Howard Schultz famous quotes

I think the currency of leadership is transparency. You've got to be truthful. I don't think you should be vulnerable every day, but there are moments where you've got to share your soul and conscience with people and show them who you are, and not be afraid of it.
-- Howard Schultz

#Thinking #People #Soul

The issue of managing through a crisis is you have to be decisive even if you don't have perfect information.
-- Howard Schultz

#Issues #Perfect #Information

I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see And pursuing that vision.
-- Howard Schultz

#Success #Leadership #Believe

I don't have any secret sauce and I'm no smarter than anyone else. I will say I have surrounded myself with unbelievable talent that has made my job easier.
-- Howard Schultz

#Jobs #Secret #Sauce

Believe in your dreams and dream big. And then after youve done that, dream bigger.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Believe #Done

The hardest thing about being a leader is demonstrating or showing vulnerability. And that has a lot to do with trust.
-- Howard Schultz

#Leader #Hardest #Being A Leader

Customers must recognize that you stand for something.
-- Howard Schultz

Success is something that has to be earned every day.
-- Howard Schultz

If you want to achieve widespread impact and lasting value, be bold.
-- Howard Schultz

#Teaching #Impact #Want

I honestly never dreamed at the time that I would one day own the Starbucks and or be in a position where we would have more than 10,000 stores around the world. It has just been an incredible journey for all of us.
-- Howard Schultz

#Journey #One Day #World

What I would say to young entrepreneurs is there's so many moments in your life where you have these dreams, and people are trying to protect you, and they say, perhaps, friends, family, parents sometimes, they don't agree with it, they think, 'This is just too high of a hurdle.' And I don't agree with that.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Thinking #People

Starbucks being an extension of peoples home and work. The sense of community, human connection. That appears to be as relevant in Turkey, China, Japan and Spain as it is here in America. And Starbucks I think is creating something for people all over the world that has not existed before.
-- Howard Schultz

#Home #Thinking #Japan

We are not in the coffee business serving people, we are in the people business serving coffee.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #People

Starbucks trying to build a different kind of company around the balance of profitably and benevolence. A social conscience. And that isn't a program it has to be a way of life.
-- Howard Schultz

#Balance #Trying #Different

Don't be threatened by people smarter than you.
-- Howard Schultz

#Inspirational #People

Despite the fact that Starbucks has grown to be a large company. We've always played music in our stores and has always acted as an opportunity to create a mood in our stores. And customers started asking, "What song are you playing and can I buy that?" . And we said "No." And that was kind of the catalyst for beginning to look at music. We started out with our own compilations and after the success of that. We had the courage to say, "Let's produce our own record." and the first record was with Ray Charles before he unfortunately passed away.
-- Howard Schultz

#Song #Opportunity #Facts

We would take something old and tired and common - coffee - and weave a sense of romance and community around it. We would rediscover the mystique and charm that had swirled around coffee throughout the centuries.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #Tired #Romance

If you put on a lousy production with white actors, it's lousy. There is a problem, or can be, at this stage of our social evolution, with mixing the casts. It may not be a question of race so much as class. You would rarely find a black man in a high executive position where he was swinging his weight around.
-- Howard Schultz

#Men #Race #Class

Our mission statement about treating people with respect and dignity is not just words but a creed we live by every day. You can't expect your employees to exceed the expectations of your customers if you don't exceed the employees' expectations of management.
-- Howard Schultz

#Educational #Expectations #People

People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is, and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and authority to act on it.
-- Howard Schultz

#Responsibility #People #Want

But when you really believe-in yourself, in your dream-you just have to do everything you possibly can to take control and make your vision a reality. No great achievement happens by luck.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Believe #Reality

Hiring people is an art, not a science, and resumes can't tell you whether someone will fit into a company's culture.
-- Howard Schultz

#Art #Technology #People

I think if you're an entrepreneur, you've got to dream big and then dream bigger.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Thinking #Entrepreneur

I was taken by the power that savoring a simple cup of coffee can have to connect people and create community.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #Taken #Simple

Early on I realized that I had to hire people smarter and ore qualified than I was in a number of different fields, and I had to let go of a lot of decision-making. I can't tell you how hard that is. But if you've imprinted your values on the people around you, you can dare to trust them to make the right moves.
-- Howard Schultz

#Letting Go #Moving #Numbers

Effective leaders share two intertwined attributes: an unbridled level of confidence about where their organizations are headed, and the ability to bring people along.
-- Howard Schultz

#Organization #Two #People

I can't imagine a day without coffee. I can't imagine!
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #Imagine

Business leaders cannot be bystanders.
-- Howard Schultz

#Bystanders #Leader

Success is best when it is shared.
-- Howard Schultz

#Chef

Everyone starts strong. Success comes to those with unwavering commitment to be at the end.
-- Howard Schultz

#Strong #Commitment #Ends

A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.
-- Howard Schultz

#Great Business #Conscience #Who You Are

Overnight the digital age had changed the course of history for our company. Everything that we thought was in our control no longer was. But within a year we had invested in social media and digital experts. Now Starbucks is the number one brand on Facebook.
-- Howard Schultz

#Business #Numbers #Media

In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we're made of.
-- Howard Schultz

#Adversity #Who We Are #Made

Authentic brands don't emerge from marketing cubicles or advertising agencies. They emanate from everything the company does...
-- Howard Schultz

#Inspirational #Inspiring #Real

The premium single-cup segment is the fastest-growing business within the global coffee industry.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #Growing #Cups

