Author: Howard Schultz
At one point in my life, I had made Starbucks a daily ritual. There is a little Starbucks cafe tucked inside a gas station that was a few hundred yards from my office. It was one of the better Starbucks that I have been to, with very cheerful and attentive baristas who knew our order before we even said a word. To add to the experience, the short-wet-cappuccino that I used to order was the perfect pick me up that fueled me for the rest of the day at work. I was converted into one of the hundreds of million loyal Starbucks customers from that time on.
I didn't read the book because I was a bug fan of Starbucks, but rather because this was one of the rare cases where the founder had returned to an ailing company and had turned it around. I felt that there were bound to be nuggets of wisdom here that I could extract that would be relevant to Cisco, which was going through a similar period of turmoil.
The book is well written and as expected, a one-sided view of Howard's second tenure at Starbucks. You do get a sense of his passion for the company and management principles. Since the book doesn't have too much to draw a reader into, it is a slow read and not one that I would recommend to someone looking for a page-turner. However, if you are a Starbucks fan or a business student eager to learn about how to turn around a retail giant, this is probably the book for you.
At one point in my life, I had made Starbucks a daily ritual. There is a little Starbucks cafe tucked inside a gas station that was a few hundred yards from my office. It was one of the better Starbucks that I have been to, with very cheerful and attentive baristas who knew our order before we even said a word. To add to the experience, the short-wet-cappuccino that I used to order was the perfect pick me up that fueled me for the rest of the day at work. I was converted into one of the hundreds of million loyal Starbucks customers from that time on.I didn't read the book because I was a bug fan of Starbucks, but rather because this was one of the rare cases where the founder had returned to an ailing company and had turned it around. I felt that there were bound to be nuggets of wisdom here that I could extract that would be relevant to Cisco, which was going through a similar period of turmoil.
The book is well written and as expected, a one-sided view of Howard's second tenure at Starbucks. You do get a sense of his passion for the company and management principles. Since the book doesn't have too much to draw a reader into, it is a slow read and not one that I would recommend to someone looking for a page-turner. However, if you are a Starbucks fan or a business student eager to learn about how to turn around a retail giant, this is probably the book for you.
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