Nike continues to drive toward a transparent, collaborative approach to innovation and doing business. Kudos to The Natural Step for helping to facilitate this journey. Their progress is highlighted in the Nike’s Path post on the TNS website. You can also watch CEO Mark Parker’s video and read his letter to “everyone”, here.
In Parker’s letter this statement stands out:
This report is published at a tipping point. It’s time for the world to shift. All companies face a direct impact from decreasing natural resources, rising populations and disruption from climate change. And what may be a subtle effect now will only become more intense over the next five to ten years. Never has business had a more crucial call to innovate not just for the health and growth opportunities for our companies, but for the good of the world.
Parker and Nike are calling for change at the design level of our work. This is not just a call for doing things differently. Changing the way we design and innovate “for the good of the world” calls for profoundly different ways of seeing and being in the world. It is a shift from “me” to “we.” It is a paradigm shift and Nike is openly showing that they are still in the midst of that process. They are taking their first few steps on the pathway to abundance.
Transitioning from a largely co-operative business model, it will be interesting to see Nike evolves and is changed by its increasing engagement in collaboration. Can Nike change the way it approaches design and innovation AND continue to re-imagine its role in world? The quote above is, still, largely reactive. What would a pro-active version of that intent look and sound like? What happens when a company like Nike fully orients around doing less bad AND strengthening and enhancing that which sustains us? Abundance. In spades.
C’mon Nike. Abundance. Just be it!
Email
