Howard Schultz is an American businessperson and author. He started work at Starbucks in 1982 as the director of retail operations and marketing. Eventually, he became the Chief Executive Officer for Starbucks from 1986 to 2000 and 2008 to 2017. In 1992 Schultz took the company public; it trades today as SBUX (it traded at $111 per share last week) on the NASDAQ exchange. As the CEO, he expanded Starbucks from 11 stores to more than 30,000 worldwide. Schultz did not believe in franchising; every domestic Starbucks is owned by the company.

His autobiography Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul details his second period as CEO and how he turned the business around from 2008 to 2011. The book does a great job talking about how Starbucks rediscovered its organizational purpose. I talked about how to craft your organization’s purpose in Post #104.

I researched Howard and his grit for my book Grow Your Grit (available for pre-order here). I wanted to share five quotes from him that didn’t make the book:

• Starbucks is at its best when we are creating enduring relationships and personal connections. It’s the essence of our brand, but not simple to achieve.

• Ensuring that communications is narrow, clear, and repetitive to set expectations wins people’s trust.

• Starbucks is in the business of exceeding expectations.

• Boards of directors do not exist to manage companies, but rather to make sure companies are managed well. Boards are at their best, I believe, when directors have complete transparency so they can provide informed guidance, offering an outsider’s perspective to push a company’s management further than they might go otherwise.

• Icons (think Apple, Gucci, the Beatles, Mini Cooper, etc):

  • Icons make sense of the tension of the times, offering hope and even mending a culture in turmoil.

  • Icons assert a “cultural authority,” helping to frame the way people view the times they live in.

  • Icons don’t confuse history with heritage and always protect and project their values.

  • Icons disrupt themselves before others disrupt them.

  • Enduring icons are willing to sacrifice near-term popularity for longer-term relevance.

Use Howard Schultz’s quotes to grow your grit, craft your organizational purpose, and inspire you to go on the offensive in 2021.