1. Work is not challenging or rewarding. Extremely underutilized based on background and experience. Many employees have the ability to contribute more, many have expressed the desire too and often the answer is to stay within your area and continue operating, the opportunities will come.
2. I have been told multiple times to "sit and keep my mouth shut" during a meeting (Female typically in all male meetings).
3. Leadership values "Thought Leaders" over "People Leaders" – In my experience this has then turned into "thought only" conversations taking place only at the senior management level but never includes those that actually DO the work or can operationalize said "thought" strategy. Sr. Directors and VPs are more concerned with pruning each other’s feathers and networking with each other, then getting any actual work done.
4. Lack of promotion of female leaders: Often excuse given is that a specific female acts too aggressive and therefore is passed over for promotion (this is when a male counter-part can say the exact same thing but been seen as a strong leader). I see this occur on a weekly basis.
5. General lack of leadership - I have been in my role about 18 months at the Director level and I have yet to have any leadership in regards to my career, focus or vision of my team, etc. even after multiple attempts to meet with many leaders across the organization to seek guidance.
6. "Nike Knowledge" (aka time at Nike) is valued above any outside perspective or experience any new employees may bring to the table.
7. Navigating the “Matrix” organization is seen as a badge of honor, not as excuse for not getting work done, that it is. Many large companies have similar matrix type organizations and can move work forward with small teams driving decisions.
8. Over use of Power Point! Every form of communication is put in power point, it is like the computers at Nike have no other applications installed. I was presenting a calendar in one meeting and I was told by the VP “I will look at it when it is in power point”. I looked at him like he had grown two heads, but he was serious. They want to pay someone at my level, a heathy six figure salary, to copy my completely formatted calendar from Excel to PowerPoint. This is my everyday, if you come to work at Nike, you will LIVE in PowerPoint. No one can actually READ anything here (that is presented in a word document), it has to be served up in a beautiful power point that “gets to the point”, complete with graphics and animation.
