Putin should fight one day in Bachmut and maybe some problems the world is facing right now wohld solve themselves :-)
Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
271–280 of 353 posts
Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CEO can easily see problems that the line workers don't see as problems. For example, I happily programmed in C for many years while not even noticing severe problems with the language. Later broader experience with other languages led me to wonder why I didn't see the problems with C before, even though they were negatively affecting my work.
[flagged]
I didn't mention Rust.
Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I like your last paragraph a lot, one reason in my experience as to why a problem didn't get reported/fixed is that employees are unfortunately rarely rewarded for fixing processes in large structures (or just once, when the fix itself improves the productivity in a lasting manner). So a real blocker in my opinion is that there is no clear incentive structure to even think or care about a fix in the first place. The…
There can even be an opposite incentive, where fixing an issue that was wasting time means more or different work is assigned to everyone
Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#274Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#275I’m sure the regular employees will love enduring an entire day dedicated to the sociopath’s dog and pony show.
The CEO should just go work in a coffee field for a day. What an ass
Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#276Ron 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…
The current king of Jordan used to dress as a regular person and ride public transportation. Not sure if to get wisdom or popularity.
Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#277Can you imagine how annoying it would be to be one of the bariastas working when Schultz shows up and is just in your way for 4 hours?
Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#278Ron 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…
WestJet, Canada's second largest airline, used to do this a lot. I remember handing my coffee cup and trash to Clive Beddoe, one of the original founders, with a double take. They were largely employee-owned and it showed. Then they went public, grew on the backs of shareholders and were taken private again by PE. Now they're worse than Air Canada, the former poster child for terrible airlines.
When a company is young and wants to engage employees I think this type of signaling can work great. When you're the established, mature incumbent and your employees feel they need to unionize to get fair treatment, this is a stunt for the public and not going to change anything internal.
Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#279I 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.
If they were paid the minimum wage too it might drive home a greater understanding of their employees as well, though unfortunately the large existing bank accounts of the CEOs ensures that any lesson that might come with that small paycheque is not likely to sink in.
Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, fixing the problem is great, but if the CEO needs to personally witness the issue for it to get fixed, then there must be thousands of other issues not being fixed. Keep in mind in a corporation like Starbucks, the CEO is likely a hundred or more levels removed from the daily operations of a cafe. That's a lot of internal politics for even a motivated regional manager to navigate.
>> Keep in mind in a corporation like Starbucks, the CEO is likely a hundred or more levels removed from the daily operations of a cafe.
Really? You think there's a hundred or more executives/managers/supervisors between the CEO and someone on the floor of a SBUX? I'd bet closer to 10.