Howard Schultz stepped down as chief executive of Starbucks in 2000, at the height of its success, only to return 8 years later to turn it around. See http://bit.ly/9CCFjm for related stories of other CEOs.
I am so impressed with this long interview (an excerpt itself), that I want to share some quotes from it, and urge you to read the original in condensed or long form. In particular, Schultz returns to his founding vision of authenticity and community (pre-social media), and discovers the new social media – once Starbucks worst critic – to be a key support in all his strategies.
Here is the credit and the link: The HBR Interview: “We Had to Own the Mistakes” an Interview with Howard Schultz by Adi Ignatius, July–August 2010 http://bit.ly/bpsyiM. And here are some excerpts from Schultz:
“I do not believe that shareholder value is sustainable if you are not creating value for the people who are doing the work and then value for customers.”
“I think the leader today has to demonstrate both transparency and vulnerability, and with that comes truthfulness and humility and obviously the ability to instill confidence in people, and not through some top-down hierarchical approach.”
“Everywhere we go as consumers, we’re getting people who don’t want to reach into our hearts or know who we are; they want to reach into our wallets and get some money. The equity of the brand is defined by the quality of the coffee but also, most importantly, by the relationship that the barista has with the customer and whether or not the customer feels valued, appreciated, and respected.”
“Whether you are a high-tech company or a coffee company, your responsibility has to be to constantly create the kind of excitement that provides differentiation and separation in the marketplace.”
“The rules of engagement in traditional marketing are over. Whether you are creating a brand, building one, or running a big one, you’d better understand social media, because there is a seismic shift in how people are gaining access to information and, as a result, how they are behaving.”
“And we created not a tool kit but a new way of behaving, of being proactive and creating ways in which we could connect the dots through a landscape of multiple digital media and social media channels and could become a relevant, trusted source rather than a promoter of a product or ideas.”
“We’re the number one brand on Facebook…. It means that 7 million people are very interested in what we are doing and what we have to say. It has changed our go-to-market strategy—how we communicate, unveil, and innovate, and ultimately how we arrive in the marketplace. The success of the things we have done this year is directly linked to the fact that the cost of customer acquisition and communicating to the outside world is significantly lower for us than it is for people who are spending money on traditional advertising or haven’t got this right. The feedback loop is making us better because of the insight we are gaining from that audience.”
