Real question. Realistic answers please. Would we be better off? Would chaos ensue? Could the Dir level successfully form a coalition and get $hit done?
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In my 11+ years at Nike I have had the privilege of working for some excellent people leaders. Unfortunately I have not seen that be used as a qualifier for retaining talent. There are some good leaders but it has never seemed to me like that is the skillset that gets noticed and rewarded. Those same SD's and VP's have gone on to make careers, at higher levels, at other companies
I don’t have confidence in our directors either, unfortunately.
If anything we should cut middle managers/directors, so the VPs actually know what goes on day-to-day
…so nothing bad would happen?
all of the conflict
@a4 Most of the conflict I see day-to-day is pi----g contests between SDs/VPs.
Nothing bad would happen. After 2-3 months you would see a degree of self organizing emerge. Maybe a few more meetings for Directors… but now unencumbered by trying to serve their VP vs what is good for Nike.
Prob would see less bs contracts signed that aren’t with anything.
I don't know what they do, never hear them speak, never get any feedback through regular directors
this is from being on many different teams over the years, same story, no communication, no value
I don't know what they do, but they certainly don't lead, communicate or provide any actual value
For a 400k salary, sounds like pretty sweet gig to sit and look pretty in your office with a window, not reply to any communication and generally just blow people off with attitude
how is this a thing?!
It's good to get rid of deadwood. At Nike I don't see any SD or VP providing strategic direction. They talk in platitudes.
They never provide a north star. They don't say how to get to the north star (KPIs and measures of success). They don't tie work to nike goals. In fact most VPs and SDs I have encountered sound like they're reading off of a BS generator driven by AI. They more than ICs can be replaced by AI and no one will know the difference.
We could get rid of so much tech debt that exists because of prioritizing the new feature vs. cleaning up the cr-p that makes the current ones terrible. Kinda the same thing as still selling tech fleece everywhere.
Shows a total lack of understanding in what leadership does. They do hard part of negotiating, resolving conflicts. The coding part is the easy part....and now even Cursor can do it.
The same amount of work would get done. Possibly more bc there would be less managing up.