Howard Schultz's second book to be published in March

It's titled, "Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul." (For those who don't work at Starbucks: Schultz always closes his notes to employees with "Onward.") Melissa Allison points out that an earlier working title was, "Onward: How Crisis and Conviction Transformed Starbucks." Read "Howard Schultz writes his second book" || The book on Amazon.com

Comments

[Marcus]

I've never worked at Starbucks, but I enjoy the discussions here from time to time. And based on the comments I've seen from just about every employee who writes on here, it almost seems like Schultz is inviting a backlash with the title of that book (specifically the not losing the soul part).

Although, I would have to say, and I have heard employees write this, that even if things sound worse for employees, Starbucks did not become like a Walmart type store, and it sounds like some of the things the "soul" revolved around like the good healthcare benefits are still there, if not as good as they once were.

Maybe the title should have been: Trimming the fat: We had to sell out, just a little, but the meat's still there.

[ExSbuxManager]

At least Howard is being consistent with the lies. Without losing it's soul? Really howard?

It was the loss of the companies soul that has brought your management turn over to 85%! Saw partners quit the company in droves. The soul of starbucks was never a scripted robotic sales pitch with every move the partners make choreographed with an electric fence around them to zap them if they don't obay.

Hell Howard, what about the coffee? Not the VIA, the real coffee? Every time I step into a Starbucks (not often these days) if I ask a partne a question about what's brewing or anything to do with coffee they are clueless. But they'll try to talk me into VIA isntead of beans because that they know about.

Screw you Howard Schultz. I cheered at your return and watched you set teh last shreds of the company culture on fire and you put the flames out with via powder.

The real reason you changed the logo isn't because you don't need it, it's because you're really STRABUCKS VIA COMPANY AND SLEAZY SALES PITCHES

[ExSbuxManager]

Let's play a game. Everyone post a suggested revised title. Here is mine:

Drinking VIA: Pissing the remains out on respect and dignity one packet at a time.

[I <3 music]

Dr. Strangebrew or How I learned to stop worrying and love Via

[Noah]

Guess it must be time to buy new crayons.

[wasatech]

Judging by the books cover, looks like they changed the logo to promote his book. Nice. Just like using the corporate jet to take the family to Hawaii for vacation.....twice.

Onward:Howard f*#ks Starbucks while laying off 34,000 partners.

[108represent]

Book should be called "How to pour your heart out of it"

[Leany]

Maybe if we're lucky it'll be a "lean" book and only be 5-7 pages.

[Coffee Soldier]

I hope we all get a autographed copy!

[can't afford the book]

I do wish I could have coffee with Howie. Does he actually believe this stuff?

[livin' la VIA loca]

will Howie do a book tour? and if so will his only stops be @ B&N licensed stores? lol.

[James Connolly]

Oh man, this should be filled to the brim with absolute gems of bullshit.

How about 'Onward: How to get tens of millions of dollars while tricking the people you are exploiting to believe you actually give a shit about them.'

Naaaaah, too long.

[Redacted]

Title of Howard's new book is further indication of his narcissism.

Every announcement Starbucks makes moves it further from its roots and core philosophy.

[James Connolly]

Oh, and the idea of a for-profit corporation having a soul is hysterical. I might have to read this book in the library because I'll be damned if I pay money for it.

[bill-someone who is old and used to love the real Starbucks]

And that is where Starbucks will eventually fail. If they don't get back to their roots and I mean not the dyed-roots they seem to be moving in but the honest to goodness core of the old Starbucks.... Ya know, coffee.. Remember Starbucks? You sell coffee, or you used too.

I know Starbucks is a house-hold name, but it will stop. You'll see eventually it will all come crashing down and then Starbucks will scramble and realize after having a V8, going back to the core is indeed a very good thing.

[Jeff Tom]

"Bitter Grounds: The Fall and Rebirth of Starbucks (without the coffee)"

[Aaron]

Onward... LOL

Do all the execs in Seattle greet each other by saying that? I bet they do. I bet Howard expects them to and has them all walking around like little cultists doing that. When I picture it in my mind, it's both hilarious and highly disturbing...

