Onward

Part 1: Love

Chapter 1

A Beverage of Truth

One Tuesday afternoon in February 2008, Starbucks closed all of its US stores.

A note posted on 7,100 locked doors explained the reason:

"We're taking time to perfect our espresso.

Great espresso requires practice.

That's why we're dedicating ourselves to honing our craft."

Only weeks earlier, I'd sat in my Seattle office holding back-to-back meetings about how to quickly fix myriad problems that were beginning to surface inside the company. One team had to figure out how we could, in short order, retrain 135,000 baristas to pour the perfect shot of espresso.

Pouring espresso is an art, one that requires the barista to care about the quality of the beverage. If the barista only goes through the motions, if he or she does not care and produces an inferior espresso that is too weak or too bitter, then Starbucks has lost the essence of what we set out to do 40 years ago: inspire the human spirit. I realize this is a lofty mission for a cup of coffee, but this is what merchants do. We take the ordinary--a shoe, a knife--and give it new life, believing that what we create has the potential to touch others' lives because it touched ours.

Starbucks has always been about so much more than coffee. But without great coffee, we have no reason to exist.

"We looked at all the options," the team seated around me said. "The only way to retrain everyone by March is to close our stores, all at once."

I sat back in my chair. It would be a powerful statement, but no retailer had ever done such a thing. "That's a big idea," I replied, considering the risks. Starbucks would lose several million dollars in sales and labor costs. That would be unavoidable. Competitors would capitalize on our absence and try to lure away our customers. Critics would gloat, cynics would smirk, and the always-unpredictable media scrutiny could be humiliating. On Wall Street, our stock could sink even lower. Most dangerous of all,

Howard Schultz is the chairman, president, and CEO of Starbucks and the author of the New York Times bestseller Pour Your Heart Into It.


Joanne Gordon is a former Forbes writer and contributing editor who has spent more than a decade profiling companies and business leaders for numerous publications and five previous books.

Personal, suspenseful, and surprisingly open . . . [Schultz s] sequel to the founding of Starbucks is grittier, more gripping, and dramatic, and his voice is winning and authentic. this is a must-read for anyone interested in leadership, management, or the quest to connect a brand with the consumer. Publishers Weekly, starred review

Through the lens of his personal leadership journey, with all of its dizzying ups and agonizing downs, Howard Schultz has written, with aching honesty and passion, the single most important book on leadership and change for our time and for every generation of leaders. Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California, and author of Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership