Joseph A. Michelli, The Starbuck Experience. 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary (New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Milan, New Delhi, San Juan, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 2007)


Foreword

We are litter-picker-uppers. We are green-apron-clad seekers of the book that you might have left on one of the tables in our coffeehouse. We are the folks who smile across the counter at you every morning as you ask for your double-tall-nonfat-mocha-with-a-little-vanilla-at-the –bottom-you-know-my-regular-drink. We’re Starbucks partners (commonly known to the world as employees). (…)
…There is something a little magical about founding a business that aspires to enrich the human spirit. That’s actually part of the Starbucks core核心 purpose. And we live every day by our Mission Statement and Guiding Principles, which include embracing diversity and creating a great work environment. Sure, one of our principles is to recognize that profitability is essential to our future success. But it’s not the first item on the list; it’s the last one. And when you live and work according to those kinds of principles, good things seem to come your way.
One of the ways in which we express the nature of what it means to be a Starbucks partner is through the Green Apron Book. It’s a pocket-sized book that puts into words some of the core “ways of being” that you need in order to be successful at Starbucks. They are be welcoming, be genuine, be knowledgeable, be considerate, and be involved. They are simple words, and they distill everything you need to know about Starbucks and the people who work here.
We each get to be part of a group that gets to make a huge difference in people’s lives in a million small ways—just little moments like smiling as we hand you a drink, hand-crafting your beverage just the way you like it, and providing a comfy chair and a place to get away from it all without going very far.

