The Biography that I choose was Shoe Dogs, which delineates how one man from Oregon builds a shoe empire that still reigns supreme today.
The thing that surprised me the most was how Phil knight started his company. Instead of manufacturing his own shoes, he flew out to Japan and gained distribution rights to sell the Japanese shoes in the United States.
I admire that as an track athlete, Phil Knight was able to create footwear solutions worldwide from a problem that directly affected knight. I also admire his risk taking ability by flying out to japan and start distributing a foreign brand in the U.S.
Even though Knight is known for giving credit to his colleagues for coming up with some of the major foundations of Nike, such as the waffle sole and swoosh logo, I think that Knight should have created the essential brand symbols himself as he did start the company. He was also know for being "insecure" about his decision making.
The first major problem that Knight ran into at Nike was when the business was well underway and the products were now being produced by a Japanese company. However, due to customs violations that Nike's competitors's discovered, Nike was forced to pay a 25 million dollar fine. The company was able to overcome this as high demand for their products persisted.
The thing that confused me most was that Phil Knight was not known for being a great leader in the earlier years of his company. Knight admits that "he rarely gave positive feedback or expressed gratitude to team members." I don't get how a company with a reserved leader kept growing at the rates it did on a yearly basis.
Why did you step down in 2006 when the company was at growing at exponential rates and had sales revenue of 16 billion?
Who was the most influential person that contributed to your success and why?
I think Phil knight believes in hard work, dedication, and passion. When it comes to facing adversity, Phil believes, "When you follow your calling, you can suffer through fatigue and disappointments, and the highs will be incomparable to anything else in life."
Hi James,
ReplyDeleteI read Shoe Dog as well and I have to agree on your comment on him not being a great leader. How he treated Johnson and his other employees was pretty crazy considering they didn't mind and kept going, despite getting no feedback and being worked like crazy. Overall, Knight was very intelligent and obviously knew what he was doing overall. He's a great entrepreneur in the sense of never giving up.
Hello James,
ReplyDeleteThis was a great preview of the book. It almost got me to start reading it. Being a great leader is important in running a business, so its surprising that he was build the company the way he did. I'm sure he had a great team behind him. It is weird that he stepped down when Nike was climbing the it was.