Customer Reviews

Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Just Do It, does a wonderful job of describing and promoting the corporate culture at Nike--in fact it did such a good job I can think of nowhere I would rather work. That aspect of the book bothers me though, because it sometimes becomes such a glowing portrait of the company that the story can not be taken at face value... That being said, I think Katz's unprecedented access to Phil Knight and many of Nike's other top executives and athletes allows him to tell the story of Nike's growth and continuous battle for market share from a unique perspective. I have also read Swoosh, cowritten by the wife of a former Nike executive, and it tells a similar tale, but is so biased against Nike that it's analysis is even less believable then Katz'z. I think this is an interesting portrait of a great American company and has an insider perpective you will not find else where, but I only give it three stars because it is a bit of a PR job and is surely not as even handed as I would like.

Just Do It digs under the skin of the Nike corporation and gives a behind-the-scenes look at the company that has grown to be the number one shoe marketer in the U.S. The author details every aspect from Nike's involvement in the Dream Team awards ceremony fiasco in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona to the sweat shops of Asia where the shoes are actually produced. The author taps into the psyche behind what Nike is about and what makes a typical Nike employee: love of sports combined with a rebellious, headstrong nature to think outside the box. For example, one prospective employee with a PhD and a law degree was dismissed by the selection committee for not knowing who Deion Sanders was. The book opens with the 1993 retirement of Michael Jordan and ends with some "small" layoffs by Nike in September of the same year and the effects that the layoffs have on chairman, Phil Knight. The prose is well-chosen and the reader is shown the business side of superstars such as Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan that you won't find in Sports Illustrated. There are two minor weaknesses to Just Do It. There is definitely an inevitable pro-Phil Knight slant to everthing written. Also, an extraordinary amount of pages are devoted strictly to the quagmire that is the Asian economy. The author may find this topic interesting, but the average reader won't and it strayed from the central theme of Nike's corporate culture.

Just Do It by Donald Katz wasnt the one of the best books I have read, it didnt even make my top ten list. This book is full of uninteresting, and tedious specifics which did not make me want to read the book any more than I had to. On the back of the book U.S News & World Report says "Engrossing....a corporation fueled by the MTV corporation. Engrossing?..it really wasnt. It was grossingly boring by the time i started read the 30th page. The back of the book also says it was a riveting biography. The things are said by popular sources like People Magazine. This book was so boring to the point where I am starting to beleive that the author payed these people to say the things that they said. : "never judge a book by its cover",I learned my lesson. This book cover looked so nice, attractive, it made me want to pick it up right away. Id have to say the best part of the book was the cover. The frist few pages were okay only because it talked about Michael Jordan, then the book just hit rock bottom. I was reading the book with the same emotion when i have to choke down bitter medicine. If u have insomnia, read this book. I promise it will be ur cure.

Read this book! Unfortunately named 'Just do It' (and sounding like a company shill piece in the process), this is actually a fascinating look at Nike and its founder, Phil Knight. Whenever the subject is Knight, you cannot put the book down. He is a truly remarkable individual.

Katz covers all dimensions of the Nike juggernaut: the Knight engima; Nike's rebirth after the rise of the inferior (in Knight's estimation) Reebok aerobic sneaker in the mid-eighties; its association with Michael Jordan; the jocky world of the Ekins; the designs of Tinker Hatfield and other shoe creators; its relationships with Weiden Kennedy (developers of its ad campaigns); and its offshore manufacturing difficulties.

To me, the visits into Knight's inner sanctums are worth the price of the book, and make it a truly fascinating read. You get to see the man behind the wrap-around shades, and he turns out to be a fascinating, complex character.. you come away from the book with an understanding of Knight's athletic background, his hatred of Olympic-style 'officialdom,' and his will to win. As much as Bill Gates defines Microsoft's corporate character, Knight does for Nike.

