Onward (Howard Schultz, 2011)

Howard Schultz has done a wonderful job documenting the turnaround story of Starbucks, when he returned as the firm’s CEO in 2007. In his book, Onward, he narrates what happened next.

Here are the most inspirational and informative quotes from the book, categorized on topics.

Entrepreneurship

But the entrepreneurial journey is not for everyone. Yes, the highs are high and the rewards can be thrilling. But the lows can break your heart. Entrepreneurs must love what they do to such a degree that doing it is worth sacrifice and, at times, pain. But doing anything else, we think, would be unimaginable. (pp.9)

Entrepreneurs can be blinded by emotion, by our love of what we have built, unable to see it fresh and with the eyes of a more objective outsider. (pp.38)

“Onward” implied optimism with eyes wide open, a never-ending journey that honored the past while reinventing the future. (pp.179)

Helping partners build their futures and care for their families is a core value of mine as an entrepreneur, an employer, and a son who watched his own family struggling. (pp.300)

Strategy

If not checked, success has a way of covering up small failures. (pp.40)

So many companies fail, not because of challenges in the marketplace, but because of challenges on the inside. (pp.41)

The one thing we could not and should not do was dismiss the ability of any competitor to capture our customers. (pp.63)

Starbucks Mission: To inspire and nurture the human spirit one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time. (pp.112)

Success is not sustainable if it’s defined by how big you become. Large numbers that once captivated me-40,000 stores! — are not what matter. The only number that matters is “one.” One cup. One customer. One partner. One experience at a time. We had to get back to what mattered most. (pp.156)

Selecting the right people for Starbucks's leadership team was among the most critical decisions I was making during this tenuous time. (pp.225)

Any company, when faced with adversity, would be tempted to go forward with an idea that promises to quickly ease pain. But in business as in life, people have to stay true to their guiding principles. To their cores. Whatever they may be. Pursuing short-term rewards is always shortsighted. (pp.268)

Leadership

I’ve never bought into the notion that there is a single recipe for successful leadership. But I do think effective leaders share two intertwined attributes: an unbridled level of confidence about where their organizations are headed, and the ability to bring people along. (pp.260)

Balance between the emotional and the disciplined. Between instinct and information. Between global and local. The personal and the professional, and, of course, between profits and humanity. (pp.310)

Branding

A well-built brand is the culmination of intangibles that do not directly flow to the revenue or profitability of a company, but contribute to its texture. (pp.23)

Ever since I had been with the company, we had banned smoking and asked partners not to wear perfumes or cologne to preserve the coffee aroma. (pp.24)

Unlike most customer brands that are built with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on marketing, our success had been won with millions of daily transactions. (pp.211)

More art than science, naming a product is akin to going on a treasure hunt without a map. There is no guaranteed route. (pp.254)

Innovation

Best innovations sense and fulfill a need before others realize the need even exits, creating a new mind-set. (pp.251)

Innovation is not only about rethinking products, but also rethinking the nature of relationships. (pp.269)

Sales

The merchant’s success depends on his or her ability to tell a story. What people see or hear or smell or do when they enter a space guides their feelings, entice them to celebrate whatever the seller has to offer. (pp.34)

A store manager’s job is not to oversee millions of customer transactions a week, but one transaction millions of times a week. (pp.201)

At the heart of being a merchant is a desire to tell a story by making sensory, emotional connections. (pp.273)

Customers

Early one day in Milan, I was strolling from my hotel to a trade show when I popped into a small coffee bar. “Bunn giorno!” an older, thin man behind the counter greeted me, as if I were a regular. Moving gracefully and with precision, he seemed to be doing a delicate dance as he ground coffee beans, steamed milk, pulled shots of espresso, made cappuccinos, and chatted with customers standing side by side at the coffee bar. Everyone in the tiny shop seemed to know each other, and I sensed that I was witnessing a daily ritual. This was so much more than a coffee break; this was theater. An experience in and of itself. (pp.9–10)

If home is the primary or “first” place where a person connects with others, and if work is a person’s “second place”, then a public space such as a coffeehouse — such as Starbucks — is what I have always referred to as the “third place”. A social yet personal environment between one’s house and job, where people can connect with others and reconnect with themselves. (pp.13)

I love to experience different stores — sole proprietors’ and large chains’ — and to see firsthand how they present their products and communicate with customers. I am a sponge, always soaking up store design, layout, and salespeople’s behavior, and over the years I have been intrigued by many types of stores that have nothing to do with coffee. (pp.34)

Starbucks coffee is exceptional, yes, but emotional connect is our true value proposition. (pp.117)

Starbucks is not a coffee company that serves people. It is a people company that serves coffee. (pp.142)

Culture

Creating an engaging, respectful, trusting workplace culture is not the result of any one thing. It’s a combination of intent, process, and heart, a trio that must constantly be fine-tuned. (pp.15)

Starbucks had three primary constituencies: partners, customers, and stakeholders, in that order, which is not to say that investor are third in order of importance. But to achieve long-term value for stakeholders, a company must, in my view, first create value for its employees as well as its customers. (pp.64)

Our retail partners are as diverse as the people they serve and the beverages they customize. People wearing our green aprons represent almost every race and religion. We employ twenty somethings and grandparents, single moms in need of health-care coverage, and artists in need of rent. For some, Starbucks is a stopgap gig between jobs, while others hope to build a career with the company. Whether part-timers or full-timers, Starbucks partners include high school kids saving for college, college kids in pursuit of degrees, recent grads, many in search of themselves, former executives, and people who vowed never to work in an office. (pp.149)

Grow with discipline. Balance intuition with rigor. Innovate around the core. Don’t embrace the status quo. Find new ways to see. Never expect a silver bullet. Get your hands dirty. Listen with empathy and overcommunicate with transparency. Tell your story, refuse to let others define you. Use authentic experiences to inspire. Stick to your values, they are your foundation. Hold people accountable but give them the tools to succeed. Make the tough choices; it’s how you execute that counts. Be decisive in times of crisis. Be nimble. Find truth in trials and lessons in mistakes. Be responsible for what you see, hear, and do. Believe. (pp.309)