Just ran across John Moore’s manifesto from 2007. He takes up the challenge published by Howard Shultz, the founder of Starbucks. Leading up to 2007, Shultz seriously considered where the company was headed, and didn’t like what he saw. He challenged the company to get back to being a coffee store.
Me at Starbucks in southern Georgia in 2008
John Moore became a recognized marketing genius as he went from being a barista to THE marketing guy at Starbucks. When he read the Shultz Challenge, he put together a manifesto: What Must Starbucks Do? In it, he outlines a beautiful case for how the pursuit profit and the approval of Wall Street are diluting the Starbucks brand.
Many people think the goal of business is making money, or, to put it in MBA-speak, “the goal of business is to increase shareholder wealth.” It’s still contrarian for me to keep on saying (but I will), that the goal of business is most definitely NOT money. It is because business leaders have pursued that goal they have killed their companies (okay, not all are dead yet, GM and the big banks and Wall Street have all received billions of life support from Uncle Sam, so they’re not officially dead).
I think John Moore’s manifesto supports my contrarian contention. The very first thing he suggests Starbucks do is redefine success. His manifesto is worth reading and applying even if you don’t have 13,000+ stores.
(note: I sure hope the “big” companies make it and I know their leaders face incredible pressures and challenges that we may never know. I do think this is a wonderful time of opportunity for all companies, and especially smaller companies, to refocus on whatever passion it was that caused them to start the business in the first place. It seems that smaller companies have more freedom to focus on that passion and the customer’s experience of it. At least Wall Street’s not prodding them with a red-hot cattle prod.)
January 23, 2010 Update: This from today’s Financial Times: a review of Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry’s Road from Glory to Disaster.