While I found Just Do It an interesting, well-written book, the book was obviously partial to Nike and Phil Knight. After reading this book, I was unsure if I could take the Nike Company at face value. Katz glosses over the issue of Nike's sweatshops, a topic which I was very interested in, and hoped to learn more about through this book. Nike is known for its powerful advertising, and Just Do It gave me many insights to the great extent that Nike goes to in making the perfect commercial.

Liberally drawing examples from interviews with well-known athletes, Katz paints a picture of Nike as a company that makes great shoes, knows how to negotiate, and created the idea of the athlete as a brand. He shows the power Nike has in creating an image of an athlete, and fitting that image into a Nike ad campaign. The athlete gets more of a newly-identifyable image than Nike. I'm not a big sports fan, and I don't know if I've ever worn Nikes, but I was found this book to be a good read from a business and marketing perspective - as well as to hear about some big-name athletes.

Donald Katz explores the riveting culture of Nike and the founder Phil Knight, CEO. He ventures into the past to examine the development of Phil Knight's perennial powerhouse from the ground up. Just Do It, not only focuses on the structure and culture of Nike but the image that feeds the fire. Katz visits Nike as it began as a two man operation importing shoes and unleashing into a 4 billion dollar empire. Katz takes the opportunity to visit the World Campus in Beaverton, Oregon and go inside the Nike engine. Along the way he visits Knight and observes the relationship he exhibits with his subordinates and management approach. Knight has given employees a sense of pride and loyalty to work for the domestic and international swoosh that appears in markets everywhere. Not only is Nike a perennial powerhouse in the shoe industry but it has brought out the ability to raise the image of athletes into pure dominating creatures. With an increase in money moving in and out of Nike it now has the capabilities to unite athletes with contracts amounting in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Katz has the opportunity to explore the adventures of capturing such contracts and the relationship Knight and Nike both play in making them happen. Phil Knight through the shoe industry has redefined sport. He created mini-Michael Jordans and Andre Agassis' all over the world. Just Do It takes a close look at the marketing strategies that have given birth to Bo Diddley, Air Jordan, Mr. Robinson and many other Nike creations. This book is very captivating as Katz does examine the inside of this organization which is like no other. This is an excellent view of organizational culture and the development of true loyalty.

Well, what can I say except that I expected to be given more insights into managerial techniques that have driven NIKE to the top and not a eulogy of Phil Knight. I'm sure Knight is a great guy but there is more to Nike than Knight. The author has given a lop sided view of Nike and looks at the entire industry with a distinct bias. Reebok and Adidas are treated as if they are some alien force out to destroy the world. I will not recommend this book to anyone. One thing for sure is that I will think a million times before venturing to buy a book written by Katz again.

I don't know what Katz' fascination is with Nike. He's not from Portland, not a personal friend of Phil Knight(though you'd wonder after reading this)but really looks at Nike as it is the gold standard of all companies. I read the book before I started working at Nike and I found two completely different worlds. I'm sure at the time the book was written(94) there had only been one layoff(in 15 year history), and employees did follow the company with blind allegiance, but times have changed. With the un-ignorable exploitation of Asian labor and several company layoffs in the past few years to appease wall street, employees are more objective. They can see the inherent flaws of the company...the same as every other large, arrogant, and bureaucratic organization. I now work for another company in the industry, and I can tell almost no differences. Despite what Katz says, employees don't work until 9 every night and think of coming to work as "going to the homecoming Big Ten football game". This book reads like the employee propaganda they used to distribute to us in quarterly meetings. Maybe Katz is a stockholder..who knows?

This is probably the fairest look at Nike you will find. Far from being a mere tribute to the company, "Just Do It" looks at Nike's triumphs and failures. Excellent insight into the business strategy and the creation and maintenance of "the Nike image". It's nice to read something unbiased after all the Nike-bashing that has gone on in the media. This book makes a great companion to "Swoosh" which is the actual history of the company. I read them back to back (Swoosh first) and it was great.