Zack Vayda and "Shoe Dog"

This is my takeaway from reading Shoe Dog, the autobiography of Phil Knight, the inventor of Nike, Inc.

What I Liked:

Before he was anything but a graduate track-and-field runner from Oregon, Knight took a year to spend time abroad, traveling to dozens of locations, such as London, Hawaii, Athens, Tokyo, and Cairo. Knight experiences the privilege his fellow 1st world citizens get to enjoy, the heart-ripping poverty much of the world lives in, and the beauty in something entirely different than what he grew up with. This worldly perspective may have been the one experience that made his dreams possible. Beginning a book with all the vividness of foreign travel is an excellent way to reel in the reader.

If Knight introduces any ideas that are truly original, his usage of the term “shoe dog” would be chief among them. Knight never explicitly defines the term but eludes to the core traits. Shoe dogs exhibit attributes often associated with athletes, such as teamwork, a consistent work ethic, and the unending drive to do better. Shoe dogs see every failure as an opportunity to improve, and every win as an opportunity to improve even further. Time and time again, Knight attests Nike’s success to the shoe dog mentality he shared with all his coworkers and employees.

Additionally, shoe dogs often exhibit an extra dosage of openness and comfortability with strangers that may come across as near-social ineptitude. However, this “ineptitude” is more a distinct choice to not follow finicky social norms, preferring to be something less constricted. People or peoples that choose to variegate from social rules are often able to present information in new, less cliched ways; Knight exemplifies that with thought-provoking sentences such as, “He was easy to talk to, and easy not to talk to,” or off-center abstractions like the “bureau-kraken.” Knight’s quirky verbiage may originate from the shoe dog consciousness, but it may simply come from the fact that he is not a writer. Either way, though, Knight offers a perspective not often captured by experienced, non-shoe dog writers and authors.

What I didn’t like:

From his first order of shoes to when Nike became a public company, Knight never put a dime into savings. Outside of meager operating costs, every cent went into the next order of shoes. For years, even as Nike was posting millions of dollars in sales, Nike had no money to its name. Several times, Nike’s lack of equity nearly destroyed the company and all its progress. Knight was also the sole provider for his wife and two sons, all of which were at risk of financial ruin if Knight’s business venture were to go under. While putting equity on the backburner to keep sales and growth on the forefront is a common method for young, eager business, having a dependent family make the matter more complex. The reader is led to wonder if steady growth would have been possible without risking the welfare of Knight, his family, his coworkers, and all his employees.

Throughout his career, Knight’s approach to leadership was to let employees work through their own problems. While this leadership style was effective with other upper management in the later years, it didn’t work with everyone. In the very beginning, with his first full-time employee, Knight disregarded the employee’s daily updates, questions, concerns, and ideas until the employee threatened to quit. Only then did Knight meet up with him to quell the discontent. Certainly, it wouldn’t have hurt to connect with a faithful employee, even just once or twice. 

Knight’s insights regarding the birth of his two sons barely make up 10 pages of a 386-page book. Ending one chapter, he says, “Vastly trickier than how to get midsoles from Point A to Point B was the question of Son A and Son B, how to keep them happy, while keeping Son C, Nike, afloat.” There are many autobiographies out there where the well-being of the author’s relationship to their family is pivotal to the author’s success. This is not one of those books, though, because Knight is not one of those authors. Nike was Knight’s sole calling in life, and having a family was secondary. Was he wrong to operate his life in such a way? Is it refreshing to hear of a successful person who didn’t need family to be the centerpiece? Knight said if he could do it all again, he wouldn’t do anything differently. Would his family agree with that?

Toward the end of the book, Knight tells the reader he wrote his book because he had nothing else left to do on his bucket list. Essentially, he confesses he became a writer simply because he had nothing else to do. This is evident in the way he writes. The book feels like its primary function is to remind Knight of his life, and only secondarily as a source of knowledge or entertainment for the reader.

When it comes to the traditional autobiography, the reader expects to learn two things: how the subject got to where they are, and what they were feeling along the way. While Knight is refreshingly transparent with the chronological process, he never delves into his motivation behind his actions. Knight tells of actions spurred through emotional catalysts, but never tells the reader why he did what he did, or exactly what he was feeling. For example, Knight writes about how starting a shoe business made him happy, but the reader never gets to know why it made him happy. The reader never gets to know why Knight started Nike in the first place. Whether Knight was intentionally withholding his deeper motives or simply didn’t think to include such detail, he lost a deeper connection to the reader because of it. What replaces that lost connection is the subtle nagging in the reader’s mind that complete faith cannot be put in Knight’s story.

What I’d Recommend:

Shoe Dog is far from perfect. Knight misses the opportunity to fully open himself up to the reader, which leads the reader to subconsciously question his motives. Knight’s lifestyle and leadership style are also brought into question. For the avid reader that wants to fully understand motivations and purpose, I would not recommend this book.

At the end of the day, though, one of the most successful people in the history of humankind allows the reader to step into his life. The reader feels the wanderlust as Knight travels, cringes at the tension caused by a million-dollar company missing bill payments, and feels the tingling giddiness of success when Nike goes public and secures its longevity. Knight is a shoe dog through and through, which means his writing would most appeal to other shoe dogs. For the readers that are athletes, have an affinity for the world of sports, and find a personal motivation from success stories, I would recommend this book.