Onward, by Howard Schultz and Joanne Gordon

Starbucks opened in Seattle in 1971. Its name evokes Starbuck, the first mate in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

Howard Schultz drove much of the company’s expansion, but Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker had already founded it as a shop for coffee beans and equipment.

Schultz joined in 1982. He saw a market for espresso drinks, started Il Giornale after leaving Starbucks, and opened its first café in Seattle. Il Giornale acquired Starbucks’s name, roasting operation, and stores in 1987.

Starbucks arrives in South Korea

Starbucks opened its first South Korean store near Ewha Womans University on July 27, 1999. What some people initially dismissed as coffee that cost more than lunch eventually became a familiar part of the local café landscape.

Around Gwanghwamun in central Seoul, the number of stores within walking distance makes that change easy to see.

Starbucks as a third place

Schultz wanted people to have somewhere between home and work where they could get together, study, or spend time on their own. The smell of coffee and the possibility of a conversation with the barista were part of what he imagined.

In the stores I visited in the United States, that personal connection sometimes felt more visible than it did at home.

Once, in Japan, a barista wrote “Good Morning” on my cup. It was a small gesture, but it made the exchange feel more personal than I had come to expect from a chain.

Onward

Schultz and Joanne Gordon describe his return as CEO in 2008, as the financial crisis was unfolding and a company accustomed to expansion was running into trouble.

Rapid growth had made it harder to sustain the qualities that had brought people to the stores. The chain was facing weaker store performance and more competition.

The book follows Schultz from his decision to return through the decisions he made once he was back. The detail is valuable because he explains what he thought he was doing at the time.

Schultz’s commitment to the stores

What comes through most clearly is how much Schultz cared about what happened inside a Starbucks. His response to the downturn reflects a willingness to spend time and money on changes he believed would matter later.

One memorable example is the decision to close thousands of company-operated U.S. stores for three hours in February 2008 so baristas could practice preparing espresso. Taking stores out of service meant foregoing sales. Schultz felt the work behind the counter deserved that time.

The problems that surfaced in 2008

Years of opening stores had strained everyday operations. Schultz worried that coffee quality had become inconsistent and that customers could tell.

Outdated checkout equipment made work harder, while unreliable deliveries left stores waiting for supplies.

In the meantime, store managers had sales targets to hit. It became easier to pay attention to those numbers than to whether the café still felt like the third place the company talked about.

The financial crisis made the problem more acute. People were watching what they spent, and a more expensive coffee was an easy purchase to reconsider.

Dealing with the problems directly

Schultz tried to understand what was failing before choosing what to change. He brought in outside specialists when the company needed expertise it lacked.

The espresso training is a conspicuous example of a short-term cost taken on to solve a problem that could have been left alone for another quarter.

He also slowed expansion and closed underperforming stores. The closures cost people jobs, an outcome Schultz describes as weighing heavily on him.

The less visible work involved replacing checkout equipment and giving people the authority and time to improve the supply chain.

The turnaround is compelling partly because some of the changes looked unattractive in the short term. Their value was clearer to anyone who had watched a store struggle to serve customers.

Communicating through the turnaround

Schultz wrote directly to employees about what he thought the company was losing and what he wanted them to do about it.

One internal message leaked and generated publicity around the company’s problems. The book describes what that felt like from the inside.

Schultz kept writing to employees and shareholders after the leak. He still wanted them to hear his reasoning directly.

The company also started My Starbucks Idea, a site where customers could make suggestions. An anniversary article provides a record of what the project was intended to do.

• My Starbucks Idea’s fifth anniversary https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2013/starbucks-celebrates-five-year-anniversary-of-my-starbucks-idea/

VIA, the Starbucks instant coffee project

Starbucks products eventually became familiar outside the cafés. The book traces one route into grocery stores and other retailers through instant coffee.

The project began with Don Valencia, a biologist who made coffee using freeze-drying and shared the result with Schultz. Valencia went on to develop coffee products inside the company.

Starbucks launched VIA in 2009. Valencia had died in 2007 and did not see its release.

The company’s commitments beyond the stores

The book touches on coffee sourcing and on the company’s interest in designing more stores to meet LEED environmental standards.

In 2008 Starbucks held a gathering in New Orleans, where communities were still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Employees volunteered on local projects during the event.

The account of those days is memorable because the workers were doing something tangible in the city where they had come to meet.

The company needed a place to hold the event, and the city could use both the business and the work. Choosing New Orleans gave a routine company gathering a different purpose.

A television spot about voting

The book also revisits a rare Starbucks television campaign tied to the 2008 U.S. presidential election between Barack Obama and John McCain.

The idea was to encourage people to vote and bring them into a store for a free coffee on election day. Schultz also describes the work of getting the message to stores and making sure baristas knew what to expect.

What made the campaign distinctive was its combination of a promotion and a message about taking part in the election.

Schultz leaves the board in 2023

Schultz stepped down as CEO in March 2023 and left the board in September, retaining the title of chairman emeritus.

In the announcement, he thanked the employees who had served customers over the course of his 41 years with the company and said he would support the next generation of leaders.

His role in building the company lasted for decades. Onward makes the day-to-day work of that growth more visible.

The idea of a café as somewhere to spend time between home and work spread alongside the chain. In South Korea it became part of how many people used cafés, including places with nothing to do with Starbucks.

The book shows what Schultz thought a large company owed the people who walked into its stores, and what he tried to change when he felt it was falling short.

What stays with me is the choice to spend time on the things a customer would notice, even during a period when the company had every reason to watch its sales by the hour.

Book details

Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul

Authors

Howard Schultz and Joanne Gordon

Korean edition published

April 18, 2011

ISBN13

9788933870167

View the book on YES24

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