I had a chance to attend the Los Angeles leg of Howard Schultz’s national book tour this morning for “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” (thanks, Larry Benet).
As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a big admirer of Schultz’s leadership style and corporate vision. No executive is better at communicating core values and articulating the importance of balancing profit motive and purpose motive. Whenever I hear him speak — and today was no exception — I’m struck by his authenticity and conviction. You can tell that he leads with his truth and believes in the values his company stands for.
That said, nobody that incisive can escape a touch of perfectionism. I suspect he is a perfectionist (we can sniff out our own) and I know he is a brand control freak so it must have just killed him that the event producers served Peet’s Coffee during the pre-event reception. Yes, that’s right. They hosted Howard Schultz with Peet’s Coffee.
Everyone was whispering about it. Not sure who should have caught that minor detail, except for everyone working on the event in any capacity. I even overheard a member of the security team joking about it with an usher while people were filing into the auditorium.
Someone asked Schultz about the oversight during the Q&A session, and he said exactly what I was expecting, “When I saw that they were serving Peet’s Coffee, I almost turned around and left.”
Schultz spoke about the word “love” today and what it means for someone to love what they do, to love the company they work for, to love a brand and what it stands for.
When it comes to brand management, love is in the details. You just can’t miss those kind of details.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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