It's Not About the Coffee: Lessons on Putting People First from a Life at Starbucks [Paperback]

Howard Behar (Author), Janet Goldstein (Author), Howard Schultz (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

During his many years as a senior executive at Starbucks, Howard Behar helped establish the Starbucks culture, which stresses people over profits. He coached hundreds of leaders at every level and helped the company grow into a world-renowned brand. Now he reveals the ten principles that guided his leadership-and not one of them is about coffee. Behar shows that if you think of your staff as people (not labor costs) they will achieve amazing results. He discusses the importance of building trust, telling hard truths, thinking independently, and more. And he shares inside stories of key turning points for Starbucks, as it fought to hang on to its culture while growing exponentially.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After a working life spent building Starbucks from a chain of 28 stores to an international coffee business through positions such as executive vice president of sales, founding president of Starbucks International and president of Starbucks North America, Howard Behar tells of the strategies he used to establish the business into the success it is today. Behar shares the soft skills that helped to construct the company from a regional outlet to a corporation with international reach. While the book occasionally brings in examples from other companies, sharing anecdotes from Starbucks itself is Behar's strong suit. The most interesting sections involve stories behind products readers may know from their own visits to the coffee retailer. Thoughts behind the bottled Frappuccino product's launch or the have it the way you like it approach to beverage making are revealed. While revolutionary ideas are outnumbered by more standard good business practices, the voice of experience and in-house examples from a popular company make for a decent read for those wanting to develop or refresh basic business leadership skills. (Dec. 27) A Q&A with Bob Delaney (Oct. 29) identified the coauthor of Covert as Bill Walton. The book's coauthor is Dave Scheiber; Walton wrote the foreword.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"A book about how to succeed anywhere-not just in business."
-Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley

"The most down-to-earth, in-the-trenches, straightforward, and utterly useful leadership book I've ever read."
-James A. Autry, author of The Servant Leader

"The tips inside are intelligent, heartfelt, tested and honed in reality. Bravo."
-David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Trade (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591842727
• ISBN-13: 978-1591842729
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ten principles for getting yourself right so you can lead others, January 19, 2008

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: It's Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks (Hardcover)

Well, Starbucks has to be about its coffee at some level (and the book admits it on page xiii). For heaven's sake they sure make a big fuss about it, right? In any case, I am not a real Starbucks customer because I don't drink coffee, they don't serve soda, and I think their pastries have no flavor (but they look nice). That being said, I like this book even if it is another in the many books trying to catch some of the glow in the success of Starbucks. Behar at least has the credibility of actually having led a good chunk of the growth.

The book is about getting your core understanding of yourself just right and having people centered values. Howard Behar joined Starbucks in 1989 and was named its President in 1995 and retired in 2003. In this book he lists ten principles and then discusses each in its own chapter (plus an introduction). They are:

1) Know who you are
2) Know why you're here
3) Think independently
4) Build trust
5) Listen for the truth
6) Be accountable
7) Take action
8) Face challenge
9) Practice leadership
10) Dare to dream

While these seem awfully like light fluffy clouds in a list like this, the chapters do flesh them out in ways that will help you get at why a serious man like Behar believes in them. Really, it comes down to how you work with people. You cannot run a business of any size by yourself and in order to work with people and earn their trust you first have to know something about yourself. Once you have a solid core with serious values you actually live by, you can then reach out and lead others because you are worth following.

This is a helpful and concise book and if you appreciate reading about principles for self-development, this will be a book you enjoy.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decaffeinated Reading, March 4, 2008

By 

Conor Cunneen "SHEIFGAB author - Conor Cunneen" (Naperville, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: It's Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks (Hardcover)

The problem with most of the books written about Starbucks is they lack a caffeine jolt! Howard Behar's book falls into this trap. Yes, it does contain some interesting (though few if any) new nuggets.

The best book on Starbucks continues to be Pour Your Heart Into It by Chairman Howard Schultz who essentially wrote about the same concepts as Behar, but in an interesting and lively manner.

Schultz and Behar are master business people. Schultz is also a masterful, inspirational story teller, as anyone who has seen him give a keynote speech will testify

Behar takes the reader through ten business concepts, all of which make good sense but few of them are illustrated in anything but a general way. Combine this with multiple sub-concepts and you have a book that fails to be a page turner. Some of the concepts are downright trite e.g. celebrate failures, which he admits Starbucks doesn't do either!

Despite its current problems, Starbucks has done so many things so well that it should be studied by business people. Thus taking any of Behar's ten concepts and implementing them in your business might well be worth trying. Implement them though with passion which is probably what this book is missing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leadership Principles In Which To Be Grounded, February 6, 2010

By 

Philip R. Heath "Gadgets, Music, & Books" (DFW) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: It's Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks (Hardcover)

It's Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks by Howard Behar is an excellent book for today's busy leader. It is easy to read in spurts, but it also goes very quickly. In a mere 165 pages, Behar takes readers on a journey of insight from the time that he spent running the operational side of Starbucks for Howard Shultz. I don't mean to trivialize Behar's work, but it all has its root in a simple principle of honesty. He starts the first few chapters by dealing with being honest with oneself first. It meant a lot to me reading about the idea of "Wearing One Hat". It is tempting for many reasons to try to be something other than what you are in your profession. Knowing what you enjoy and what you stand for sound like simple ideas, but they are harder to follow through on than one might expect. Then he moves on to being honest with others through empowerment, caring, listening, and being accountable. As he says, "Only the truth sounds like the truth." I've experienced listening to a presentation or reading a memo that I know is total nonsense. People can spot a phony almost every time, yet I would love to have a dollar for each occurrence for a single day. I know that I want to work for people who follow the kind of principles that Behar discusses, and that is why I hope that I am able to carry them out as a leader myself. I hope that I can look back on my career and describe similar things when the time comes. You will not be a worse leader for having read this.

Overall: A