From Seattle to Portland and Beyond
In 1971, the Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and spice store started business in Seattle, Washington. Before that first Starbucks opened its doors, people stopped by the corner coffee shop for a 50-cent cup that came with the promise of free refills. From some of us, the morning was not complete without a visit to the convenience store, where we poured our own black, murky brew into a white foam cup. To kill the taste, we doused the mixture with gobs of powdered cream and sugar, and stirred in with a thin red plastic stick (which was supposed to double as a straw).We would hand our change to an apathetic cashier who performed the job just well enough to earn the minimum wage. It was an unvarying and uninspired customer ritual and transaction.
Despite the monotonous nature and poor quality of this transaction, most of us didn’t know that there was any other way to "enjoy" coffee. While we were slogging through our days with freeze-dried, burnt, or lackluster home-brew, Howard Schultz, Starbucks former CEO and current chairman, asked an intriguing question: "What would happen if you took the quality coffee bean tradition of Starbucks and merged it with the charm and romance of the European coffeehouse? His answer: Starbucks could transform the traditional American coffee experience from the ordinary to the extraordinary.
By all accounts, Howard’s concept was an ambitious idea. How do you change the people’s view of coffee? After all, coffee has been with us for centuries, and there seemed to be little impetus for a major shift in customers’ preferences.
How do you inspire a coffee drinker to give up her regular routine while also getting her to pay six or eight times more for rich, exotic coffee blends when "ordinary" is all she’s ever known? Besides, who would make time for a European-style coffeehouse experience when one could grab a cup while buying milk, gasoline, and a newspaper?
As Cora Daniels noted in a Fortune magazine article, "The Starbucks story epitomizes ‘imagine that’ in every sense. When the company went public…it had just 165 stores clustered around Seattle and in neighboring states…Skeptics ridiculed the idea of $3 coffee as a West Coast yuppie fad."
In fact, today Starbucks has stores in over 37 countries, averages more than 35 million customer visits each week, and has loyal patrons who typically return 18 times a month. If you had invested $10,000 in the Starbucks IPO on the Nasdaq in 1992, your investment would be worth approximately $650,000 today. Starbucks has grown substantially faster than the average S&P rose 200 percent, the Dow 230 percent, the Nasdaq 280 percent, but Starbucks? –5,000 percent! Throughout this period, Starbucks maintained its quality while continuing its aggressive expansion. Today, Starbucks opens five new stores a day, 365 days a year.
It has been consistently recognized by Fortune as one of America’s "most admired" companies and best employers. Business Week acknowledges Starbucks as one of the worldwide brands. Business Ethics places it on its list of most socially responsible companies each year.
In contrast to McDonald’s- another great American success story- Starbucks is not a franchise business.
In an article for Workforce Management, writer Samuel Greengard pointed out, Starbucks Corporation went public in June 1992. On the first day of trading, the stock closed at $ 21.50- up from an opening price of $ 17. Not only did the CEO’s net worth zoom; the coffee retailer had finally reached the big leagues. But instead of hoarding his beans, Schultz decided that he would give some of them back to employees in the form of stock options…[while] other firms offered options only to key senior executives, Schultz made them available to everyone working 20 hours a week or more, including those standing behind the counter at a local Starbucks store.
According to Geoff Kirbyson in a brandchannel article, Howard noted, "The way we have built our company by including the success of the company with everyone in it and not leaving our people behind is a great example of building a business the right way." From Starbucks perspective, that "right way" to conduct business means truly turning employees into partners-shareholders with a stake in the outcome of the company.
Through this sharing, partners appreciate the direct link between their effort and the success of the business enterprise. Starbucks leadership has done an exceptional job of both linking a partner’s financial gain to Starbucks profit and helping partners understand that profit is the lifeblood of business. Profits increase not only the breadth of Starbucks market, but also the scope of its positive social influence and its capacity to provide quality benefits from partners. These benefits include health insurance for 20-hours-per-week employees, something that Starbucks partners received long before such a thing was even considered, let alone adopted, by other corporations.
But the treatment that partners receive at Starbucks goes well beyond stock options and health insurance. For example, partners are given extensive training in product knowledge, guiding principles for success, personal empowerment and the importance of creating warm customer experiences. In stunning contrast to most Fortune 500 companies, Starbucks consistently spends more on training than it does on advertising.
That training pays huge dividends for Starbucks in retaining employees, maintaining connections with current customers, and bringing new customers into its stores. Starbucks staff retention is unprecedented in the quick-service restaurant sector. The employee turnover rate at Starbucks, according to some reports, is 120 percent less than the industry average. Maryann Hammers states in Workforce Management : " Starbucks employees have an 82% job-satisfaction rate, according to Hewitt’s Best Place to Work’ employers."
While not every leadership team can reward employees with stock options or health-care benefits for part-time employees, every business leader can treat those individuals with enough daily care and concern to inspire passion and creativity in their work.
In its mission statement, Starbucks leadership has committed to "provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity. "As with all aspects of its mission, Starbucks management has established internal checks to make sure that leaders are actually living the company’s espoused values. This process encourages all partners to bring their concerns to a Mission Review Committee when they feel that policies, procedures, or leadership behaviors are straying from Starbucks commitments. It is expected that partners on pass on the dignity and respect that they are afforded into interactions with their customers.
Starbucks management takes pride in the company being "the leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee in the world", but also recognizes that people flock to the company’s sores for the total Starbucks Experience. In essence, people come into a comfortable setting where they are valued on a personal level, and where a meaningful connection is made. Everything the company does is intended to give the customer a positive, perhaps uplifting, experience while purchasing a quality beverage or food item.
Customers must be able to customize their beverage order, with the handcrafted assistance of their barista (the Italian word for bartender and the term used at Starbucks for a coffee preparer). Customization means satisfying each customer’s unique expectations, and often involves special temperatures, soy milk, and various pumps of flavor.
The success of Starbucks demonstrates…that we have built an emotional connection with our customers…We have a competitive advantage over classic brands in that every day we touch and interact with our customers directly. Our product is not sitting on a supermarket shelf like a can soda. Our people have done a wonderful job of knowing your drink, your name, [and] your kids’ names.
When staff members understand how their efforts spark the business and uplift and change lives, they are more likely to exert the creative and passionate energy that gets noticed by customers. By protecting a vision of the optimal customer experience and helping partners consistently realize that vision, Starbucks leaders watch their people grow the business, and watch their profits grow as well.
Despite the company’s success, Starbucks leaders understand their current and future vulnerabilities. For example, the larger Starbucks grows, the harder it will be to foster the unique Starbucks experience. To put it simply, in the words of Howard Schultz, Starbucks has to work to "stay small while growing big". To that end, the future of Starbucks lies in its partners owing millions of positive daily interactions throughout the company.
Starbucks workforce has grown exponentially, from 100 in 1987 to more than 100,000 in 2006. Given Starbucks rapid and aggressive growth, its leadership faces the challenge of attracting quality people and training them in Starbucks way, all the while sustaining a culture in which employees excel at connecting with patrons.
1. Make it your own
2. Everything matters
3. Surprise and delight
4. Embrace resistance
5. Leave your mark

The impact of these principles transcends the Starbucks story and offers all business leaders an opportunity to greatly enrich their workplace. They demonstrate how an entrepreneurial spirit and extraordinary leadership skills can elevate a product or service and even change the way in which that product or service is delivered. These guidelines allow each of us to improve our workplace, whether by developing appealing new products, opening new markets, or just paying attention to the aspects of our business that we can readily enhance.