261–270 of 353 posts
> Starbucks CEO says he’ll work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month > Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he’ll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant’s locations. contradiction in the first sentence. doesnt leave this stunt in good light
I did a quick search and see a Starbucks shift consists of:
> Evening shifts are around 3pm - 7pm or 4pm - 8pm. Morning Shifts 4 a.m. - 1 p.m. Midday Shifts 8 a.m. - 4 p.m
Chick-fil-A CEOs have been doing this (if not more frequent) since inception
I'm there a lot (some would say too much, but I wholeheartedly disagree!), and it's odd to pass through without seeing him. He works the register, he takes orders in the drive through, he directs traffic in the parking lot, he carries orders out-- everything. I'm certain that he's done shifts in the kitchen as well, just that I couldn't seem him to know.
Just today, I went into the restroom to wash my hands and he was cleaning the stall.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The workers might be distracted by other problems that are literally impossible for the CEO to even simulate, like food insecurity, housing instability, looming medical bankruptcy, etc. I bet the CEO is able to be a much more productive barista without spending company time worrying about those things!
If the CEO is spending a shift working on the line, he still has all his CEO responsibilities to worry about. Those are 24/7, they never stop.
Ron Johnson used to do this when he headed Apple retail. Would just go into a store totally undercover to the customers (obviously staff would recognize him) and work for a bit. Occasionally fairly major changes, both to the staff side and to the customer experience, were made based on his visits. I don't recall ever seeing a press announcement about it. Saying you're doing it to win brownie points sure makes it seem…
These "king gets wisdom from dressing as regular person" stories are great, and it's definitely a great idea for higher level folks to sample the ground truth themselves on a regular basis. CEOs are at a real danger of being surrounded by yes-men, and it's very possible that through conditioning and repetition they might actually start believing insane corporate positions. However, there's a real smell of something g…
Sure, ideally you can get all your actionable information from your metrics, but in reality sometimes to understand what's really happening you just need to step through the code one statement at a time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I worked for a large logistics company we’d have a few days a year where we’d go downstairs and shadow someone using our software. It was very informative. The UX people were redesigning workflow to be “easier” and less information dense and the experienced people (who worked mostly on commissions mind you) where very pissed and wanted their hot keys and their at a glance information. It was very eye opening.
> The UX people were redesigning workflow to be “easier” and less information dense I never really understood why they focus on these two things. They're good for rank beginners, I suppose, but once you've even approached competency, those "easier" workflows inevitably end up being a huge pain in the ass, and lower information density is actively a terrible thing.
It's because you're aiming for a system where you don't need to reward the competency of long term employees and can instead just pluck random people off the street, pay them next to nothing and replace them when they quit.
I recall Amazon used to do something similar. Executives would sometimes take customer service shifts. The goal isn't PR or worker morale - most people see through stunts like that. The real goal is to help leaders better understand their product, its problems, and customer frustrations.
I have a dumb question related to this. The new Starbucks CEO is Laxman Narasimhan. Google says he's worth about $20m. The previous Starbucks CEO was Howard Schultz. He's worth about $3.7b Can somebody who is worth between $20m and $3.7b really just... hang out broad daylight behind a counter at a Starbucks from a security perspective? Obviously I get the gap between $20m (he's just starting out, I'm sure his net wor…
I recall Amazon used to do something similar. Executives would sometimes take customer service shifts. The goal isn't PR or worker morale - most people see through stunts like that. The real goal is to help leaders better understand their product, its problems, and customer frustrations.
I have a dumb question related to this. The new Starbucks CEO is Laxman Narasimhan. Google says he's worth about $20m. The previous Starbucks CEO was Howard Schultz. He's worth about $3.7b Can somebody who is worth between $20m and $3.7b really just... hang out broad daylight behind a counter at a Starbucks from a security perspective? Obviously I get the gap between $20m (he's just starting out, I'm sure his net wor…
I recall Amazon used to do something similar. Executives would sometimes take customer service shifts. The goal isn't PR or worker morale - most people see through stunts like that. The real goal is to help leaders better understand their product, its problems, and customer frustrations.
I have a dumb question related to this. The new Starbucks CEO is Laxman Narasimhan. Google says he's worth about $20m. The previous Starbucks CEO was Howard Schultz. He's worth about $3.7b Can somebody who is worth between $20m and $3.7b really just... hang out broad daylight behind a counter at a Starbucks from a security perspective? Obviously I get the gap between $20m (he's just starting out, I'm sure his net wor…