Ex-Starbucks boss: Success starts with people

When Howard Behar joined a small Seattle company called Starbucks in 1989, the coffee chain had 28 stores.

When he stepped down from the board in 2010, Starbucks operated more than 15,000 stores worldwide.

As president of Starbucks North America and Starbucks International, Behar enjoyed a front-row view of the growth. After leaving the company, he drew on that experience to launch a second career as a speaker and writer, producing two books on management, “It’s Not About the Coffee” and “The Magic Cup.”

Behar will appear with other business leaders Friday during the $595-a-person event Thermostat Cultures Live, organized by Columbus speaker and writer Jason Barger.

Behar, 73, spoke with The Dispatch ahead of his Columbus visit.

Let’s get the most important question out of the way: What’s your favorite Starbucks drink?

A triple tall Americano, three espresso shots topped

with hot water. I’m drinking one now, in fact.

What is the key to Starbucks’ success?

No question, it was the fact that we treated each other with respect and dignity. It was a people-centered organization, and it remains that way today. Profit wasn’t first; people were. That drove the business.

Were there any products developed while you were at Starbucks you thought would be big hits but weren’t?

We developed this hot-chocolate drink we absolutely thought would be a blowout success, but it was a bust. It was gone in a month. There’s another one, our very first bottled beverage. We thought we could do a coffee cola in a bottle, a joint venture with Pepsi based on the French Foreign Legion drink called Mazagran. We did all the testing, all the research, spent millions of dollars and rolled it out in our stores and grocery stores. We thought it would be great and no one liked it. ... I have a bottle of it in my office. I have it to remind me that failure can beget success. We launched bottled Frappuccino, and that was a huge success.

Starbucks realized that a market existed for premium coffee. Now, it seems like there’s premium everything. What other product is still to be tapped?

It seems like everything has been tapped — premium detergent, wine, cupcakes, bagels. I wish I could think of it; I’d do it. ... I don’t see any product out there just waiting to be tapped. Everything coming down the pike these days seems to have to do with technology. But you never know. I remember when bottled water started, my wife ordered bottled water in Europe, and I said, ‘That will never happen in Seattle.’ Now everybody walking down the street is carrying bottled water.

When you go into a Starbucks, can you enjoy it as a customer or do you find yourself judging it as a manager?

It’s still ‘we’ for me; that will probably always be there. I still clean condiment stands and still pick up paper from the floor. But I don’t judge them. I know how hard it is to run a store.

You’ve written a lot about corporate leadership, including two books. What’s the most common mistake managers make?

Their ego gets in the way. They think it’s about them. They think they’re there to be served instead of to serve other people. They think they’re the boss. In truth, their people are the boss. The organization’s success is about the people, it’s not about them. Look at Uber. It succeeded because of the people, despite terrible leadership.

On the flip side, what is the most important advice you would offer managers?

Number one, know who you are, know what your values are. It’s important to be thoughtful about who you are as a human being; those things will inform all your decisions in your life and your career. You have to be able to share that. The other thing is, you should have a personal mission statement, what you try to leave behind in the world, not ‘I want to be rich,’ but ‘Here’s what I want to be known for.’ ... I think being intentional about your life, not just letting it happen. There’s the saying, any path will get you there if you don’t know where you’re going. It’s really important as a leader to know where you’re going.

Starbucks is famous for its employee culture. What is the key to hiring the right people?

I look for who they are as a human being. I’m less interested in their skill sets. I’m interested in what they’re like. In our case, do you like being around people? Do you enjoy people?

We have a businessman as president. What advice would you offer him?

Quit. He is the worst leader I’ve ever come across — he’s right at the top. Good leaders don’t put other people down. Good leaders aren’t abusive. Good leaders don’t have to be in the front. He does all of that. ... I don’t want our leaders to think that’s appropriate; it’s not. It’s not appropriate to call people names. ... I’m talking about leadership, not about politics. I’m not a Democrat or a Republican.