[Aaron]

Oh, by the way, I <3 Music wins... they effin win. That is a brilliant title for howies book.

[Darth Sidamo]

Onward: The journey to my 3rd Leer Jet on the back of the minimum waged.

[Alex]

"Onward: Just Say Yes, Remember?"

[SBUX Alum Bill]

"How I Become the Second-Highest-Paid Executive in the U.S. While Only Sacrificing 33,000 of My Closest Partners"

[Shifted]

"without losing its soul"? Of course not. Satan is keeping track of it for you. Just remember to keep your receipt, Howard. Jerkoff.

[Coffee Drinker]

If SBUX is so irrelevant, doomed, and downright terrible, it's odd that such a site as this, an many others talking Starbucks, are heavily trafficked.

I've taken occasional long breaks from Starbucks in the last 30 years, due to snarky baristas, poor service, raised prices, the Pike brew debacle and so on.

I mean, if people want Starbucks to fail, and think it is a failure now, yet can't stop reading and talking about it...I think Sbux may just survive after all.

Of course, I'm a life time loyalist, by now more for sentimental reasons having lived the full Starbucks lifestyle in Seattle eons ago...if I were new to coffee, I'm not sure Starbucks would interest me.

YMMV. Will be interesting to see how the book does...obviously Howard is doing something right, or something that engages the masses of shallow people such as myself who regularly pay good money to the Co.

[hmpht]

Onward: the new lean, mean, soul less machine

[baristamclane]

Oh come on now! Having a soul isn't part of LEAN thinking!

"Onward: How the Golden Child of Wall Street Hit Puberty and Lost It's Innocense"

[usorthem3]

Didn't read the first one,(our store has three copies) & don't think I will be going after this one any differently.

[Clark Kent]

Glad we're all getting a free copy... there's this wobbly table in the lobby that I've been meaning to fix.

[James Connolly]

Wobbly tables are the best kind of table...

...

Yeah, I feel guilty about that pun.

[TiredofThis]

baristamclane, good news the LEAN Team is hard at work on a way for us to keep a portion of our souls. The bad news is it won't be ready until 2012. In the meantime ONWARD.

"Onward: The story of Starbucks transformational agenda and one man's hubris."

[baristamclane]

@TiredofThis, Yay! Another repeatable routine to learn! Major step number one...

[gc]

The title could be appropriate, guys!

I mean, it's "Onward..."

Just isn't onward to what most Starbucks frontline employees might think onward should be heading to.

Totally applicable.

[Red cup]

@ gc
Wtf are you talking about? Get a life

[latteteadah]

He's trying to shine a turd (pardon the colorful metaphor).

The dumb plan to expand to grocery stores in markets that are already saturated with SB stores. If I have 3 cafes to choose from within the same distance as my preferred grocery - guess where I'm going to buy my coffee? Not from a grocery shelf. And the folks buying Folgers at the grocery aren't typically the folks who frequent Starbucks or are looking to spend money on flavored coffee or specialty beans.

Via is a good product. Really, it is. I like it and I buy it. But I don't drink enough of it to need to buy it every time I'm in a Starbucks - and most people don't like having marketing shoved at them, no matter what's being sold. It's not Via's fault that the marketing is over-the-top.

Change is good, but failed marketing is what he's selling lately, not real change.

And watering down the logo is only going to further water down what Starbucks "says" to people.

Picture this reality: there are young adults/potential lifelong coffee drinkers who have recently and will only know Starbucks as what it is right now = the place that only sells one kind of drip coffee most of the day, where more people buy frappucinos and mixed 500+ calorie drinks than brewed coffee, and where there's some new marketing gimmick every 6 weeks. When the marketing geniuses finally wake up and get re-focused, these kids won't have the desire to drink "real" coffee - they'll have found it elsewhere. Ship (or the sip) will have sailed.
That said - they should do more with their Reserve offerings - I see that as a positive. But if you continue to make it hard to purchase, people won't care.

[Who Dat?]

"Onward!" said the lemming at the rear of the pack.

