Book Review: Star bucks Experience by Joseph Michelli

A. Name of Book: The Starbucks Experience


B. Author: Joseph Michelli

C. Background of Author: (Education, work experience, other books that he has written):

Dr. Joseph Michelli is an organization psychologist who has dedicated his career to studying successful businesses, both large and small. Prior to The Starbucks Experience, Dr. Michelli co-authored When Fish Fly: Lessons for Creating a Vital and Energized Workplace with John Yokoyama the owner of the world famous Pike Place Fish in Seattle.

Dr. Michelli transfers his knowledge of exceptional business practices through keynote addresses and workshops. These presentations provide ways to develop playful and productive workplaces that maximize productivity while fueling growth and employee morale.

In addition to his dynamic and entertaining international keynote presentations, Dr. Michelli and his staff provide:

o CEO consultation

o Corporate Coaching

o Leadership team Development Services

o Group facilitation and team-building strategies



D. Summary of Each chapter (100 words each): Mention each chapter – summarize in 100 words.

The Big Idea

The genius of Starbucks’ success lies in its ability to create personalized customer experiences,

secure customer loyalty, stimulate business growth, generate profits, and energize employees –

all at the same time. This has lead to unprecedented and astounding success; since 1992, Starbucks stock has risen by an astounding 5,000 percent.

In this celebrated book, Starbucks’ “secret recipe” has been condensed into five key principles.





PRINCIPLE 1: MAKE IT YOUR OWN

Senior management must find ways to get its partners to fully engage their passions and talents

while ensuring that individual partners’ differences are blended into a good uniform customer

experience.

It can be tough to find a balance between these two leadership responsibilities, but Starbucks has managed to do so through its principle of Make It Your Own. It has created a structure known as the “Five Ways of Being”, which is encapsulated in a pamphlet known as the Green Apron Book

Be welcoming

Defined as “offering everyone a sense of belonging”. Partners should do all they

can to create a place where people feel that they are a priority and where their day

can be brightened, at least for a moment.



Be genuine

At Starbucks, being genuine means to “connect, discover, and respond”. Connect. Customers have repeatedly shared experiences of Starbucks partners making a connection well beyond some formulaic greeting. Discover.Business success requires the discovery of each person’s needs and

individual situation.

Respond. Starbucks employees not only listen to their customers, but also take action immediately based on what they hear and learn from these experiences for future customer interactions.



Be considerate

Starbucks partners look beyond their needs and consider the needs of others – customers, potential customers, critics, co-workers, other shareholders, and even the environment – in sum, the entire universe of people and things Starbucks affects.



Be knowledgeable

Partners are encouraged to enhance their expertise in coffee and customer service. Value is always added to partners’ efforts when they gain work-related knowledge. In addition, as they become more informed, their value to the business, self-confidence, and the impact they have on others all increase

Be involved

This means nothing less than active participation in the store, in the company, and in the community – a “yes, I will” attitude where breakthrough products and service are created. There must be a move away from a “bare minimum is OK” mentality

PRINCIPLE 2: EVERYTHING MATTERS

All business is detail. When details are overlooked or missed, even the most patient customers can be frustrated and costly errors can occur. Leaders have to understand that they must take

care of both the “below-deck” (unseen aspects) and the “above-deck” (customer-facing components of the customer experience.

A small detail can sometimes make the difference between success and failure. Important details live in both that which is seen and that which is unseen by the customer











PRINCIPLE 3: SURPRISE AND DELIGHT

As early back as 1912, the Rueckheim brothers, who are behind the successful candy brand

Cracker Jack, already knew that adding a surprise to each package would dramatically increase

the appeal of their product.

In that vein, delight is the caramelized popcorn – the basic product customers get – while surprise

is the prize they get! Customers want the predictable and the consistent, while hoping for an

occasional positive twist or added value thrown in. Customer delight comes from surprise as well as predictability.



PRINCIPLE 4: EMBRACE RESISTANCE

To work with resistance effectively, you must distinguish between those people who really do

want their concerns resolved and those who simply want to complain. For some concerns,

listening is all that is required; for other types of resistance, direct action is required. Management

should know when listening is simply not enough.

PRINCIPLE 5: LEAVE YOUR MARK

We all end up leaving some mark on the world. What varies – and what is most important – is whether that mark is positive or negative. Do we give back more than we take, or do we take more than we give?

Successful leaders realize that a key component of their success is leaving a powerful and

positive mark in the communities in which their businesses operate. People want to do business

with, work for, invest in, and patronize socially conscious companies



E. 3 key learnings from the book:

• In knowledge and a service economy, we add value to business by enhancing customers experience.

• Embracing resistance involves a complex set of skills that enable businesses and individuals to create business and relationship opportunities when they are confronted with criticism, skepticism, irritation or wariness.

• Employee morale is 3 times higher in companies where community involvement is an integral part of the business model than in their less-involved counterparts.



F. How would you apply this in your personal life?

The five ways of being is very important concept that i can apply directly in my personal life, so as to build and maintain personal as well as professional relationships.

The five ways are:

1. Be Welcoming:

We need to be very welcoming to people and our environment in order to have a warm relationship with the individuals. We often aren’t welcoming to the guest coming to our house, and this often spoils relationships. So by been welcoming we can make people feel more comfortable with us.

2. Be genuine:

People interacting with us don’t always want to be our best friends but they want a feeling that our behavior towards them is genuine and not fake. The advantage of been genuine is it helps building mutual trust with the person we interact with.

3. Be Considerate:

We should always be considerate of needs of people and environment and respond to the situation in a considerate manner. By making consideration our own, we can look beyond our needs and consider the needs of other.

4. Be knowledgeable:

It’s very important for every one of us to love what we do and share this knowledge with others. We should be masters of our field of passion and should be able to educate the same to our surroundings.

5. Be involved:

Being involved means active participation of all the activities related to our friends, college programs or even our communities. This helps us in interacting with people from different background and also gives us an insight of the thinking of people with whom we interact.



G. How could you apply these learnings in your professional life?

Each one of the principles are given more attention, for example under the first principle of “Make it your own” the company further lists “be welcoming, be genuine, be considerate, be knowledgeable, and be involved” and stresses that these aren’t just for the retail level folks but for every area of the company. The various principles mentioned has common important point that customer is God. So if we make our company’s management according to the customers requirement be it administration, service or the HR policy, the process should be carried out in such a way that the end user or the customer should feel that the company really cares for the customer.

Although The Starbucks Experience is geared for businesses, its ideas can also be powerful for the individual desiring to make a difference in life. One of the central tenets of the Starbucks way is relationship building. Anyone can add coffee grounds to water and call it a drink. But the relationship that is built between barista and customer, over time, can transcend coffee and pastries. Likewise, humanity was not meant to live in a vacuum or on a deserted island. We crave relationships and will acquire them as best we know how. This is only natural, considering that God created people in order to be in an active relationship with them. Perhaps churches and other business organizations should take a good look at the value of relationships to Starbucks, because they’re obviously heading in the right direction.