I used to write about Su Dongpo, Wang Yangming, and other ancients, mainly to find ways for them to survive the spiritual crisis, and to turn the desperate situation into a treasure, a work, a classic. This time to write a foreigner, is the "father of Starbucks" Howard Schultz, who is more familiar to everyone. In fact, no matter how great the cultural differences between the East and the West are, the general law of invoking spiritual power when individuals face great challenges is similar.
Starbucks has recently been rejected for not providing free public toilets and requiring employees to return to work, and has frequently been hotly searched abroad. According to the surging news, on June 9, local time, Schultz said at the DealBook DC 2022 policy forum that he had "knelt down" to beg employees to return to work, but employees still chose to come to the company only 2 to 3 days a week.
In April, Schultz returned to Starbucks for the third time to take charge of the overall situation, planning to leave the CEO position in the first quarter of 2023. The last time was during the 2008 financial crisis. In April, he criticized the former management for "false promises." Repairing a company, sometimes, is repairing people's hearts.
In May, earnings reports were released, and he pledged to invest $1 billion in store partners (benefits) in fiscal 2022, pushing all store partners to $15 per hour, effective August 1. Lifetime partners will receive a 5% salary increase or a 5% increase in starting salary. The purpose of wage increases is to fight inflation.
When the needs of society are also the needs of "me", we will actively promote them, so that we can unite all forces and form a good atmosphere. His whole management style has not changed, that is, to heal people's hearts, to inspire people's hearts, to mobilize all the community forces that can be mobilized, public forces. The whole gesture is still as humble as usual. I don't know if this short re-entry to the front line will continue the glory of "starting from scratch".
He is in his 70s and has only taken over briefly, so the most appropriate way is still to play the role of spiritual leader, reassuring pill, stabilizer, and ballast stone. The wisdom of an old man is to go through the world, know anything, the good and the bad will eventually pass, and at any stage gradually achieve "perseverance and self-transcendence", encouraging people to "cultivate their right minds and wait for their self-victory".
When he first returned in April, I was impressed by a comment to the effect that the difference between founders and professional managers is that their inspiration, intuition, bottom line and courage are completely different dimensions. Founders know what they value, what they're doing this business for, and in the face of every seemingly tough decision, these things make decisions simple.
Starting from scratch, restarting power, reshaping power, how important these are for this era.
In fact, Schultz had a mental crisis when he was a child. The family lived in a government low-rent housing, the father was injured and dismissed, the mother was pregnant at the time, and for many years suffered from depression. Their families were very poor, and they always had to borrow money from acquaintances for a living.
He grew up feeling that family life was repressive, unattractive, and always wanted to escape. His escape was through the sports field and the park's chessboard. Although the sports field of the cheap community is hard everywhere, he feels full of opportunities and a sense of belonging. The player's concentration, wits, competitive friendship, overall consideration, and occasionally teaching him a few tricks, and other silent infections between people, he feels that it is a different kind of experience.
He was silently forbearing, accumulating, and spending his bitter childhood and adolescence, but he later learned that these were also the source of strength for him to get out of trouble in the future. The painful and repressive "world" is good to see early, and it is not strange to meet later.
Schultz especially enjoys playing. He believes that team sports give people a sense of belonging. Because it's a tacit understanding that can be formed without verbal communication. "When I play, I don't need a lot of verbal communication to connect with my teammates, when teammates get together, or when I touch the ground or save a rebound from out of bounds and get the admiration of my teammates who raise their jaws, I have an unmatched sense of belonging that I don't feel at home." Exercise makes people positive and powerful.
In high school, he had several concussions because he played touch rugby and fractured the bridge of his nose. But this kind of injury is not a wound at all. The bumps and stumbles of life are behind us.
When I was a child, my nose bone was also broken, and when I was a child, I also felt that family life was very depressed, and I always wanted to escape, escape from my hometown, and hurry to the most distant city. Too young to escape, I went to see Lao Zhuang, and began practicing writing in front of the computer at the age of twelve. When I watched Schultz's autobiography, "From the Beginning," there was an inexplicable sense of closeness.
