lose as a team

Nike is misguided by bad actors. For over 10 years the employee engagement survey results keep getting lower and lower. Where is their focus now? Making sure that skilled players focus or transition into understanding the company message over the skills of why they're at Nike.

Nike deals with sports so let's create an analogy of how this plays out. If you have a basketball team. You draft/recruit/trade for the best 3 point sho-ter. Why? Because you need a good 3 point sho-ter. Then you focus on this 3 point sho-ter's skills in PR instead of their ability to make 3 point shots. You compare this person to other PR persons. They might not be the best PR person. That's not why you got this athlete, but you moved the goalpost instead of celebrate what their value is. What was important about having this athelete on our team? It's no longer about performance. It's something else. What does this show employees? Performance doesn't matter. Who gains in this type of environment? People that do not need to be performers. What kind of competition does this create? It creates a rat race.

What does this do to an organization? This starts us focusing on things that don't make us win. What does it do to our values? We focus on things that doesn't bring us enough value to a team's ability to win. We stop focusing on things that make the team overall perform better. That is what Nike is now. A team that's more focused on global recognition over winning. Who gains in this type of environment? Loser non-performers.

Look around you. Who's moving up? People busy trying to get into the ear of new leaders. Look what groups are most impacted? Work horses - Teammates who put their head down to make things happen. Scrutinized by the busy people who have 'good ideas' that never made anyting work themselves.

The saddest part of this story is this. Our new (and a lot of our existing) leaders su-k. If your leader needs you to tell them why you're great, that means they don't know what greatness means. They should already know. They should be evaluating, weight and measuring the people that they're already responsible for evaluating. If they need to be convinced, that means that their values can be compromised. What else does that mean? It means that your value can be compromised by others.

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Toxic leadership folks pulled in their own unskilled bsing backstabbing and credit stealing friends. Now they get to bathe in their own toxic hot tub. Until the tub corrodes and falls through the floor. Can someone make a sticker of “lose as a team” I absolutely love it.

Idk - my department has been like this since I joined in 2012. I’m not the star players but I’m the great assister and/or role player. The star players always get asked to do too much and get burnt out, eventually being cut as seen “not working out”.

The ball can only be passed around the court so many times and only so often shot by a player. Some players get one shot, some get many. It all depends on the Coach, and if the coach sees your potentially… you may go vertical as long as the team keeps winning.

Months ago, someone mentioning being a star player on a cr-ppy team and everyone on the team got cut. That because you coach and your team only received L’s.

You never want to be a losing team, you can be on a losing team but you need to have a plan to get them in the W column or switch the team immediately.

Can’t look at your individual performance, that’s all subjective, you gotta look at your team performance and the Coach. Fail to do so, you’re gonna have a bad time. And yes, there is good coaches with bad teams, bad coaches with good teams, and good coaches with good teams. Just need to assess the league’s Ws and Ls.

Nike after MP is like Manchester Utd after the departure of Alex Ferguson.

Great post and completely true on where we are at today and have been for quite awhile. Sad thing is our leaders should not be looking for reinforcement that they are great, they should be looking to elevate their teams and the business. Sadly we know that is now who we have as leaders today. I've seen quite a few posts on the senior leaders let go and how they did not do anything, but to the point on the groups most impacted being the ones that actually did work trying to build the company, a know a handful of the Sr. Directors let go and they were truly "servant leaders" and did not just use it as the latest Nike buzzword. The culture of "Do the Right Thing" has not existed for quite some time and without a wholesale change at the senior leader level (not just JD), I'm not sure how we get back to being a winning team.

This "reorg" is a great example. The message to the markets during quarterly result calls is that this is all about efficiency, saving money, and getting our SG&Q in order. I'll take each one individually.

Efficiency is the easy one. The reorg is complete, teams do not know the strategy, individuals do not know what they are responsible for and how that fits into the new organization, and at least my leaders just keep saying we are going to figure it out together. Is that not what they should have done before rolling out the reorg?

In terms of saving money, yes those exited were mainly in higher grades, but when I look at the job board today, it is flooded with open roles. So in a year, we'll probably be back to the same headcount we were at before the reorg and while we will have lower costs because those being brought in will be offered as little money as Nike can to get them into the door, what is delivered by the same headcount will be so much lower because of the lack of experience and good leadership.

Finally, the SG&A argument is a joke. Yes, the overall dollars allocated to salaries will be lower, but look at the number of people traveling since the lay-offs. How does that get our costs under control?

It has definately become a competitive atmosphere, people clawing at other people to push their authority and personal agenda, and aldo leaders talking sm--k about their bosses in hope of getting their job. Its a glorified leadership bloodbath atmosphere. LT doesnt care about the blue collar staff "laborers" as long as they flex their agenda. Although they preach skills they would rather further the folks that speak the loudest. The company has lost its way.

Nike is that sports team full of all stars that misses the playoffs, overspends in free agency and sets itself back 10 years every season. Constantly underperforms due to terrible leadership, backstabbing culture and no direction. Better fire that front office and start rebuilding now before it’s too late…if it isn’t too late already

Great summary. Worthy of reposting.

Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

lose as a team

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