Leading the Starbucks Way: 5 Principles for Connecting with Your Customers, Your Products, and Your People

Written by Joseph A. Michelli

Lead Your Business the Starbucks Way

Foreword by Herve Humler, President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.

One of the best-recognized and admired brands in the world, Starbucks singlehandedly transformed the ordinary delivery of coffee into a cultural phenomenon—a result of the company’s exemplary leadership practices.

Joseph Michelli, author of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and BusinessWeek bestseller The Starbucks Experience, explains that the international success of Starbucks begins with a promise: To inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time. Michelli offers a perspective on the leadership principles that drove the iconic coffee company’s resurgence from serious setbacks during the economic downturn—one of the few true turnaround stories of this time. And the company continues to grow dramatically, entering new markets and channels with fresh products and technologies.

In Leading the Starbucks Way, Michelli establishes five actionable principles that fuel long-term global sustainability at Starbucks and that can be used in any company, in any industry:

• Savor and Elevate
• Love to Be Loved
• Reach for Common Ground
• Mobilize the Connection
• Cherish and Challenge Your Legacy

Leading the Starbucks Way is a penetrating look at the inner workings of one of today’s most successful brands. The company gave Michelli one-on-one access to a variety of employees (called partners) to write this book—from baristas to senior leaders, including Howard Schultz, chairman, president, and chief executive officer.

In short, success is all about loving your product, loving your customers, and loving your employees. Sincerely. Without fail. Even in the face of business challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480595781

Joseph A. Michelli

Joseph A. Michelli is an organizational consultant who focuses on intersections of business, leadership, and workplace productivity. He is the bestselling author of The Starbucks Experience, The New Gold Standard, Prescription for Excellence, and The Zappos Experience. One of today’s leading thinkers on the topic of customer experience, Michelli also speaks to corporate audiences approximately 60 times a year.

Reviews for Leading the Starbucks Way

[David Anderson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent book and an insightful book about leadership from an excellent company’s perspective

[Miko Taivaloja · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm always eager to learn more about Starbucks. This book delivered interesting stories and great lessons on leadership. Would recommend this book to almost anyone interested in Starbucks and how to develop the leader within you.

[themythbookshelf · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Strip this book of its eye-catching, texturized(!) cover and its subject of Starbucks, and you get a lukewarm read (get it?) It's really a shame, because a book about as big of a success story as Starbucks Coffee should be packed with wittiness and quality rather than excessively enthusiastic adjectives, redundant sentences and self-evident knowledge that is not repackaged in a fresh, clear way. There were simply far too many instances when an entire paragraph could have been revised to be a single sentence. I realize that the book's main aim is to be as accessible to as many as possible, yet it comes at the expense of substance. Furthermore, the best of this book cannot really be credited to the author--the heartwarming stories of the Starbucks employees ("partners") transformed my understanding of the company culture, though I still am not a customer of the brand.I will give credit to the fact that Michelli's five principles are explicitly stated, and the examples he provides have been picked carefully. Nevertheless, (at the expense of sounding too critical,) there are many other authors who write these sorts of business-success books and achieve what Michelli has failed to do. The book's tips can be summarized as "be a good person, show you're a good person, don't compromise your good character and apply these values to your business". In short, I will be keeping my copy because I did learn some things, but it is certainly not because of its literature.

[jpporter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There is no doubting the success of Starbucks, and Joseph Michelli sets out to identify the principles behind that success in Leading the Starbucks Way. Ultimately, he identifies five driving principles to which he attributes the Company's success: maintaining focus on the product; strive to earn loyalty; respect the identity of the community; be an active part of the community; respect the traditions of the company and its need to evolve. (These are all paraphrased and summarize my take on his principles.)The book is rich with meaningful examples of the Starbucks way of doing business. The principles Michelli identifies are not just idle conjecture - he shows how Starbucks operates, and how it puts its corporate philosophy into practice. After reading this book, I came away with an understanding of why Starbucks is as successful as it is. Whether the principles that drive this company can be generalized and used effectively by others is another matter, but any good corporate leader would learn a lot about success from this very accessible book.

[dannywahlquist · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed this look inside Starbucks. Some of my favorite quotes include:
5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary: Make it your own, Everything matters, Surprise & delight, Embrace resistance, Leave your mark
Make It Your Own: 5 Ways of Being: Be welcoming, Be genuine, Be considerate, Be knowledgeable & Be involved.
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." Anne Frank
“workers at all levels must become attuned not only to what their customers are saying but equally to what they aren’t”
"Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language." Dale Carnegie

[skinglist · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fun read for a minor Starbucks junkie. I liked the customers' stories and how Starbucks reacts.

[dwfree · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Summary: Starbucks good. Your business should be like Starbucks.

[micheaun · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

inspiring!

[alanwilkerson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

5 principles that make Starbucks the "third place"1 Make it your own2 Everything matters3 Surprise and Delight4 Embrace Resistance5 Leave your markTo apply this to a church setting it is fairly simple to take the "Create You Own Experiences" which are scattered throughout the book and use them with leadership teams.