The Gift of Significance

Howard Schultz built Starbucks as a coffee company with a heart. The response was overwhelming and Starbucks’ outlets mushroomed across America and the world. As years passed, however, Schultz withdrew from his role as CEO, growth took its toll, and outlets begin to lose their neighborhood coffee shop aura.

This prompted Schultz to return as CEO in 2008. The first thing he felt he needed to do was to “stand up in front of the entire company and admit, almost as a confession, that the leadership of the company had failed the 180,000 Starbucks people and their families, and even though I wasn’t the CEO, I was around as chairman, and I smelled it. I wasn’t engaged. But I’m responsible.” That made it possible to work on preserving ...

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