How do people grow up and spread the effects of self-growth to society? Schultz's upbringing illustrates this. He is the one who commercializes "culture" and "atmosphere". In fact, in a sense, commercialization is just a way of propagating and diffusing ideas.
In 1983, Howard Schultz, head of marketing and retailer at Starbucks, a small coffee bean roaster in Seattle, traveled to Milan on a business trip to a trade show. Starbucks is marked by a breastless mermaid named after Herman Melville's The Great White Whale (I've previously written about this novel, Whale Falls). In the novel, the protagonist Captain Ahab's first mate is named Starbucks. Starbucks was founded in 1971 by Gerald Baldwin, Gordon Bowck and Zeff Seeger. In 1981, Schultz met Gerald and Gordon and joined the team.
| Starbucks Founders: Jeff Siegel (History Teacher), Jerry Baldwin (English Teacher), Gordon Bowck (Writer)
People's progress must have seen the world, seen a different and shocking world, seen into the heart, and felt that it must be done to make some more radical changes, which is enough to let go of this heart.
When Schultz came to Italy, he found that there were coffee shops everywhere, even if it was quiet, it was full of energy, and the atmosphere on the street was so good. The staff of espresso is called barista, and all coffee-related people and things have their proper nouns, which are deliberate, solemn, and ritualistic. Espresso requires just the right amount of water, temperature, pressure, timing, and the process is complicated — pouring beans, grinding, weighing, tamping, waiting, filling with water, and finally cleaning up the apparatus.
At that time, the coffee commonly drunk by Americans originated from a coffee bean called Robusta, which was cheaper and less flavorful than Arabica used by Starbucks, and was not worth mentioning compared to Italian coffee. Schultz believes that the process of making espresso is as elaborate as the dance moves, as vibrant as rugby, and as solemn and sacred as religious ceremonies. He deeply felt in his heart that American coffee needed the spirit and soul of espresso as an element of change, infused with thoughts, rituals, and procedures. In this way, the café embraces public chattiness and personal thoughtfulness, and becomes warm and hospitable. Real coffee should make people feel simple, casual, comfortable, and group.
When you feel like you have to do something, the body is like electricity, the soul has a connection signal. On the plane back to Seattle, he began writing plans, sketching, and trying to incorporate espresso into his existing store. But the bosses only wanted to sell whole bean coffee, and in the end, they only agreed to experiment with a new Starbucks at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Spring Avenue in Seattle. However, it still could not be promoted on a large scale, so he decided to resign and do it himself.
One big thing to do is to raise $1.7 million in 8 months to start a capital-intensive retail business, I1 Giornale. Its business model is to make espresso culture a daily consumption in Seattle and eventually expand to other cities.
The fundraising started well, with Starbucks investing $150,000 and his wife, Shelly's friend Carol Bobo, investing $100,000. The remaining $1.45 million is unusually difficult. At that time, his wife was pregnant, his father-in-law began to oppose his desperate business, and he felt the repression of the family again, and his heart was very afraid.
For entrepreneurs, the line between moving forward and giving up halfway is blurred. Fortunately, his wife was very supportive, key to the will of intimate people and also a true spiritual pillar. Then a noble person appeared, such as Jack Rogers, his company was unwilling to invest, he invested personally, and an arnie Prentice, who invested money and recommended people to invest.
In January 1986, Schultz's son Jordan was born. By the summer of that year, 30 of the 242 people he had sought had agreed to invest. The biggest investment came from an uncle and nephew, Harold Glick, who was in the muffler business, and the saxophone master, Kenny Kee. An ideal that will find someone to support it. Stick to it for a long time, and you will find that this is the most attractive thing in life.
| the first Starbucks store
How is each difficulty overcome? It takes some luck, you need to know more and more wide circle of friends, and you need to meet some people who can handle things in particular. There are some people in this society who store courage and energy, and we must attract these people with mindfulness and ideals. This is also the way to get through the stage crisis.
Man needs some adventure, some chance, some irrational and continuous immersion power that is usually stored. How to say it?
