To our leaders of the Nike Brand on the eve of the Olympics Opening Ceremony:
I joined this company, like many others, to pursue more than just a job. Nike was the dream: We grew up with the allure of the sports heroes you deified through marketing that made you think. Second guess. And ultimately desire the same pursuits of Higher. Faster. Stronger, despite being lightyears away from the same ability levels of the likes of Jordan. Bo. Mia. Serena. The pursuit of a career at Nike meant the privilege of being able to continuing to carry the torch of delivering inspiration and innovation to the next generation of athletes and forging our place as the leader in our sport industry. It was more than just a company.
Somewhere along the way the vision for what it takes to be a part of this company shifted from lifting up our maxims, to instead focusing on corporate checklists of cost cutting, poor talent acquisition/retention and filling in boxes rather than thinking of the big idea.
If I squint we can start to see some return to who we should be: authentic to our unapologetic approach to sport. But the baggage of the past 6 years of poor leadership remain, and it truly is leaving those that value the meaning behind this brand left wondering why we’re still here.
Our HR leadership decided a new job scale system would be of value to the company, yet overnight without any direction, you’ve left many individuals either devalued, left wondering where their growth trajectory lies, and inadvertently creating unnecessary layers of leadership. If one is a specialist, lead or expert, there now is an extra level in place between them and growth. If an employee was a director, they may now either be an Expert or Director depending on the luck of the draw. This must be reconciled.
In addition, the program designed to recruit new MBA talent into the brand is deeply flawed. While positive in its intent, there needs to be clarity of career roadmapping for these individuals as well as those not part of the blessed MVP. Where is the opportunity to get a direct line to VPs, career roadmapping and a shoe-in to a guaranteed career in 2 years? How do you plan to introduce that many new roles every year and also support your current employee base’s growth and retention? Where is the learning and development support for your non MVPs? Are we not valued? How can you compensate these individuals that are at the beginning of their career 10-20% more than your current employee base when they don’t have foundational knowledge? These individuals generally see this brand as a stepping stone to acquire their fortune 500 badges for LinkedIn rather than truly hoping to bring success and passion. This program is corrupt and should be immediately sunsetted.
Last but not least, we continue to see a theme of do more with less. Despite having a multitude of priorities as a brand, and getting pushed to think outside the box (despite being forced into thinking into boxes by said leadership over the past 6 years), our budgets are slashed, ideas are nitpicked, and we don’t even have alignment on consumers. How were our priority fields of play not prioritized with adequate resourcing? Again, acknowledgement and reconciliation must happen, or this brand will continue to decline.
I can only hope this falls on the right set of eyes, and know I’m not alone in these sentiments. We must do better to succeed. Winning ISN’T for everyone. Just a year ago we lived in an environment where we had to be apologetic for sport based on the visions your leadership defined, yet we are hopefully coming back to our authentic selves. With that pivotal return to our roots, we must have the right team to JUST DO IT. The competition is hot on our heels, and passion for sport and the brand are the only way we can win.