Read Onward for Free Online Page B

see her. I asked her to close the door. “Did you hear about the memo?” I said, still emanating disbelief. Wanda said yes, she knew about it, and as she sat down in front of my desk, I shook my head and spoke about how hurt I was about the breach of trust.
     
    “Howard,” she said in the matter-of-fact tone I'd come to expect, and appreciate. “Nothing is confidential. This is the new reality.”
     
    It was not the first time Wanda had spoken these words to me. In the past she had even suggested I refrain from putting certain thoughts in writing. Yet Wanda also understood two things about me. First, that it is my nature to speak from the heart, usually unedited. Second, that I conduct my life with an expectation that people will do the right thing. Yet even with all my experience, I am still surprised when they do not.
     
    “This too shall pass,” Wanda told me. “Just hang in there.”
     
    She was a calming influence that day and helped me put the situation in perspective. With time, my hunger to find the person who leaked the memo—and fire him or her—faded as the source of the breach paled in comparison to its consequences, inside and outside Starbucks. Moving forward became more important than laying blame.
     

     
    Every organization has a memory, a history of achievements, mistakes, even unintended consequences that contribute to an ongoing dialogue as people mold an event's meaning for themselves. The tapestry of interpretations informs, and often directs, the organization's future. That February, my memo became part of Starbucks’ collective memory.
     
    Some partners strongly disagreed with my opinions. After all, thecompany was soaring. In 1992, when Starbucks went public, our market capitalization had been $250 million. Now it was approximately $24 billion. People who invested with us in 1992 had experienced an almost 5,000 percent increase in the value of that investment. Every week, Starbucks’ stores had 45 million visitors. We were the most frequented retailer in the world! Why complain? some murmured behind closed doors.
     
    Other partners, even those who shared my concerns, could not help but feel confused or insulted because they had worked so hard to make the company better and meet our growth goals—the very growth goals that I had championed. Weren't we just doing our jobs? They wanted to know. Then there were partners who saw the memo as nothing new, just another one of Howard's impassioned commentaries.
     
    But there was also a great deal of talk among partners that I was “right,” that a dirty family secret had finally been aired. A secret that could no longer be ignored. Topics that had been taboo, such as our myopic push for efficient, rapid growth at the expense of the Starbucks Experience, were suddenly open for discussion. It was as if a collective sigh of relief rippled through the corridors.
     
    As people at our Seattle support center—our name for Starbucks’ headquarters—and in our stores interpreted my words, I had to reconcile my own emotions. I worried that Jim may have felt personally attacked, as if I had publicly reviewed his job performance. Assigning fault was never my intent, publicly or privately. I was as culpable as anyone for the direction we were headed in.
     
    Plus, I had tremendous affection for Jim. Despite our differences, I wanted him to win and succeed, and after the leak I apologized to him for any embarrassment the memo may have caused him. Unfortunately, maybe inevitably, the leaked memo further complicated our relationship, widening the rift between us. In the months that followed, more partners e-mailed me and approached me in confidence to share their own concerns about the company. Others purposely avoided me, discounting me as little more than a cranky former chief executive who had lost touch with the business.
     
    Neither of these situations was good for Starbucks.
     

     
    Outside the company, the memo continued to take on a life