Only the Truth Sounds Like the Truth
Former Starbucks president Howard Behar
told me a personal story of an early life lesson he learned as a young COO of a failing company. Behar had been brought in to devise a turnaround plan. He assembled the top executives and asked each to come up with a plan for reducing personnel. Some- one made photocopies of the plan, and unfortunate- ly, the original was left on the copier after everyone went home.
Howard started to get phone calls from other peo- ple in the organization who wanted to know the truth. Howard immediately summoned the private execu- tive group back together to discuss how to handle the leak. Many executives suggested they deny the plan and publicly say that it wasn’t true — that it was just an old draft.
His assistant in the room turned to him and said, “Howard, only the truth sounds like the truth.” And he knew she was right. He assembled the entire company in a town-hall-style meeting and shared ev- erything with them — the good, the bad and options for next steps. Something interesting happened. One by one people stepped up with solutions.
“Here I thought I was going to get shot, figura- tively, or maybe literally, and it’s not what happened at all,” Howard recalled in our interview. “One by one people stood up and started applauding. People started to ask, ‘How can we help?’ There I was, in my early 30s; I would have never thought that would happen. It’s probably one of the single most valu- able lessons of my leadership life.”