Page 192 - The Starbucks Experience

A Final Word

at Starbucks. That, for me, captures what business should
be about.”
Much like Starbucks, you may wish to support and enliven
your core business concepts with examples from your expe-
rience, ongoing dialogue, internal communications, customer
feedback, and training that demonstrates when your team
is being and when it is not being that which is valued by
your organization.
You may choose to implement Starbucks ideals in your
business by addressing the details that often get overlooked
in the rapid pace of your business day. Rather than accept-
ing shortcuts and subpar efforts, you may choose to challenge
your team or workplace to adopt an Everything Matters
approach.
Starting with a vision of what your business would be if it
were truly operating at its best, you and your team can 177
expose the roadblocks that keep it from consistently per-
forming at an optimal level. These factors, which are the dif-
ference between ordinary and extraordinary, may surface in
the customer satisfaction, product quality, training, or social
involvement aspects of your organization.
By embracing both the feedback and resistance of cus-
tomers, community groups, and staff, you will be given ample
opportunities to observe the details that mean the difference
between getting by and creating exceptional success. To that
end, you may wish to examine how you and your business
deal with dissent and criticism. You may think about ways,
as does Starbucks leadership, to go beyond responding to
complaints and actually anticipate them. You will probably
find opportunities to bring dissenters into problem-solving
discussions and create structures in your business that track
emerging concerns.