CHAPTER 8

Design a Resilient Organization

Architecture does not create extraordinary organizations by collecting extraordinary people; it does so by enabling very ordinary people to perform in extraordinary ways.

—JOHN KAY, ECONOMIST AND AUTHOR

STARBUCKS IS RESILIENT BY DESIGN. Back in January 2008, when Chairman Howard Schultz contemplated his return as the company's CEO, he knew he would need to navigate the company through a perfect economic storm: a global financial crisis, a burst domestic housing bubble, high unemployment, and a stock price that had plunged to less than half its previous high. In a February 2007 memo to then CEO Jim Donald, Schultz questioned previous corporate decisions that he believed had watered down the Starbucks ...

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