gathering of distraught partners and managers and said, “I apologize if anyone in this room feels that we have fractured the culture and values of the company with what has happened over the last few weeks, and specifically yesterday.”219 One Starbucks manager memorably took to the microphone and asked Schultz directly to never ask his partners to go through such an ordeal again.220
In the coming weeks, the frustration and disappointment that attended the lay-offs and store closings continued to hang over company headquarters. So, too, did collective anxiety about the company’s financial performance. Schultz found some relief, however, in the flood of letters from consumers and partners begging him to keep stores open. He was heartened to see that loyalty to the Starbucks Experience was strong. An email from a customer in Minnesota summed up much of what he and his team had been hearing. “I can’t believe ‘my’ Starbucks is closing. You never know how important a place is until you are about to lose it.”221 An email from Indiana was more insistent:
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT close the Starbucks here in Portage, Indiana, on Rt. 6!!!! This is the BEST Starbucks we have EVER been to. Not only is it clean and the staff, ALL the staff, is always friendly but they seem to take pride in the store….We ALWAYS go to this location….We love everyone who works there. They really go the extra mile to make everyone happy….PLEASE reconsider!!!!!!!!222
Looking back on this period, Schultz remembered, “my heart was heavy, but my belief that Starbucks was about so much more than coffee had never been stronger.”223 Even as he and his team faced the harsh reality of cost-cutting, he held fast to the idea that the most critical challenge was “how to preserve and enhance the integrity of the only assets we have as a company: our values, our culture and guiding principles, and the reservoir of trust with our people.”224 It was in this spirit that Schultz sought to reengage all Starbucks partners in its mission and, ultimately, its success.
Reengaging Partners and Management
From the time of his return, Schultz had been concerned that store partners were “unmotivated and uninformed about our coffee and the company.”225 Faulting the company’s lackluster training program, neglected during years of white-hot expansion, Schultz observed that, “a new generation of baristas has not been effectively trained or inspired by Starbucks Mission.”226
“Perhaps the most important step in improving the faltering US business was to reengage our partners, especially those on the front line,” Schultz wrote in Onward. “[Baristas and store managers] are the true ambassadors of our brand, the real merchants of romance and theater, and as such the primary catalysts for delighting customers.”227 The leadership team understood this as well. As Jeff Hansberry, then-head of channel development, noted, the barista had always been a “trusted authenticator and a powerful conduit, not only of building a massive reservoir of goodwill for the brand, but also as a voice for generating awareness, consideration, trial and ultimately loyalty to whatever we do, whether it’s launching new products or future brands.”228
Early in the transformation journey, Schultz identified two tactical measures he deemed critical to partner reengagement and the company’s health more generally. The first was nationwide barista-retraining. The second was Starbucks Leadership Conference in New Orleans scheduled for October 2008.
Schultz wanted to retrain all baristas in U.S. stores immediately in the art of espresso making. Colleagues informed him that the only way to do this by March 2008 — before the annual shareholders’ meeting — would be to close U.S. stores all at once at a cost of millions of dollars in partner wages and lost revenue. Other likely consequences included scathing media scrutiny and a