Featured Book Review: Onward by Howard Schultz
Can a retired CEO really come back to a company and make a difference?
Howard Schultz took this highly unusual step to save Starbucks from losing his way.
The result is committed to his book - Onward. We share some of the key themes here.
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If I could capture the one big area of concern for business leaders today, it would be sustainability; in terms of profit, in terms of people and in terms of performace.
A decade ago, many large scale businesses would be concerned with process re-engineering - eeking out every bit of value from core processes. This is still important, but modern leaders realise that it is not the first big hit of improvements that count, but the improvements that can be counted on year-on-year.
We see that gap in the quick-fixes of todays economies. The banking crisis and the global downturn was followed by a number of big rescue packages by governments. They fixed the initial cracks, but how much have they addressed the long term performance?
In this issue, we are looking at sustainability. We showcase some of our work and review the book Onward by Howard Schultz, which profiles Starbucks return to profit. We hope you enjoy this issue and as always we look forward to your feedback.
Mary McGuire
Editor
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How to Achieve Sustainable Growth
To bring about radical improvements in how teams operate, it is important to focus equally on what they are doing and how they are doing it. Focusing purely on behaviour, without linking it to business process and performance leads to poorly targeted development. Focusing on processes and systems without considering behaviours leads to unsustainable or poorly realized improvements. For sustainable change to occur it requires a number of things: Engaging Leadership Sustainable improvements is not an observational sport. Leaders need to be engaged and reflecing on the role they play in driving good performance. Coaching as part of transformation efforts can allow for a frank and timely exchange of views about leadership styles and interventions.
Developing a team identity and goals Sustainable Improvement is a team activity. Bringing everyone together to explore how they work and how that can be improved is a powerful exercise in galvanizing efforts and overcoming resistance.
Defining Processes & creating service standards It's important to get a shared picture of the end-to-end process. By involving all team members in the process mapping and identification they buy-in to the improvements that are identified. Maintaining momentum Leaders play an important role in maintaining momentum. Ensuring that weekly and monthly team meetings are given the priority that they deserve and that data is regularly reviewed. Once you see the improvements come through its essential to praise good performance just as much as highlighting and questioning poor performance. Read More
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Onward by Howard Schultz - Re-kindling the passion at Stabucks
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Howard Schultz, whilst not technically the founder of Starbucks, is the father of the global brand that we all know today. After overseeing phenomenal growth and expansion, Shcultz decided to stand down as CEO in 2000 to take a more 'hands-off' role of Chairman. After a steady few years under new leadership, the magic of Starbucks seemed to lose its shine and profits halved in 2008.
Signs of expansion over quality started to show in 2007 when for the first time a decline in profits was registered. Philosophically Schultz reflects: "No single bad decision or tactic or person was to blame. The damage was slow, quiet and incremental.."
Two and a half years after returning as CEO, the company was making record profits, had launched the fastest-growing consumer product in US with its instant coffee brand Via and stock price had increased by 400%. The recovery was hailed by analysts as 'nothing short of remarkable'.
Some Take Aways from the book include:
- Passion is essential to a healthy business - It matters what you do and how you do it, because your customer will feel the difference
- Ethical Sourcing - You have responsibiity to the communities of your suppliers as well as your customers
- Innovation & Creativity - Get everyone involved in the creativity bug
- Drive efficiency - Don't get complacent about costs, but don't go for easy wins at the cost of loyalty.
Read more
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How to bring about a collaboration revolution
 Many companies and leaders are struggling to find ways to engage with their workforce and bring about real dialogue. The whole task seems rather daunting and no matter how hard they try, leaders can often feel remote and out of touch with their people. Todays leaders know the importance of communication, but they need to be innovative and creative in how they do this. Finding ways to get two-way dialogue going and maintaing it is key in our fast moving world. Salesforce.com did exactly this by developing a Private Social Networking tool 'Chatter' (a secure mini-blog site, very similar to Twitter). They were able to facilitate dialogue between the top executives of the company and the 5,000 employees in an annual management meeting. New technologies give us the potential to bring leadership accountability and transparency into much sharper relief. They offer low-cost, real-time ways of collaborating across disciplines & geographic boundaries. Read More |
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Case Study: How do we go about improving performance in teams?
 As we develop a wealth of experience in our assignments, our case studies highlight our work and our approach. In this instance The team was providing functional support to a large business unit. It had only been together for a few months. They had been handed responsibilities from previous incumbents, together with all of the problems that were embedded into the way the service was delivered. There was little sense of team and virtually no collaboration and a high level of dissatisfaction from the rest of the business that was depending on this team for services. How did we go about improving their performance? Read More |
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We hope that you have enjoyed reading 'Smart Business Thinking'.
One of the purposes of our communication is to provoke conversation. So if you have a comment or a reaction, share it with us at:
We look forward to hearing from you.
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Sincerely,
The Agents2change Team |
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