I am newer to Nike and in a global role. Can someone explain why out of all the geos it is so much harder to work with NA than the others? It seems like there's just bad blood and I don't get it.
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i love Apla
Why are you in a global corporate role? That is a d-mb question.
NA is under an insane amount of pressure right now, more than any other geo. Global is feeling that as well, but far more indirectly. There are also plenty of structural and cultural problems, but right now, leaders are breathing down NA stakeholders neck asking for more more more.
to the person that said EMEA is the problem. the issue that Global has with EMEA is the fact that in EMEA the SOP are far advanced compared to global. Yes people work less, have better lives, and still contribute better whilst acknowledging Europe is not a country, but a few different countries with different laws and legislations. Anyway, Nike is American and I completely get the American centrism, but having worked with both and in both, EMEA is the place to be.
P.S: I dont blame anyone but the executive team/CEO for why Nike is like this, everyone is just trying to be employed and its a failure of the current systems we have in place that incentivize bad behavior. But damn some people are GREEDY af.
I think a lot of leadership follow/believe in old business practices like replacing labor when its overpaid vs market, trying to get the most value out of employees with fear about job security, fire/layoff people during potential recessions to cut costs and out save competition, copy competition to recover lost market share, etc (a lot of these are economic business practices you learn in college.)
The issue is to actually be a leader, in any competitive market, you need new ideas that other competitors don't have/do. The best way to come up with new ideas is collective thinking/problem solving with employees (we all wear shoes, we all have reasons why sometimes we don’t buy Nike). But employees have zero incentive to help collectively solve problems between branches because from a leadership perspective “wow you just solved yourself out of the job, see ya”, want to ensure their own job security, and yeah ego is a big part of it. Theres also no existing measurement system for value add around helping others and sharing ideas, to the business you just wasted your time.
Leadership just values revenue/cost above everything else. Whereas I think if there was more transparency and employees felt confident about how they were adding value to the company & had honest systems to ensure that every role was generating value in some way (so we dont have times like this were everyones is quiet quitting) vs gaming the existing system. People would be way more motivated and confident to express what currently does/doesnt work and hopefully (the good managers like you) could take that feedback and have a mature convo with employees about how to change (without the job security fear bs). At the end of the day I don’t think JD or any CEO is gonna be like “this sole person is responsible”, you are measured by the value you bring as a team not as a individual (I feel like so many ppl at Nike do not understand this).
Long winded answer but i think the issue is focusing too much on profit vs making sure revenue >= costs as a (yes/no -> adjust s.t costs = revenue) AND employees/leadership have direct incentives to make the company better vs point the finger at someone, or worse feel the need to steal credit. Sometimes it feels like leadership think they are the only ones that wear shoes.
Like someone else said, NA is almost half Nike’s business. And it is the most established GEO by decades.
The solutions are older & crustier, the staff on the ground floor exist in 2x the quantity.
All together, it takes a significantly larger amount of effort to change an established system than to build a new one without any baggage.
And NA staff is some of the oldest at Nike. They’ve been watching our “strategy” change in circles every 18 months for decades. Why would they break their back to make worthless changes while knowing our blind leadership will have moved on faster than it takes to actually make any changes to the business.
I don't belive anyone should be able to move into global without prior experience in the geos.
I think that part of the struggle, especially in capabilities functions, is that global is expected to support the globe and do it with limited resources. And each geo thinks that their ask is the most important. Which means that heavy prioritization is needed. So even if we understand the geo need, we can’t always commit to geo asks or move in the speed they desire. Global capabilities is built and funded for consistency and scale, not tailored approaches.
in my 15+ years experience across many roles, global and geo, NA has been the worst, 2X. I saw some stuff in EMEA too but I survived thanks to a good direct manager. My career and impact grew the most in global roles. I’m now in my second NA role and again dealing with dysfunctional drama because of leadership ego driven chaos, competition, and in-fighting. I said “NA never again” after I got out the first time years ago. I thought the new opportunity, my current role, is NA, but it’s a completely different org so it’ll be fine. Nope… same old cr-p. I’m baffled on how leaders are downright a-holes and of low character in a game of slinging t-shirts and sneakers. never that serious for me. I’m almost certain this is the role that chases me out of Nike for good. Absolutely miserable working with and reporting to sociopaths. A leader insinuated I’m not leadership material because I’m unselfish and tend to consider people’s feelings. (i’m currently a lvl 50 with 10+ direct reports)
I heard this same sentiment when I was working in Global for a 2 year period as an ETW. Didn’t really get it, but was something that everyone was saying because others were. Then I got a role in Na… the same thing is said about Global. haha. My opinion… Geos are WAY closer to the day to day business than Global is and Geos actually impact the Business. So I guess that might be the disconnect is that Global is trying to influence and implement change to a Geo not fully knowing the impact it will make to the business resulting in the Geo just doing what it wants to do because they’re in the day to day from a business perspective.
Your issue is NA? EMEA is the problem.
I'd reflect on how you are approaching said collaboration. If you are coming into the work group attempt to control/direct without establishing yourself as a knowledgeable partner (you're new as you said) then that's likely your issue. Don't dictate, collaborate. Be a partner and show how you can help, the GEOs have a unique perspective that you as a global (new) are less likely to understand.
I work in global as well with a lot of x-functional teams. My experience with NA is that it is highly dependent on the leader of the function. There are some leaders who partner really well and some that insist on turning work into some internal competition and that filters down to their teams. Maybe the leaders of the teams you work with fall into the second category.
Could it be that it's not really about you not meshing well with them? I'd say it's not right to judge the whole NA org just based on a few interactions with some people there. Which geo is the best for you? APLA?
Not sure what team you’re on but that is not my experience with NA Finance. The partnership was stronger than ever just two years ago (prior to supply chain and reorg disruption) and I believe we can get it back. If you’re feeling like you’re always bothering the team from your seat in Global, perhaps it’s true. They drive a titanic 40% of the business, do an amazing job, and are increasingly being relied upon to deliver results as growth in GC slows. Also, the targets set by Global this year were COMPLETE BS so maybe think about that.