[BURNT SM]

my title.....How Starbucks Took my Life... The Slow Death of a Store Manager in America..How to serve the siren

[ncsm]

Please God--take away Howard's ability to speak. Everything that comes out of this guy's mouth is complete and utter bullshit.

[I'm done]

I have two jobs, both fortune 500 companies, both ranked high on the best places to work in the past. However, SBUX has dropped off and I am grateful my day job adjusted to the economy and kept its passion. It just so hard to remember when at SBUX, I think I am finally ready to move past bitter, but where does that leave me? I am officialy admitting defeat, I just need this job for one more year, please Howie don't do me in before then.

[xsm]

A friend and I recently looked at a photo from the SM and ASM "retraining." (Remember when Howie came back and we all shut down our stores for a couple of hours to "get back to the coffee"?) He had "X"ed out every person who was no longer with the company or demoted (mine included).

How depressing. Some of those people taught me the SIX GUIDING PRINCIPLES. They believed in the Starbucks Mission Statement with all of their hearts.

Starbucks still has a few of it's Partners hanging in there but most (like you "I'm done") are just waiting for the right moment to split.

Onward: On transitioning from "the highest standards of excellence in the purchasing, roast and fresh delivery of our coffee" to "enthusiastically satisfied Shareholders" (No Matter What)

The Starbucks Experience is dying and will be dead when there isn't anyone left who remembers the magic of guiding a new partner or customer through a spontaneous coffee tasting that isn't staged and prepared with corporate approved dialogue by Seattle.

Those of you who believed in the ideas presented in "Pour your Heart Into It" have to take the next step. Howard has shown us the corporations can never be the employee-dedicated entities that they claim to be. SUPPORT/JOIN/CREATE LOCAL CO-OPS!

[James Connolly]

"SUPPORT/JOIN/CREATE LOCAL CO-OPS!"

Can't agree with this enough.

[AlwaysChipper]

another moronic book from howard...

he'll tell us how he's brought the "romance" back to coffee. how starbucks is such a wonderful place...

it's the same thing he's been saying for decades now. nothing new. he'll continue to romanticize the "starbucks experience"...and in the same breath he'll sign off on more labor cuts. he will speak to all the handcraftedness yet allow middle management to stifle any sort of creativity at the store level.

i do think howard should write a book. he should talk about pathetic district managers who couldn't steam milk if their job depended on it. he could wax-eloquent on SM's who fail cleanliness inspections, fail their sales targets, and fail customer voice, yet still keep their jobs because the DM covers for them. he could dedicate an entire chapter to the hatchet-swinging HR people (san diego baristas know who i'm talking about) who threaten partners and coerce weak baristas to lie so to make the firing process an easy one.

howard...write a book...impress all of us...but spare us the lies about the romance and beauty of your lattes. just admit that starbucks is the fastfood of coffee, and that you and your middle managers don't give a rats ass about the partner in the store.

[DarkCrw]

I was a partner back in the 90's. I recently came back to work for Starbucks. Although much has changed in the last 15 years, I gotta tell you I am very happy to be a partner again. Despite Sbux having made a huge number of changes, I think it's a company that cares more for it's employees than most (if not all) American based corporations. I wonder how many people trashing on Sbux have have had much experience with the rest of corporate America.

Cheers

[Coffee Drinker]

Dear DarkCrw, congratulations! I find some of the comments seem to come from those who are young, perhaps not having dealt much with careers and corporate America, as you say. We all only know what we know, it's said.

I'm glad to know you as another SBUX fan and good barista. I've complained my share over the years, but here I am anyway. Obviously my feet, $$, and precious computer time have voted.

Good luck!

p.s. eons ago I worked for Apple during the Jobs/Schully changeover days. Jobs came back...

[A Non eMoose]

"I wonder how many people trashing on Sbux have have had much experience with the rest of corporate America."

Wonder not, the answer is "a lot". People can hold differing opinions about what constitutes a caring company.

[Charleen Larson]

Convincing employees that they are cared for is at its core a soulless calculation, simply because it is cheaper to retain a functioning unit than to replace it.

