Page 79 - The Starbucks Experience

PRINCIPLE 2

tainability, social factors, and enduring strategic partnership
arrangements are not properly addressed up front.

Prioritizing Objectives and Keeping Them in
Front of Your People
While the details discussed thus far—environmental factors
and product quality—may be on the radar screens of many
business leaders, other critical business issues are frequently
overlooked. As suggested in Principle 1 in the discussion of
the importance of being knowledgeable, training programs
are often expendable. When the economy turns bad or busi-
ness hits a rough patch, training and education budgets suf-
fer. This short-term financial fix often compromises the
long-term health of the company. For Starbucks leadership,
64 however, educational programs are a critical detail in the
future of the business.
Starbucks management is constantly enhancing and per-
fecting training resources, not only at the product knowledge
and operational levels, but also in areas that help partners
take ownership in the business. When it comes to keeping the
Principle 1, “Make It Your Own,” behaviors alive and
dynamic, shift supervisors, store managers, and other man-
agers participate in a process called exploring customer sto-
ries. At the store level, partners are offered excerpts taken
from real customer comments and are then asked to identify
behaviors from the Green Apron Book that they would
choose if they were in that situation.
A partner might receive the following customer statement:
“My wife and I decided to buy a Starbucks Card ($50) for
our good friend as a birthday gift last week. When we arrived
in your store, I carefully told the cashier that I needed to