1. I read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the founder and former CEO of Nike. What surprised me most that he first formulated the idea for his company in a college entrepreneurship class. He knew that Japan manufactured high-quality shoes and wrote a paper about selling them in the western world. I admired how after he built up the company he always made sure to never restrict his employees. One of his biggest pieces of advice was to let the workers do what they do. I did not read anything that I did not admire. Phil had a great combination of work ethic and smarts. He did not experience many failures. He took a shot at an early age before he had anything to lose. That was another piece of advice he advocated.
2. Phil Knight really knew how to execute an idea. After learning about the shoe quality in Japan he called the CEO of a company and asked to help distribute his shoes in western locations. He was able to make those sales and then one he finished he went right into pursuing the next goal.
3. I was a bit confused about how he was able to start developing shoe designs for the Japanese company he sold shoes for. He went from selling shoes to designing commercial products.
4. The first thing I would ask him is what he thought the most important attribute was to becoming a successful businessman. He has communicated and met with some of the top officials in the world and I would be great to know what qualities he thinks are most important. I would also ask him how he did such a great jobbing creating a brand. Nike is such an iconic name and I would love to hear his input on how he made it into what it is today.
5. I think his opinion of hard work was to take chances and execute them. It is not necessarily how hard you but if you take chances and make sure the important things are done right then that is most important. I agree that it is important to go after big ideas and make sure they accomplished correctly.
Hi Bram,
ReplyDeleteThis book you read sounds really interesting! I like the idea that Nike's founder subscribes to of letting the worker do what they do .I read an article from the Atlantic today about the increasing prevalence of businesses and management monitoring the activities of their employees, even those activities outside of work. This seems to reflect a wider move towards similar practices throughout society as social media becomes more prevalent. It is refreshing to see that some businesses still have faith and trust in their employees to do their work and do it well, this seems like something that many businesses should take note of for the sake of their own companies.