How Nike deals with Organizational Conflict and continues to succeed with innovation

Seth Stillman

Article Overview-The last thing Nike wants to be known as is a big dumb company that can put a swoosh on anything

-The worlds most creative CEO, Mark Parker

-Business at the speed of the swoosh

-How to be successful in a big organization

Article Overview-Top Down vs Bottom up

-Making choices from Infinite possibilities

-How to modern a model leadership team

-How perfection is not possible

Phases of Organizational Conflict

Latent Conflict: Grounds for conflict exist because parties are interacting in interdependent relationships in which incompatible goals are possible.

Perceived Conflict: One or more parties perceive that their situation is characterized by incompatibility and interdependence.

Felt Conflict: Parties begin to personalize perceived conflict by focusing on the conflict issue and planning conflict management strategies.

Manifest Conflict: Conflict is enacted through communication. Interaction might involve cycles of escalation and de-escalation as various strategies are used.

Conflict aftermath: Conflict episode has both short-term and long-term effects on the individuals, their relationship, and the organization.

Phases Related…Latent Conflict: Groups in Nike have differences that bother one or the other, but those differences are not great enough to cause one side to act to alter the situation (not yet aware of conflict)

Perceived Conflict: When Nike employees are aware of conflict

Felt Conflict: When Nike employees feel stress or anxiety

Manifest Conflict: When conflict in the Nike work space is open and can be observed

Conflict aftermath: When the Nike employees resolve their issues

Table 9.2

Criticisms of the Conflict Styles Approach

Critique 1: The conflict styles approach treats the individual communicator as the sole benchmark for conceptualizing conflict and for determining how it will develop.

Critique 2: The conflict styles approach relies too narrowly on two- dimensional theoretical models that may not be internally congruent, exhaustive, or representative of conflict-handling modes in organizations.

Critique 3: The conflict styles approach limits communication to verbal behaviors, especially those that are rational and uncomplicated, mutually exclusive across different styles, and static and unchanging.

Critique 4: The conflict styles approach treats the organization as being in the distant background rather than in the center stage of conflict activity.

Table 9.2 Related…Critique 1: Nike treats CEO, Mark Parker, as the sole benchmark for conceptualizing conflict and for determining how things will develop

Critique 2: Nike holds a big difference between discipline and bureaucracy

Table 9.2 Related (Cont)Critique 3: Nike ideas may come from the bottom up but the direction and support can go top-down

Critique 4: Nikes conflict style treats the organization as making their customers the center of their distant background rather than in the center stage of conflict activity itself

Business at the Speed of the Swoosh

-"Things are accelerating," Parker says. "But it’s not as if we’re in a speed-up, slow-down world. It’s a high-velocity world, we’re digitally connected, everything is changing.”

-This type of climate, he contends, fits into Nike’s longtime culture. "Our management approach hasn’t come from studying and reading business books. It’s more intuitive, from the culture of sports. We’re constantly looking for ways to improve.

-“Companies and people look at the pace of change as a challenge, an obstacle, a hurdle," Parker notes. "We like to look at it as opportunity: Get on the offense."

How to be successful in a big organization

-I asked Parker if being a big organization was a disadvantage in an era of rapid change. "I don’t think it's true that size by definition limits adaptability, flexibility," he says. "We’re a big global brand, we have great resources. We break the business into definable subsets based on different consumer cultures and go deep, to be meaningful and relevant to them.”

-Parker acknowledges that size can have complications. "At a big company, often size turns into constipation, it fogs the lens about what’s really happening. Sometimes with size and success comes the notion that since we’ve done things to be successful, we have the formula and can institutionalize it. That can be death."

How to be successful in a big organization (Cont)

-You have to Challenge what’s worked

-One of the challenges of innovation is challenging a set model

-“A traditional way to manufacture footwear existed for hundreds of years. Now we have a whole new way” -Parker

-“Our job, my job, at Nike, is to not close the mind” -Parker

Top Down vs Bottom Up-It’s a mix of traditional hierarchic, top-down is archaic, it’s just not real.

-On the other side, everything is not bubble-up.

-The ratio is top-down to bubble-up,

-it will shift based on situations

-Parker states there is no one single approach to any situation

Top Down vs Bottom Up (Cont)-Ideas come from the bottom up

-Direction and support can go top-down

-Parker looks for bottom-up ideas by walking the halls at Nike

-You have to be open to ideas from different parts of the company, from different parts of the world.

-The biggest sources of opportunity are collaboration and partnership

Making choices from infinite possibilities -One of the biggest challenges is being an “idea-rich” organization

-Nike doesn’t always pick the right things, they have to edit out often

-Parker has a term he uses to describe the requirement: Edit and Amplify

"The ability to edit and amplify is so critical. It is consuming for me, the choices we need to make in every part of our business." -Parker

Making choices from infinite possibilities (Cont)-"You can’t always predict the winners," he continues. "I end up asking a lot of questions, so the team thinks things through. I don’t say ‘Do this, do that.’ I’m not a micromanager. I don’t believe in that. My father, when I was growing up, would say to me when I had to make a decision, ‘Well what do you think?’ And I’d say, ‘Well, I think this.’ And he’d say, ‘That seems like a good idea.’ And over time, I started picking for myself. I didn’t need to go to him. At Nike, we have incredibly strong people. They know what to do.” - Parker

Nike shows examples of the

following…

Distributive Bargaining

Integrative Bargaining

Goals Maximize the individual gains and minimize losses Maximize Joint Gains

Issues Fixed-sum issues with limited resources

Variable-sum issues shaped by overlapping positions

outcomesCompromises, Trade-

offs, and win-lose results

Creative solutions not attributable to specific

concessions

Communication Information-seeking, withholding data, and deception in disclosures

Open sharing of information; accurate disclosure of needs

and objectives

How to Model a Modern Leadership Team

-Nike doesn’t need you to be their for four or five years to have great ideas heard

-Parker loves seeking ideas form lower parts of the company

-Parker thinks its good to see raw ideas at a basic level

-Parker recognizes that perfection is not possible in a world of flux

-Parker states that as long as the company goes with change, instead of fighting it, the company will move in the right direction

Nike Work Place

Questions?-What athlete that walked into the Nike headquarters, in Oregon, is the biggest character?

-Whats the biggest crisis Nike has had to deal with?

-What are Nikes thoughts on Adidas?

-How was the swoosh created?

SourceSafian, R. (2012, May 11). How CEO Mark Parker Runs Nike To Keep Pace With Rapid Change. Retrieved November 07, 2016, from https://www.fastcompany.com/3002642/how-ceo-mark-parker-runs-nike-keep-pace-rapid-change