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Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

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Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#301

Post by slyall »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #224
daedalus_j wrote: post #109

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…

It happens. Imagine the duty manager has to spend 30 minutes each shift sorting out inventory paperwork because the system is old and slow.

Nobody at the store has any influence, the area managers complain but the project for the new system is low priority.

The CEO has the ability to see that this is a problem and the project needs increased priority.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#302

Post by don-code »

otikik wrote: post #298
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #224

Earlier 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…

> The CEO working a single shift noticed something that needed to be changed? Did none of the thousands of workers who work those shifts every day notice that problem? Obviously , he's much more intelligent than all those other people, that's why he's the CEO and way richer than them. Rich people are more intelligent and better than poor people in most aspects. That's why the laws favor them.

I understand that your post is sarcasm, but it does bring up the underlying issue of who's been empowered to make changes, and ultimately, who's had (correctly or incorrectly) trust placed in them.

An interesting thing happened at a company I worked for: the engineers were, during a time of intense labor pressure, asked to staff the fulfillment center. The fulfillment staff worked under a supervisor, and were supposed to perform the same rote tasks all day long: hook this device up to the bench, pack this box, unpack that box, and so on. The engineers worked under their engineering managers, and were supposed to perform the _exact samesame_ rote tasks all day: configure devices, pack and unpack boxes.

What really happened was that the engineers found all sorts of ways to optimize the process as they went - and they made them largely without asking anybody. They then shared the optimizations with the other engineers, who followed suit. And they were rewarded by engineering management for finding those optimizations. Later, they propagated back down to the supervisors, who propagated them down to the fulfillment staff.

If the fulfillment staff deviated from their rote tasks, though? They'd have most likely been fired.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#303

Post by MuffinFlavored »

takinola wrote: post #267
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What exactly do you imagine is going to happen? There are lots of very rich people walking around in public all day long with little ill effects? The most you can get by robbing him is the stuff he has in his wallet, which is pretty much going to be similar to someone with a much lower net worth. If you walk around in Palo Alto, you will likely bump into a billionaire or two on a typical day.

> What exactly do you imagine is going to happen?

If I was worth $3b (like the previous Starbucks CEO), I'd be worried about being held up at gunpoint/abducted/held hostage for ransom.

I am lead to believe Tim Cook doesn't just walk around like you and I?

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#304

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #224
daedalus_j wrote: post #109

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…

>Was there a manager in charge of the stores who did not notice the problem?

Along similar lines why did the manager's manager not notice the problem? IF the CEO can spend time investigating how the lowest tier workers operate, surely every manager can spend time looking at the tier of workers below his immediate tier.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#305

Post by matwood »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #289
ethbr0 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The ideal scheme would be anonymous reporting + objective third party prioritization + financial compensation if benefits realized. The lack of compensation always baffled me. If an employee comes up with a change that saves the company $x, why don't they get bonused Make it subject to approval or somesuch, to prevent gaming and weed out edge cases, but every employee should be incentivized to find a way to d…

You aren't paid based off the value you provide. Companies don't know how to measure that anyways. Your salary is based off of how expensive it would be to replace you.

But in this case the measure is clear.

Sales is another job where value is very clear, hence good sales people are often some of the highest paid people in a company.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#306

Post by slim »

acomjean wrote: post #265

There was a Roger Moore show "TV NATION" where he challenged CEOs to do things with their products. "Format a Floppy" was one. The only one who took him up was the ford CEO who did an oil change. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Nation

Michael Moore

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#307

Post by telecuda »

Ask to be put on frontline email/phone customer support for your product a few times a year.

Hearing problems/complaints directly from the voice of the customer, then having to explain a sometimes cumbersome workaround to solve them, is invaluable. Plus you buy goodwill with your support team for walking a day in their shoes.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#308

Post by imp0cat »

JohnFen wrote: post #160
sebzim4500 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. That doesn't necessarily mean that the UX people were wrong though. Even if their changes made the experienced people slightly slower, it could be worth it if it significantly sped up onb…

You only onboard someone once. In theory, that person will have to be using the system every day for years. Why optimize for the one-time thing at the expense of the everyday use?

It's a bit more complicated than that. Here's a great article that explains how users can be sorted into categories (from beginner to student to expert) and what each of them wants and needs.

https://breakingpoint.substack.com/p/your-three-kinds-of-cus...

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#309

Post by vlovich123 »

indymike wrote: post #295
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #224

Earlier 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…

> Was there a manager in charge of the stores who did not notice the problem? Probably. But there are often three to six layers of filters between the CEO and a service worker. Those managers may not see the effect of a small problem across the entire system. Sometimes those managers have incentive to hide problems to protect their bonus. Other times, the problem seems unimportant. In Starbucks case, a company with a…

Agreed. I love these people that think that hierarchy is a substitute. It’s the only way to scale but it misses a lot. Talking and actually understanding cross-cutting issues or solvable pain points is the only way. Most people don’t take on a sense of ownership and they infect a culture into being too conservative (which management also encourages because as you get bigger mistakes get amplified).

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#310

Post by dahwolf »

One of my recurring revenge-porn dreams is as follow.

I'm the owner (so not CEO) of a massive multinational. I'm mysterious and not really publicly known. The actual CEO is the public face.

Next, I apply for a role in one of the branches, say a local sysadmin, get the job and start working there. I do my job, intentionally fuck up a few times, and take note of any dysfunction in the organization. There's lots, management are bullies.

Fast forward a few months and at the weekly all hands meeting, it is me sitting at the head of the table. The local manager aggressively insists that I move, but I remain seated. He gets security involved but security does nothing. He tells me I'm fired but I don't blink.

As the dust settles, I open the meeting and immediately fire all of management, whom are physically thrown out. Next, I give all staff a raise and do something nice and personal for each of them.

Everybody claps. Then I wake up from the cat sitting on my face.

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