Trust me, I've had a great deal of experience with corporate America. This calculation is a constant from company to company because a prime mover of the stock price is the CEO's demonstrated ability to keep labor costs low.

I would like to think the disgruntled SBUX workers of today are some of the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Go forth and create small businesses that beat SBUX at the coffee game. Howard's making it easier for you every day.

[anon-girl]

The only thing star bucks saved is its profit margins. I'm a 5 year employee, and every minutia of everything that comes out of schutlzes mouth is laughable bullshit. They were supposed to turn the employee experience around and so far, aside from a bonus, haven't done f**k all.

[BB]

The problem with Starbucks Reserve coffees being 'hard to purchase' is kind of an issue that can't be fixed. Extremely good coffee tends to be low batch, meaning there isn't a lot of it, meaning its expensive and hard to buy. Part of what makes it so expensive is the fact that its so rare.

Honestly, I'm a manager, I like my job, and I try to treat my partners with respect and dignity. Even the ones who could care less about the job / people they work with. Granted, those people tend to go pretty fast because they just don't care - but I try to let the ones who do care know every day that I appreciate their hard work.

[Mike]

I look forward to the new book. To the complainers, no one can make serving coffee exciting. Any simple job that requires little intelligence gets boring after awhile. You need to take Schultz's advice and create some passion in your life either for Starbucks or whatever other job you have. You'll never get promoted and be challenged if you are a chronic complainer.

[Sabrina]

What a waste of company money. Howard, I would love it if you increased my wage at least by one dollar instead of trying to brainwash us with your Siren-hugging crap. Thanks.

[Baristarded]

For anyone who thinks that Starbucks is anything more than a "McDonalds of coffee," you are truly mistaken... I am a 25 year old barista at Sbucks, and i have a passion for artfully creating a drink that's quality and flavor profile cannot be found anywhere else besides an up-scale cafe. I am proud to say that i get it. I just understand what should be expected when a customer pays $5 for a latte, cappuccino, ect. It should be professional quality on all fronts, from personality to drink execution. THIS is what is expected from us baristas by the top rungs of the coorperate ladder, and THIS is the reason why i feel Howard Schultz has created one of the most unfair workplaces i've ever experienced. I HAVE worked at other huge coorperations such as Blockbuster and even Wendy's, and it's sad to say that Blockbustef paid me more to start off just to rewind movies and put them back on the shelf! There is nothing professional about that, and yet the unbelievable expectations and ridiculous work ethic needed to survive in Sbucks gives partners unfair wages that will drown the company in diminished personalities of tired partners. Starbucks is constantly understaffed, resulting in some stores having to call other stores to try and "borrow" a partner for a shift. But Starbucks is so cheap that they will refuse to allow you to get overtime from the "borrowed" shift you serve, that way they will not have to give you time and a half for every hour over 40 in a week. Because of that, there is no incentive to help out another store in the middle of your day off because you will be cut the moment you are about to go over 40 hours. Every person that is working during a shift has specific tasks based on what position they are scheduled for, therefore if only ONE person calls out of a shift, the store literally cannot function properly. That is the worst understaffing i've ever heard of, and unfortunately have to be a part of... Every shift i work on any given day of the week could use ANOTHER person, but instead of having a smooth running crew that is firing on all cylinders Starbucks chooses to work a fewer amount of partners ( which is less people to pay) to complete fatigue. Trust me, i have worked as a professional mover and there are some days that i come home from Starbucks even MORE tired than a full day of moving couches, tv's, boxes, tables, beds, dressers, ect!!
In the end, i would sum up the working conditions at Starbucks as completely inhumane based on the opening pay rate of $7.60 (before fed and state taxes). We ARE professionals at what we do, we HAVE to be, but we get paid as much as a 15 year old kid that cooks fries at Wendy's.... Howard Schultz and all of his coorporate cronies are making over a billion dollars profit in a single year, and it's all thanks to the individual manipulation of every single barista ghat puts on the green apron.

Howard Schultz is right, Starbucks will never it's soul, because it has plenty of souls that it sucked out of it's "partners", er i mean it's "Sacrifices to Siren."