Who are the stakeholders?
- Customers
- The CEO
- Employees
What was part of their vision of social responsibility
community, ethical sourcing, environment, and diversity.
- Starbucks college achievement plan offering full tuition
- Diversity = inclusion + equity + accessibility
- Viewed diversity as both a value and a guiding principle
This is not the first time that Starbucks has found itself in a diversity and racial issue
2015 the company launched a campaign to promote conversations about race that backfired and was criticized by the public for its lack of racial diversity
Also the design of holiday cups. The cup featured a cluster of over 100 people drawn together being accused of political brain washing
The incident
Two black men were sitting in the store and the store manager called the police because they were not purchasing anything but were waiting for a business meeting.
They took a few days to fire the manager after the incident
The CEO made a video taking full responsibility but took 4 days to issue a response
They offered the men the Starbucks college achievement plan
They decided to do a training program that shut down a majority of stores where they lost $12 million of revenue. In this training they had a comprehensive guidebook, personal notebooks, and a screening of several videos. Designed to stimulate discussion and create ideas using the bottom-up approach. Include practical steps for improving the customer experience
How did Starbucks respond?
*Who? CEO himself given the nature of the issues
*What? Candor, remorse, apology
*Where? More personal setting = more importance to the message
It was at his house, in a button-down shirt
*When? The sooner the better! 4 day delay before Johnson responded allowed time for speculation. Tradeoff between getting all the facts and acting quickly.
*How? Meeting Nelson & Robinson personally was best practice
Recommendations
- Need to have incentives to celebrate short term wins to continue to promote the diversity culture through the organization.
- Removing obstacles that are blocking the vision: removing or replacing mangers that a are not in line with the diversity vision
- Communicating the vision: not just having this training once an issue arises but making this a yearly or continuous part of employee training and include this in on-boarding. They don’t have to be as drastic and shut down all the store at the same time but make sure that each store is continously implementing diversity training
Implement D&I training and tailor it to different educational levels, geography, & social context.
Maybe every couple of months or semi annually they get the employee’s together for open discussion to communicate their ideas to continue that bottom up approach. Possibly faculty meetings. Creating a safe working environment and actually implementing ideas from employees.
Guiding coalition:
Leadership team must embody the right values, act by example, and practice what they preach
Company strategy should have D&I as a priority (e.g., diverse talent pool)
What are their issues?
No guiding coalition
Not communicating the vision
Not anchoring the change in the corporations culture
