Shoe Dog: How to Succeed in Business with a Little Luck

PHIL KNIGHT'S memoir about creating Nike, Shoe Dog, covers the time from his “Crazy Idea” to going public in 1980. It is a down-to-earth account of the sacrifices and struggles, failures and successes of what it takes to succeed in business.

Any would-be entrepreneur would do well to read it before venturing out on their own.

Knight says that the act alone is the destination. “Let everyone else call your idea crazy . . . just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where ‘there’ is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.” And that’s different from “giving up” as he explains: “Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop.”

He admits to the stress of it all. “The years of stress were taking their toll. When you see only problems, you’re not seeing clearly. At just the moment when I needed to be my sharpest, I was approaching burnout.” In the end he gives credit to hard work and luck. It’s not uncommon to see the IQ of successful entrepreneurs rise at least 50 points as they become experts on nearly every topic. But quite candidly, Knight writes:

Luck plays a big role. Yes, I’d like to publicly acknowledge the power of luck. Athletes get lucky, poets get lucky, businesses get lucky. Hard work is critical, a good team is essential, brains and determination are invaluable, but luck may decide the outcome. Some people might not call it luck. They might call it Tao, or Logos, or Jñāna, or Dharma. Or spirit. Or God.

Put it this way. The harder you work, the better your Tao. And since no one has ever adequately defined Tao, I now to go regularly to mass. I would tell them: Have faith in yourself, but also have faith in faith. Not faith as others define it. Faith as you define it. Faith as faith defines itself in your heart.

Shoe Dog is an amazing story of how he made that luck happen.

The now ubiquitous list of 10 Nike Principles was written in 1977 by the former Nike director of marketing Rob Strasser. Retired Nike historian Scott R, had this to say about the memo:

A day in 1977 when Strasser was purportedly in a fit of pique that employees were losing sight of the company’s values. He stormed into his office and pounded out on his typewriter what became a list of 10 bullet points that he felt were the central core of who/what Nike was. He slammed the sheet of paper on the copying machine, made dozens of duplicates and then taped them on office doors and put them on cubicle desks all over the building.

NIKE PRINCIPLES

1. Our business is change.
2. We're on offense. All the time.
3. Perfect results count -- not a perfect process.
   Break the rules; fight the law.
4. This is as much about battle as about business.
5. Assume nothing.
   Make sure people keep their promises.
   Push yourselves, push others.
   Stretch the possible.
6. Live off the land.
7. Your job isn't done until the job is done.
8. Dangers:
   Bureaucracy
   Personal ambition
   Energy takers vs energy givers
   Knowing our weaknesses
   Don't get too many things on the platter
9. It won't be pretty.
10. If we do the right things we will make money damn near automatic

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:03 AM
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