stewardship.
I titled the e-mail “The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience.”
On Valentine's Day 2007, my longtime assistant, Nancy Kent, typed up my handwritten thoughts and, after I made a few changes, e-mailed it to Jim and his team. I hoped my impassioned plea would unleash an honest, provocative conversation, prompting us to look in the mirror and get back to our core.
Instead, the memo unleashed a public furor.
Chapter 4
Nothing Is Confidential
I was sitting at my desk on Friday, February 23, when a colleague stepped into my office and looked at me incredulously. “Someone leaked the memo.” My jaw dropped. My forehead crinkled in confusion.
“What?” I was not sure I had heard correctly.
“It's on the Internet.”
I swirled my chair around to face the three computer screens that streamed world news, market data, and e-mails to my desk throughout the day. A quick Google search and there it was: “The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience” on a gossip website, for anyone to see. Investors. Competitors. Journalists. Starbucks’ partners. Staring at the screen, I was speechless. Not because my criticisms were now public. What upset me, what felt like a blow to my gut, was
the leak.
I could not imagine who would do such a thing.
It was nothing less than a betrayal.
In my life I place enormous value on loyalty and trust. It is intrinsic to my personal relationships and to the integrity of our company's culture, essential to how we conduct business with one another and with our customers. And while Starbucks is not perfect, nor am I, and people may disagree with some of our choices, we make it our business to uphold that trust, and we make amends if we fail.
Unlike other brands, Starbucks was not built through marketing and traditional advertising. We succeed by creating an experience that comes to life, in large part, because of how we treat our people, how we treat our farmers, our customers, and how we give back to communities. Inside the company, there had always been an unspoken level of trust that, for more than two decades, had allowed us to empower partners and to communicate openly, always assuming that the information would be used to benefit the company.
Disloyalty was not part of our moral fabric. So for me to sit in my own office and discover that someone close to me, someone inside Starbucks, had acted with such blatant, premeditated disregard for me, Jim, and the rest of the leadership team was a tremendous disappointment. It took me a while to digest it.
But I had no choice. The deed was done.
News of the memo had already spread, and phones on our media hotline were lighting up with calls from reporters. Was the memo real?
Yes.
Can we interview Howard?
No.
I could not do a single interview. It would have been too emotional. Instead, I helped Valerie O'Neil, then our director of corporate and issues management, craft a statement that accurately expressed my thoughts:
The memo is legitimate. It is a reflection of the passion and commitment Starbucks has to maintaining the authenticity of the Starbucks Experience while we continue to grow. We believe that success is not an entitlement and that it has to be earned every day. We do not embrace
the status quo and constantly push for reinvention. This is a consistent, long-standing business philosophy to ensure we provide our customers the uplifting experience they have come to expect.
We released the statement.
At one point amid the chaos, a welcome face unexpectedly appeared at my office door. Wanda Herndon is a straight-talking, fun-loving, wise woman who headed Starbucks’ global communications from 1995 until 2006, when she left us to launch her own consulting firm, W Communications. As many ex-partners do, Wanda often returned to visit. She and I had our own rich history of honest conversations, and when she popped in to say hello I was relieved to
I titled the e-mail “The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience.”
On Valentine's Day 2007, my longtime assistant, Nancy Kent, typed up my handwritten thoughts and, after I made a few changes, e-mailed it to Jim and his team. I hoped my impassioned plea would unleash an honest, provocative conversation, prompting us to look in the mirror and get back to our core.
Instead, the memo unleashed a public furor.
Chapter 4
Nothing Is Confidential
I was sitting at my desk on Friday, February 23, when a colleague stepped into my office and looked at me incredulously. “Someone leaked the memo.” My jaw dropped. My forehead crinkled in confusion.
“What?” I was not sure I had heard correctly.
“It's on the Internet.”
I swirled my chair around to face the three computer screens that streamed world news, market data, and e-mails to my desk throughout the day. A quick Google search and there it was: “The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience” on a gossip website, for anyone to see. Investors. Competitors. Journalists. Starbucks’ partners. Staring at the screen, I was speechless. Not because my criticisms were now public. What upset me, what felt like a blow to my gut, was
the leak.
I could not imagine who would do such a thing.
It was nothing less than a betrayal.
In my life I place enormous value on loyalty and trust. It is intrinsic to my personal relationships and to the integrity of our company's culture, essential to how we conduct business with one another and with our customers. And while Starbucks is not perfect, nor am I, and people may disagree with some of our choices, we make it our business to uphold that trust, and we make amends if we fail.
Unlike other brands, Starbucks was not built through marketing and traditional advertising. We succeed by creating an experience that comes to life, in large part, because of how we treat our people, how we treat our farmers, our customers, and how we give back to communities. Inside the company, there had always been an unspoken level of trust that, for more than two decades, had allowed us to empower partners and to communicate openly, always assuming that the information would be used to benefit the company.
Disloyalty was not part of our moral fabric. So for me to sit in my own office and discover that someone close to me, someone inside Starbucks, had acted with such blatant, premeditated disregard for me, Jim, and the rest of the leadership team was a tremendous disappointment. It took me a while to digest it.
But I had no choice. The deed was done.
News of the memo had already spread, and phones on our media hotline were lighting up with calls from reporters. Was the memo real?
Yes.
Can we interview Howard?
No.
I could not do a single interview. It would have been too emotional. Instead, I helped Valerie O'Neil, then our director of corporate and issues management, craft a statement that accurately expressed my thoughts:
The memo is legitimate. It is a reflection of the passion and commitment Starbucks has to maintaining the authenticity of the Starbucks Experience while we continue to grow. We believe that success is not an entitlement and that it has to be earned every day. We do not embrace
the status quo and constantly push for reinvention. This is a consistent, long-standing business philosophy to ensure we provide our customers the uplifting experience they have come to expect.
We released the statement.
At one point amid the chaos, a welcome face unexpectedly appeared at my office door. Wanda Herndon is a straight-talking, fun-loving, wise woman who headed Starbucks’ global communications from 1995 until 2006, when she left us to launch her own consulting firm, W Communications. As many ex-partners do, Wanda often returned to visit. She and I had our own rich history of honest conversations, and when she popped in to say hello I was relieved to
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