A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.
Interpretation
A successful business must operate with integrity and self-awareness.
Howard Schultz emphasizes the importance of ethical values and self-identity in business. He argues that a great business should have a conscience, understanding its core principles and the impact of its actions on society, which ultimately guides its decision-making and fosters trust with customers and employees alike.
In practice
In a seminar about ethical business practices, one could cite this quote to highlight the value of conscience in company operations.
The rules of engagement around building a brand have changed significantly over the past 10 to 15 years. Where companies at one time could spread their message through traditional marketing, consumers now seek an enduring emotional connection with the companies they patronize. The foundation of that connection is the most important characteristic of building a world-class brand: trust. Trust with your people and trust with your customers.
The future of America is not an entitlement. We have been given a treasure chest of gifts and opportunities, but some people are being left behind, and success is not sustainable unless it is shared.
Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.
While their service is ending, our responsibility is just beginning!
In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity or you can pick yourself up and say listen, I have to be responsible for myself.
When I first discovered in the early 1980s the Italian espresso bars in my trip to Italy, the vision was to re-create that for America - a third place that had not existed before. Starbucks re-created that in America in our own image; a place to go other than home or work. We also created an industry that did not exist: specialty coffee.
Growth makes management easier. In particular, it makes making labor concessions seem easy. It's when growth stops because you're being disrupted that managing becomes really, really hard, and as a result, most disrupted companies simply disappear.
It is difficult, but not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business.
Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity.
Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steel-making.
Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.
In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone.
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