that a person who is promoted and shouldn’t be, they hire the worst of the worst. Is it because they’re id--ts and don’t know what to hire? Or is it because they hire poor quality folks to make themselves look better?

The end result is the same. The bone head who got the promotion now have a bone head team and now they are a bone head force to be reconned with. When you get too many bone heads together the level of d-mb donkey backsides ideas increase exponentially.

After nearly 20 years at Nike I've seen countless first hand examples of people who have gotten special accelerated promotions that defy the typical progression. What I've also observed is that a high percentage of those who were on the "fast track" often experience that track leading to an off-ramp to somewhere else either by choice or by being pushed out.

One portion is comprised of individuals of high ambition that forced/influenced/manipulated themselves to higher positions who then grow impatient when they hit the inevitable Nike ceiling and decide to jump to another job to continue their fast fail upwards rise through the ranks at another company by leveraging the Nike resume effect.

The other portion of "fast risers" are people who are hand picked by leaders as personal pets or favorites who are deemed as useful tools and political allies but because those promotions are artificially inflated based on bias and not experience or competence, they often fail fast when the sponsor leader leaves or needs a fall person for their own incompetence.

Basically there's a lot of instability and churn in the top ranks due to biased hiring and favoritism that despite all of Nike's PR to the contrary, is still very much alive and flourishing. The true key players and workhorses are usually destined to stay in the roles they are in forever so they can keep the entire company from collapsing under the weight of leadership incompetence.

Peasants can enjoy the 2% raise every year to keep them from rioting against the Lords and Ladies of Nike "cool" Court who dine on $millions of RSUs and options. The only short term satisfaction to be gleaned lately is that most of those options are worthless due to the stock collapse this year.

This is true. But, I have seen 1 case where the said individual was demoted to a lower position.Although it should be happening evening at Manager/Sr leadership.But, here we are