When I needed to buy the original Starbucks, the financial pressure of Daily Coffee was actually very large, and financing was difficult, requiring $3.8 million. There are also internal interferences, and the shareholders of Tiantian Coffee also want to merge Starbucks, and the capital is very fast. A friend of Howard's basketball team, a lawyer, introduced him to the elder Bill Gates, yes, the old father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He brought the shareholders of The Day and Howard together as a third party, reconciling the relationship between the two parties.
Howard also understood from then on that a stranger could affect a person's fate so deeply, so he also wanted to be altruistic in the future, influence others, convey his kindness and support, and want others to enjoy such a life-changing charm.
He wants to make Starbucks a work destination with a big collective atmosphere, which is really "Chinese". He insisted that his part-time partners (employees) also enjoy health care benefits, and even during the 2008 financial crisis, he did not cut the cost, although if it was cut, it would have increased the stock price.
In addition, he made Starbucks the only private company that issued preferential subscription shares equally to partners, calling it "coffee bean stocks." When it went public in 1992, Starbucks had 165 stores with a market capitalization of $250 million. From 1992 to 2018, its stock has risen 218 times.
The positive factors of this society should also flow, not just money, mutual reward, trust, mutual care, honesty, mutual help, is a kind of morality, but also a kind of environmental protection.
At the end of the 1980s, companies were slashing their employee health care costs. But in fact, this good idea is also of economic value, because it stabilizes the flow of people, and in comparison, the cost of training is $3,000, and medical insurance is only $1,500. In 1988, Starbucks became the first private company in the United States to provide comprehensive health insurance for part-time partners who worked more than 20 hours a week.
Because Starbucks joined the open culture of Espresso, "building a collective around coffee", Americans, no longer just drinking drip coffee, but fell in love with lattes and cappu, the whole environment also reached the casual, calm and warm atmosphere that Howard imagined. The popularity of Starbucks also coincided with the trend of the time, the Internet allowed people to work remotely and flexibly, and cafes became places to work and talk. Local media at the time called it affordable luxury. Starbucks opened to Japan in 1996, then to Spain, and to Beijing, China in 1999.
| the first Starbucks in Tokyo, Japan
In 2000, Howard ceased to be CEO, but chairman and global strategist. At that time, Starbucks was in 15 countries, with 2,800 stores, $2 billion in revenue, and an annual stock growth rate of 49%. By 2007, its revenue had reached $14.9 billion, and it had opened more than 17,000 stores in 49 countries, including more than 11,000 in the United States alone.
Twenty years of development, like sitting on a flying carpet, but the prosperity and decline are the law and inevitability. How do you get past and get through the mud? In 2008, Starbucks suffered Waterloo. Sometimes, Schultz said, collapses, and as soon as one goes off the line, a sweater is completely broken.
The problems Starbucks faced at that time were: 1. The fragrance from Sumatra and Costa Rica was gone; 2, sandwich roast cheese flavor throughout the shop; 3, the coffee machine blocks the view; 4, store location, product sales, training, packaging, storage, etc. have problems.
At that time, Howard wrote an internal email urging the partners to return to their original intentions and restore their good traditions and enthusiasm, which was used by the media for articles.
What used to be "comparable store sales" (the year-on-year increase or decrease in existing store profits) was the source of Howard's happiness. It is now only 1 per cent, the worst performance since 1992.
So he went out again in 2008. Faced with the dramatic changes in consumer behavior, the surging economic crisis, and the global recession, he felt that the chess he learned in the park as a child had influenced him. You have to go back to the details, back to the details of the Starbucks experience: friendly and professional baristas, fresh but familiar store décor styles, a variety of lifestyle drinks, a team + financially proficient store manager, and a partner who is financially and mentally satisfied.
He also invited SYPPartners to consult, starting with music and art, then macro business topics, and finally heart-to-heart conversations between partners. The solutions they give are reputation/ encouragement / attachment / local core regional sense / ethics and environmental protection / new products / efficient and high profit and other keywords based on business design. Whether it is Chinese or Western, the humanistic spirit is a good medicine.
In February 2008, 135,000 baristas were trained. Let them go back to how to make a good latte, and continue to think about how to do better mental and mental environment. Let the management put down and re-establish themselves as individual businessmen.
