Rlchard Pettlnger

Communication

As the company grew so did communication problems and with these came stresses and strains. It became apparent that Phil Knight,

76 STRESS MANAGEMENT
Table 7.1 Nike: A model for American business – preliminary investigation.

What we were What we are now

Honest, authentic, fun, dreamers, innovative

Small, American, unconventional, never satisfied

Knew what mattered most – identified problems and opportunities; attacked them without

preconceptions or ‘‘no can do’s’’

Made decisions on what could work for us, not on what did or did not work for someone else; used insight, instincts, judgment

Run by people who were comfortable with each other and who weren ’t comfortable in the places that they had come from

Personal achievement Company victory

Desire to be better but don ’t know what better means

Secure about the company, insecure about individual positions

Too much wishing for a set of 10 commandments – rules and ideas, procedures and practices to make everything easy and straightforward

Too much refuge in rules or buzzwords when judgment is needed
Increasing remoteness between different locations, occupations, departments, divisions, and functions

the company president, was becoming both remote and insulated from the reality of company activities. The source of stress identi fied was the perceived ineffectiveness of the vertical line of communi- cation.

It became apparent that the company was becoming too compart- mentalized, and that, however good the production, marketing, and sales functions were, a proportion of pro fit and income was being wasted on the management and administration of a divisionalized structure.