Why I Appreciate Starbucks

I wanted to suggest an article to check out on the HBR blog.  Tony Schwartz in his article, Why I Appreciate Starbucks offers a review of company CEO Howard Schultz's new book Onward:  How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Loosing it's Soul.  I've put it on my "to read" list as I really enjoyed Schultz's first book and think this will be just as good if not more.  Starbucks has essentially been to the brink and back both financially and values-wise over the last few years.  It came to the point where Schultz stepped back into a day to day leadership role to renew the organization and shepherd it to a point where it saw it's largest period of growth during the last quarter.  This book reflects on that time and the journey that the organization and Schultz himself went through.  Here's a couple of highlights from the article.


What makes Schultz a different kind of leader is his recognition that any company today must see itself as part of a larger community, serving a universe of stakeholders far beyond its immediate shareholders.


Schultz talks about his mission in a way that's very different from most CEOs. "Everything we've tried to do," he writes, "is steeped in humanity."  I LOVE THIS QUOTE!!