Don’t care if I get a bunch of hate on this post, but this is the reality. This company is full of very incompetent people at all levels with 10, 20, 30 years of tenure like you see in politics. All of whom are just coasting for paycheck’s, free swag and employee discount. I’m 4 months in and fully regret leaving a solid company for a minor pay increase- not at all worth it!
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No hate here. You are not crazy either!
In my experience the culture indeed was cut throat to the point of ruining the careers of another without remorse.
…as they cherry picked their way to ruin by recruiting intriguing yet incompetent and arrogant “talent” while avoiding experienced locals.
The so called talent was disjointed in that the proper change management solutions leaders were not consulted to bring about much needed growth transformation rather a boisterous egotistical bully would be put in charge to shake things up - chewing up and spitting out naive but eager worker bees along the way.
Ugg. PTSD for years
Everyone in this thread who pushed back on OP is a dipsh-t who got drunk on the koolaid.
I’ve been at Nike 6 years. I arrived at the same conclusion 6 months in and it is still true.
JD was absolutely awful and wrecked the company. But Nike’s upper ranks are stacked with incompetent narcissists.
For a decade+, Nike rode a tidal wave of beneficial macro conditions. Across the country, people stopped wearing suits to work and started wearing athleisure instead and reselling culture exploded the sales of our sneakers at the same time.
Nike was the biggest brand in the space, so we were going to benefit from that whether or not we had competent leaders in the senior ranks.
Unfortunately, that meant we didn’t have tough conditions to weed out the id--ts and ensure that those who rose to the top were the most competent. Since competence was irrelevant, the ones who rose to the top were simply the ones who were best at playing the game and grabbing power.
They, in turn, promoted people who reminded them of themselves, so our VP ranks and even a sizable portion of our SD ranks are stacked with utterly incompetent people who believe themselves to be brilliant and who fire the actually competent people under them that make their lives difficult by trying to get them to do the right thing.
It’s still possible to change this, but it will require EH cleaning house at the top and driving real meaningful change in our leadership ranks.
He hasn’t done that so far. But then again, it hasn’t even been a year, so we’ll see what if that change comes.
Funny, as I see the opposite. Nikes demise can easily and directly be tied to the purge of seasoned pros. People that knew how to get things done, that had passion for the brand. McKinsey, Bain, and a poor leader at the top in JD, none of which understood what makes Nike great…have mortally wounded the company.
I truly hope Nike gets its groove back. I find it confusing and petty that people would want anything but that outcome.
If you are really new to Nike then try to enjoy and leech off. Nike is not a career it is just a free paycheck until you are either board and move on, retire, or lay off. I used to work for Nike for about 2 years and it was zero work. My only regret is not to use that time to study and get my PE license. I finally got board of doing nothing and moved to a company that I make 30% more money but also out a lot of work. At the end of the day I am satisfied with the technical challenge of my current work
10% of the company does 90% of the work
Complete mo--ns. Specially the one that hired a person that just months into the company seems to have a full picture of who’s who and their motivations and skills.
Who are we kidding? Vast majority of our employees don’t care about doing real work. People act like they're working hard, but let's be real yo, we’re just faking it. I've got coworkers who literally tell me how to game the system and leech off it without doing any real work. As a new hire, enjoy the many free “meeting” lunches, swags from a zillion offsites, international travel in business class, endless meetings setup to protect work life balance and wonderful tools to ensure you protect yourself from managers/layoffs. Thanks to MP.
Those people probably have most of their assets tied to Nike future results. Those people care much more than all those new guys that come here, just to chase the “next role”.
In am sure you’ll down your whole career switching companies complaining about those there.
Oh boy!!! Just look at all these excuses flying around in this thread. No wonder the company’s in the mess it’s in right now! Blaming the CEO or anyone else is just a deflection from the real issue—we’ve got dead weight dragging us down and an incompetent talent pool that’s holding us back. Let’s be real, until we face that truth, nothing’s going to change.
Incentives are not aligned to outcomes at Nike. Coasting is not always the individuals fault. Bless.
Ahh OP…….four months in and you have all the answers! Let me guess, you felt this way about people at your last job too? This should be your honeymoon period, where your fresh perspective can help move the company forward. Remember, these folks were just like you. Recruited from another company for better pay and the promise of a brighter future. Don’t blame them for your lack of due diligence!
Some of us pour our heart and soul into it, only to be backstabbed or minimized by managers that are incompetent and unqualified.
Any coasting I’m doing has a direct correlation to managers that are selfish, unqualified, incompetent, and wouldn’t p-e on you if you were on fire.
I’ve had a dozen managers in about 10 years. One was great. Worked 60 hour weeks, happily. This was an average. Some more. Did great things for the brand. Wasn’t just me, about a hundred of us.
The others, the more I worked, or the more effort I put in, managers would belittle what I did. Extra effort meant extra scrutiny. Extra negative feedback. Extra risk for my ability to pay bills.
My effort and passion is directly correlated to the quality of management. Most managers at Nike simply have no EQ left. Likely, has a result of a trickle down from theirs.
The exec suite is setting a tone. Intentional or not. And it rolls down to us regulars.
The more you do, the more risk there is.
If you sense someone coasting, have some empathy. They may be having their own struggle. Trying to hide from a terrible manager, and simply trying to survive. Odds are, if led appropriately they would happily join you in any endeavor.
There is no reasonable development at Nike for leaders. Leaders. Not managers. There is a massive difference. We don’t have Leaders, we have managers. JD was a manager, not a Leader. The exec suite are all as far as I can tell… managers. They tell their directs what to do, how to do it, when to do it… and fury comes down on any effort put in that is beyond this.
If you work for someone that fits the above, that’s a manager. Not a leader.
Many will say… just leave. Get out. Find somewhere else. Getting pretty hard to do that friends. Job market is as tight as it’s ever been. And… why do I have to leave? I’m not the one setting a tone of fear. I’m trying to survive it.
The only way this place is turned around, is if we don’t turn on each other. We’ll need some of the good ones to make it through to senior management levels. People that will in a decade remember what the bad times were like. And set their own tone.
And lead the way through.
I left Nike 6 months ago because of this. too many sleepwalking zombies leeching off nike doing nothing meaningful. Look at all the downvotes from that crew on this post
^this …is OP spot on.
^this…OP is spot on.