Starbucks

Starbucks—Defining the Terrain

As managers manage, they must be aware of the terrain or broad environment within which they plan, organize, lead, and control. The characteristics and nature of this “terrain” will influence what managers and other employees do and how they do it. And more importantly, it will affect how efficiently and effectively managers do their job of coordinating and overseeing the work of other people so that goals—organizational and work-level or work unit—can be accomplished. What does Starbucks’ terrain look like and how is the company adapting to that terrain?

Starbucks Culture and Environment

An organization’s culture is a mix of written and unwritten values beliefs, and codes of behavior that influence the way work gets done and the way that people behave in organizations. And the distinct flavor of Starbucks’ culture can be traced to the original founders’ philosophies and Howard Schultz’s unique beliefs about how a company should be run. The three friends (Jerry Baldwin Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl) who founded Starbucks in 1971 as a store in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market district did so for one reason: They loved coffee and tea and wanted Seattle to have access to the best. They had no intention of building a business empire. Their business philosophy, although never written down, was simple: “Every company must stand for something; don’t just give customers what they ask for or what they think they want; and assume that your customers are intelligent and seekers of knowledge.” The original Starbucks was a company passionately committed to world-class coffee and dedicated to educating its customers, one on one, about what great coffee can be. It was these qualities that ignited Howard Schultz’s passion for the coffee business and inspired him to envision what Starbucks could become. Schultz continues to have that passion for his business—he is the visionary and soul behind Starbucks. He visits at least 30 to 40 stores...