The Battle Between Guiding Principles and the Short Term Thinking of Corporate Culture: Human CI’s take on “AIR”
In Ben Affleck’s Air, we follow the story of Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), a basketball enthusiast employed by Nike, who realizes that Nike must sign then rookie Michael Jordan. We watch as he creates a controversial and unprecedented plan for signing Michael, taking both personal and professional gambles, to see his plan become reality.
Embedded within the story of how a sports legend and a (now fortune 100) business found synergy to create one of, if not the most iconic sports apparel item in all time is the story of corporate culture, and how a founder's mentality and short terms decision making can get eroded by the decision making process of a publicly traded company.
“I’m willing to bet my career on Michael Jordan”
(Warning, adult language)
Sonny leverages his professional expertise to convince Phil Knight to make a big bet. But Phil is the CEO of a publicly traded company, and is ultimately accountable to his board. Such a decision could result in him and Sonny being fired from Nike, the company that Phil founded.
As described in the movie, in an established corporate environment, risk-taking is a hard sell. While we want to prevent careless gambling with the shareholders' money, we know that shareholders are impatient. This means that a business plan that pays out long term for the company, and is in the company’s interest long term, but may cost the company short term is unlikely to gain approval. Not only that, but supporting this plan could cause the termination of anyone who supports it.
Throughout the movie, we see Sonny and Phill struggle to pair Nike’s Guiding Principles, with the interests of “the board”. Nike’s Guiding Principles are in fact quite counter-culture to corporate America. The final few scenes of the movie highlight one of Nike’s most bold principles, “If we do the right thing we’ll make money damn near automatic”. Phil realized that the deal with Jordan didn’t have to be traditional, and should be fair for both parties. This ‘let’s both win’ deal set precedent and gave credibility to the claim that (less powerful athletes than the famous first round draft pick) should own some of the commercial profits from their name and likeness.
If the principles of corporate culture decision making were followed, Jordan would not have been hired. If the Jordan deal went wrong somehow, Phil and Sonny may have been fired. Are any of these in the best interest for the company? For the Shareholders? We believe we must find a middle ground where there’s room for the right thing, and where founders’ guiding principles and corporate short term decision making don’t inherently clash. What do you believe?
