Page 150 - The Starbucks Experience

Embrace Resistance

case, the right thing was to not get petty.” Starbucks scaled
back its food offerings at the original store and accepted the
resistance of the neighboring merchants. In so doing, the
company’s leaders validated the importance of blending into
the community while resisting the urge to push through with
their own corporate desires. At times, great leadership is lit-
tle more than making sound compromises.

Beware the Naysayers
One of the most challenging types of resistance faced by every
business is that from those who say, “It can’t be done.” Many
individuals are quick to suggest that your ideas are not sound
or that they will cause your business to suffer. Rather than
believe the skeptics, the leadership at Starbucks seems to ask
the question, “Why wouldn’t it work?” 135
If the answer Starbucks receives in response to that ques-
tion is a compelling one, such as that a particular product is
too far afield from the company’s core business or that the
idea compromises quality, then the leadership will accept the
reasonable boundary and move on. However, if it is simply
a matter of “It hasn’t been tried before,” Starbucks execu-
tives look for a way to explore the viability of the option. For
example, when Starbucks leadership began considering musi-
cal products, cynics derided the idea with statements like,
“Music may not be Starbucks cup of coffee,” or this may
“prove to be another ill-fated attempt to sell something else,
anything else, with the Starbucks name on it.”
Starbucks executives pressed on, cautiously testing how
music and the Starbucks Experience fit together. The leader-
ship didn’t simply give up on the idea, but instead examined
how music meshed with core business objectives. Ken Lom-