When you're building a business or joining a company you have to be transparent, you can't have two sets of information for two sets of people.
Interpretation
Transparency in business is essential for trust and integrity.
In this quote, Howard Schultz emphasizes the importance of transparency in building a business or being part of an organization. He suggests that having separate sets of information for different groups of people undermines trust and can lead to dysfunction, advocating for honesty and openness to foster a healthy corporate culture.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a corporate workshop on ethical leadership.
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.
As your captain, I'm going to push you to not fall back on defense, but to play offense, and to play our match -- the Gospel, together.
If you can't describe your strategy in twenty minutes, simply and in plain language, you haven't got a plan. 'But,' people may say, 'I've got a complex strategy. It can't be reduced to a page.' That's nonsense. That's not a complex strategy. It's a complex thought about the strategy.
This is not Johnson's war. This is America's war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.
My way of getting the best from people on a set is to notice their work, to make every prop master, every seamstress, part of 'The Newsroom' or 'The West Wing' or 'Steve Jobs.'
We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.
I don't want people saying, 'Should we get a female director?' I want to hear, 'Should we get a great director for this movie?'
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