Howard Schultz
Healing our nation of corporate lemmings
July 9, 2012: 9:30 AM ETGetting people to identify with your company sounds ideal, in theory. But business leaders need to work on releasing their employees from corporate peer pressure.
FORTUNE -- With a disappointing June jobs report, news that U.S. manufacturing is slowing, and the stock market below levels of a decade ago, it's time to put on some fresh goggles and reevaluate our economic condition.
Certainly, Starbucks (SBUX) CEO Howard Schultz deserves applause for his persistent attempts to push the conversation on our economy and address our need for jobs. And Gary Hamel is right that bosses need to look in the mirror to deal with the sorry state of employee engagement today. Both of these problems are related: one a macro example, the other, on a smaller scale. And both have dragged on for a very long time.
To address these issues, we'll need to appeal to some upside-down thinking and consider solutions that fly in the face of conventional wisdom. And Tim Phillips, author of Talk Normal delivers just that. Rather than discuss employee engagement in the usual way, or simply encourage it as many might, he pinpoints a major culprit of corporate malaise: when workers identify with their corporations.
MORE: World's largest companies - the Global 500
That sounds a bit counter-intuitive. After all, it would seem to make sense that if you get people to identify with the company they work for, they would be more engaged, which should be a good thing, right? But far too many people hinge their identity and self-worth to the organizations they work for. Because of this, Phillips argues, many succumb to corporate pressure to fit in, their ideas are swallowed up by groupthink, and they are less inclined to blow the whistle when they should. More
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When Howard went to Harlem
A Starbucks pilot program will share profits of two stores with the neighborhoods they serve.
By Daniel Roberts, reporter
FORTUNE -- "We don't want to just write a check," says Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. "We want to work in the community side by side." Indeed, he's standing side by side with a pillar of the community: Calvin Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.
It's early October, and MORE
Nov 17, 2011 6:10 AM ET -
Howard Schultz brews strong coffee at Starbucks
He rescued the coffee chain. It had record financial results this year. Now the CEO is on a campaign to save the country from its politicians. Here's how he blends capitalism and activism.
By David A. Kaplan, contributor
FORTUNE -- The president of the United States wasn't on the phone to talk about Pumpkin Spice Latte.
Back in September, two days before Barack Obama delivered his speech to Congress on jobs, he put MORE
Nov 17, 2011 6:10 AM ET -
Biz leaders: There's no time for an economic pity party
CEOs are on the spot to respond to the latest spate of economic troubles, but slashing jobs and hoping for the best will just make matters worse for their companies. By Shelley DuBois
Aug 11, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
How Starbucks got its groove back
In his candid new book, CEO Howard Schultz tells what went on behind the scenes in Seattle, and what he learned from the company's mistakes.
By Anne Fisher, contributor
FORTUNE -- Sometimes, it's the little things that drive you crazy.
In the summer of 2007, Starbucks (SBUX) was in the middle of its worst year ever.
Having stepped aside as CEO 7 years earlier to become a Bill-Gates-like, hands-off chairman instead, founder Howard Schultz MORE
Mar 24, 2011 12:41 PM ET
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