I came from a company where the voice of employees is actually heard and I thought the situation at Nike was much better in that regard, but it seems to me that I was wrong in my assessment. Too bad this is not a company where you can easily chime in with your innovative suggestions. Has it always been that way?
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New ideas are only valuable and interesting if there's a Director nearby who realizes they can take credit for it,
Look at valiant leader. She has been selling vapor ware here for at least a decade and keeps her job. So in some spaces new ideas are welcome and don’t even have to make business sense or have any fiscal or operational accountability.
If you are not one of the "guys (unisex in the usage)" then yes, it's hard to introduce new ideas. Most of the people that I encountered who were in elevated positions didn't have visionary skills or if they did they didn't have proper patience or the right strategist to execute.
As soon as Parker promised Wall St. 50B in revenue by 2020 any great ideas went away. Thinking that big requires time, but Nike is now trapped in a short term numbers game every FY quarter. Instead of new ideas, we get more reorgs and layoffs to satisfy investors. At any rate, it seems to be working great for them as Nike continues to rake in the $$ doing whatever it is they're doing.
The sad and simple answer is...yes. At least since the 90s. The problem is that innovation at Nike is "institutionalized," and not enabled. They think that spending over 150 million on a building checks the innovation box. If you don't have the mandate and the process, you won't get the throughput. It's that simple.
It’s been that way since at least 2016, not sure about before - people always reference the good old days but sadly I missed them