April Book Recommendation: Shoe Dog By Phil Knight
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Shoe Dog is?the autobiography of?Phil Knight, the founder of Nike and offers a peek into the mind of genius entrepreneur Phil Knight and detail the rollercoaster ride he went to through to build up his company.
The constant theme is that?when you do something that you love you are able to rise above the stress and uncertainty and solider on.
Phil Knight recounts his struggles, victories, and lessons learned from building Nike from a small startup to a billion dollar shoe giant. He was fanatical about running and turned what he loved into Nike.
Disclaimer: The content below is from Blinkist and it's just to give you an idea of the book. Our recommendation is to read it. Actually if you are Ireland. I have the paperback version if you want to borrow it.
You certainly know the successful tagline of footwear giant Nike: Just Do It.
It captures the daring spirit of Nike cofounder Phil Knight in the early years of his company.
Here, you’ll discover how Knight fumbled his way to greatness, reaching out to businesspeople across the world to make his way in the running shoe business with no preparation whatsoever.
You’ll learn how he led a team of creative misfits, stood his ground in two major lawsuits and handled a truly infamous scandal – all the while building one of the more powerful brands the world has ever seen.
You’ll also learn
Nike’s path to success started with a “crazy idea” and a trip around the world.
It was 1962 and Phil Knight was fresh out of business school. He was shy and a terrible salesperson.
But that didn’t stop him from following a vision he had. Phil wanted to import Japanese running shoes to America and had his eye on the?Tiger?brand that was manufactured by the Japanese company Onitsuka.
The idea had first occurred to him while he was at Stanford Business School. At the time, neither his professors, classmates or even his father thought much of it.
But that didn’t stop Phil, who traveled across the Pacific to sell his bold proposition to a room full of Japanese businessmen.
He didn’t expect the pitch to be a success, but when the Onitsuka CEO told him that his timing was perfect and asked him the name of the company with which he would be working, Phil was stunned.
Completely unprepared, he blurted out the name, “Blue Ribbon.” Onitsuka then agreed to send him 300 pairs of Tiger shoes to start him off. Over the next several months, Phil would sell the Japanese shoes out of the trunk of his car!
After securing the deal with Onitsuka, Phil traveled the world. During his travels, he found a lot of inspiration through the things he saw and experienced.
Much of what he learned about the cultures he explored would influence him later in life. For instance, Phil was particularly inspired by the Greek Acropolis. He found himself standing in front of the Temple of Nike, the goddess of victory, for hours on end.
Years later, Phil came across a play written by ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes called “The Knights.” In it, a warrior gifts the king a new pair of shoes – in the Temple of Nike.
Phil Knight’s former running coach modified the early Tiger shoes they received and put Blue Ribbon in play.
Many people have someone in their lives who inspires them, and whose respect they value. For Phil Knight, this person was his former running coach, Bill Bowerman.
Bill’s approval gave Phil the confidence he needed to carry on with his dreams. Bill, in turn, was a genuine “shoe dog.”
A “shoe dog” is an industry term for someone who is shoe-obsessed. Such a person understands the shoe’s role in allowing men and women to stride into the future with confidence.
Bill's primary goal was to make shoes as light as possible – a feature which would later become a trademark of the Nike brand.
When Blue Ribbon was in its infancy, Bill’s coaching career was picking up steam. He was even training future Olympians. As he altered the imported Tiger shoes for his star runners, Bill helped to give the brand more exposure, helping Phil sell more pairs.
Talented eccentrics made up the early Blue Ribbon team, and they all helped make key decisions.
As Blue Ribbon grew, Phil put together a team of trustworthy people who in turn trusted him and they were a bunch of brilliant misfits who formed a great team.
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From the get go, Blue Ribbon employees all believed in Phil and his vision. The company’s first full-time employee, Jeff Johnson, worked tirelessly, designing innovative shoes alongside Bill Bowerman.
When it came to everyday work, Phil followed General Patton’s words of wisdom: “Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”
Phil included his team when bigger decisions needed to be made, too. In 1971, it was decided that the company would stop selling Onitsuka shoes and begin making its own. Rather than branding this new business himself, Phil asked his employees to suggest names for it.
Surprisingly, the name Nike came to Jeff Johnson in a dream. Phil went with it, remembering the impression the Temple of Nike had made on him so many years ago in Athens.
Lawsuits brought by Onitsuka and the government threatened Nike, but the company persevered.
Many successful entrepreneurs know that fame and fortune are always dogged by obstacles and pitfalls.
Specifically, for Phil Knight, two significant lawsuits threatened to stop his career dead in its tracks.
The first arrived in 1973 when Onitsuka attempted to sue Blue Ribbon in Japan for costs that had been incurred through a breach of contract – a breach that occurred when Blue Ribbon started producing and distributing Nike shoes.
The second came in 1977, when Nike was told that it owed the government $25 million.
The trouble started when Nike’s competitors in America, Keds and Converse, worked together to uncover an obscure customs law called the?American Selling Price?law, whereby certain types of shoes would incur significantly higher customs duties. They accused Nike of violating it.
Phil Knight feared an IPO would taint the unique culture at Nike, yet its spirit stayed strong.
Although he wasn't always sure what winning meant to him, Phil knew that he didn’t want to lose.
This was partly due to a fear of disappointing his father and partly because he thought work should be both playful and meaningful. The combination convinced him that he had to avoid a passive life that just seemed to “slip” by.
So while Phil knew that taking Nike public could solve some financial problems, his desire to keep his business playful and fun made him hesitant to do so.
In short, Phil ran his business according to the motto, “grow or die.” This meant that aside from the money he used to pay the modest salaries he and his employees received, all profits were invested in the business, helping it to grow.
This financing strategy meant that Phil was reliant on banks, which often refused him the large loans he requested.
Thanks to an employee's idea of how to structure the organisation before going public, to this day, the company prides itself on its integrity, to which it also attributes much of its worldwide success.
Through improving factory working conditions and treating sponsored athletes well, Nike strives to stay true to its values.
Since its origins, Nike as a company has approached setbacks with the same integrity and energy that Phil always demanded of each and every employee. It’s this attitude that has kept customers loyal through thick and thin.
Nike is now working hard to set better labor standards for its factory workers. In the nineties, the company found itself at the center of a damaging report on the abysmal working conditions of Asian sweatshops.
One of the primary means by which the company improved factory conditions was the invention of a water-based bonding agent to attach shoe uppers to the soles of a shoe.
This was a huge development. The so-called rubber room was previously the most carcinogenic area in a shoe factory. Nike’s new bonding agent cut out 97 percent of the toxins found in the previous one.
In fact, Nike even shared the new glue with its competitors, and they began using it in their factories.
In conclusion, few global companies have as much heart as Nike.