His famous phrase, "Stick to your hands," is said to have been derived from a Starbucks poster that reads, "The World Belongs to a Few Who Work Hard."
That store manager meeting cost $30 million. They deliberately chose to hold it in Orléans. Three years after the 2005 hurricane disaster, some places have not been repaired. Their approach is to do public welfare first, planting 6,500 pieces of coastal turf in the park, etc., painting 86 houses, providing 50,000 hours of volunteer service, and so on.
Their original intention is to exert positive influence in their own neighborhoods. When coffee is no longer a necessity of life in a depression, how to survive is to provide a sense of culture and atmosphere, to provide a sense of inner dependence, to provide hope, confidence and pleasure.
He told employees that during a depression, everyone has the responsibility to communicate and pay attention to everything that is observed, experienced, and learned. Every customer has the right to the perfect drink and the right to be treated with courtesy in a hot world.
Their prescription is that the energy is in everyone.
In 2008, Starbucks' stock price fell by 80%, or do not cut health insurance. Schultz says short-sighted mentality is a systemic crux of modern capitalism. Remember, short-sightedness also includes endless complaints and indulgences about the real present difficulties and pains. This sentence is inspiring.
They closed 600 stores and laid off employees. He said powerlessness was the beginning of change. Although his mother was depressed, she had to use electroconvulsive therapy when she was severe, and when her father was injured, her mother would receive calls from debt collectors in the ambulance. But the mother would still clean up the house, tidy up, make the food very delicious, and she always believed that a child who grew up in a low-rent house could also stand out in the future, because she believed in the American Dream, believed in Kennedy, believed that everything was possible, and stood up to protect the love.
His management philosophy is the governance of entrepreneurship. Provide an exhilarating experience that enriches people every day. As a result, starting in 2011, Starbucks made another 30 consecutive fiscal quarters.
Don't be a bystander in the changing situation. In the midst of a crisis, everyone is still required to struggle in good faith and persist in good faith. It takes the mental strength to really change something. Be a reassuring pill for those around you, not a trigger for anxiety and fear. Schultz's wife, Shirley, and their daughter, are strong and compassionate people, and are Schultz's reassurance, healing his childhood loneliness and despair for his family.
To his surprise, a soldier was also affected by his spirit, although his body was full of wounds and mutilated, but he always believed that his good luck was coming, because he had lost too much.
A bad job or no job can make people lose their vitality. The source of dignity is happiness, self-esteem, self-love and pride. Self-esteem and worthy of respect were lacking in Schultz's sacked father, so he could empathize. He felt that small enterprises should be allowed to develop, because that is where the most jobs are absorbed, and small enterprises are the engine of local economic development. He made an initiative at Starbucks:
"Small businesses are the backbone of America's workforce, and the growth of small businesses determines the increase in jobs, and we have ways to help small businesses grow." Just create jobs for the United States at a Starbucks store or creatjobsforuse.org website, donate $5, and the money will be used to maintain and establish new small business jobs in communities across the United States, and you will receive a wristband to show your contribution. ”
Starbucks donated $5 million, and the more the original intention of a company is oriented to social needs and social development, it often has more room for development. The event raised more than $1 million in two weeks. In total, a total of 800,000 wristbands were sold. It united with citi and other large companies to donate 15.2 million US dollars. CdFIS (Community Development Finance Institutions) across the country used this money as the principal to lend $106 million and create 5,000 jobs.
Angels are among the people because people can help each other, and some people only need a lifeline to spontaneously move upwards. In the era of crossing the river by feeling the stones, what is needed is entrepreneurship, curiosity, and bravery.
Starbucks shares were around $116 in January 2022, and now it's only around $70, and I don't know what the prescription is for Schultz facing an unprecedented inflation challenge? However, his life also shows that people do not overcome one or two difficulties and obstacles, not when they are heroes once or twice, the times can ask questions at any time, and we answer at any time. "The creation of heaven is made of things, and the grass is only a little obscured." Creation creates a rough idea, fate is also a probability, and the details are still in ourselves.
(The author is the founding editor-in-chief of Qin Shuo's Circle of Friends, master of Tsinghua University)
Content source: Qin Shuo circle of friends