People want to be part of something larger than themselves. They want to be part of something they're really proud of, that they'll fight for, sacrifice for, that they trust.
-- Howard Schultz

#Fighting #Sacrifice #People

Risk more than others think safe.
-- Howard Schultz

#Thinking #Risk #Safe

When you're surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.
-- Howard Schultz

#Commitment #People #Purpose

In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart.
-- Howard Schultz

#Motivational #Powerful #Heart

I realize that idealism is out of sync with the cynicism of our age. Skepticism has come to be synonymous with sophistication, and glibness is mistaken for intelligence. In such an atmosphere, why bother aiming high? Far too many people don't. I just want to reassure people to have the courage to persevere, to keep following their hearts even when others scoff. Don't be beaten down by naysayers. Don't let the odds scare you from even trying.
-- Howard Schultz

#Courage #Heart #Odds

Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility... The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money.
-- Howard Schultz

#Responsibility #Wind #Views

We have no patent on anything we do and anything we do can be copied by anyone else. But you can't copy the heart and the soul and the conscience of the company.
-- Howard Schultz

#Heart #Soul #Patents

To be an enduring, great company, you have to build a mechanism for preventing or solving problems that will long outlast any one individual leader.
-- Howard Schultz

#Long #Leader #Problem

Work should be personal. For all of us. Not just for the artist and entrepreneur. Work should have meaning for the accountant, the construction worker, the technologist, the manager and the clerk.
-- Howard Schultz

#Artist #Entrepreneur #Clerks

Social and digital media is a bullet train, and that bullet train is not coming home.
-- Howard Schultz

#Home #Media #Digital

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.
-- Howard Schultz

#Wise #Believe #Bystanders

I think the most important thing that I think everyone in America must have is belief that wherever they live, whatever station they have in life, that the American dream is alive and well. I think the fracturing of trust and confidence is in the American dream.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Thinking #America

I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #New York #Dad

I am concerned about any attrition in customer traffic at Starbucks, but I don't want to use the economy, commodity prices or consumer confidence as an excuse.
-- Howard Schultz

#Use #Want #Commodity

I could've just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn't be a bystander.
-- Howard Schultz

#Bystanders #Mediocrity #Starbucks

I think Starbucks created a platform and, ultimately, a runway for many other companies to emulate. I suspect if we had not achieved what we have, there would have been many regional brands that would have succeeded. But I'm not sure there would have been a national brand of the scope of Starbucks.
-- Howard Schultz

#Thinking #Starbucks #Scope

I think what we're lacking in society, not only in the U.S. but also around the world, is to find heroes once again and to celebrate these kind of people.
-- Howard Schultz

#Hero #Thinking #People

I think we are living in a time where the consumer has lots of choices, whether it's coffee, newspapers or whatever it is. And there is parity in the market place, and as a result of that, the consumer is beginning to make decisions, not just on what things cost and the convenience of it.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #Thinking #Decision

I think there is probably no better person to aspire to emulate than Steve Jobs and what he has done at Apple in terms of his leadership, his innovation, not settling for mediocrity.
-- Howard Schultz

#Jobs #Thinking #Apples

I think people will walk into the Starbucks store and overnight recognize the significant difference between what Starbucks represents day-in and day-out and all the other coffee companies that have been serving coffee in India for so many years.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #Thinking #Differences

Post-9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience.
-- Howard Schultz

#Country #People #Human Connection

I do think - as self-serving as it sounds - that I was the right person, given the very, very strong headwind we had from the economy and our own issues, to come back and rewrite the future of the company.
-- Howard Schultz

#Strong #Thinking #Issues

I probably have about four or five cups of coffee a day. I make myself an espresso macchiato when I wake, which is a shot of espresso and just a dollop of steamed milk. Then, if I'm going to do some work at home, I would make myself a French press. It's the best way to make conventional coffee.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #Home #Espresso

I was working probably at the age of 10, when I had my first paper route. I had every different kind of job you could possibly imagine as a young kid.
-- Howard Schultz

#Jobs #Kids #Age

Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last. If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.
-- Howard Schultz

#Believe #People #Loyal

At Starbucks 0 as in any business, in any life - there are so many hectic moments during the day when we are simply trying to do the job, trying to put out the fires, trying to solve any number of small problems, that we often lose sight of what it is we're really here to do.
-- Howard Schultz

#Jobs #Fire #Sight

I conduct my life with an expectation that people will do the right thing. Yet even with all my experience, I am still surprised when they do not.
-- Howard Schultz

#People #Expectations #Stills

Starbucks is rekindling America's love affair with coffee, bringing romance and fresh flavor back to the brew.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #America #Romance

It's one thing to dream, but when the moment is right, you've got to be willing to leave what's familiar and go out to find your own sound.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Sound #Moments

More than anything else, technology will pave the way for innovative change at Starbucks. The bulk of Starbucks' innovation over the next several years will be technology-focused.
-- Howard Schultz

#Technology #Years #Innovation

Success is best when its shared
-- Howard Schultz

Always challenge the old ways.
-- Howard Schultz

#Challenges #Way

You must find something that you deeply love and are passionate about and are willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve,
-- Howard Schultz

#Sacrifice #Passionate #Achieve

If you pour your heart into your work, or into any worthy enterprise, you can achieve dreams others may think impossible.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Perseverance #Heart

Customers don't always know what they want. The decline in coffee-drinking was due to the fact that most of the coffee people bought was stale and they weren't enjoying it. Once they tasted ours and experienced what we call "the third place" ... a gathering place between home and work where they were treated with respect.. they found we were filling a need they didn't know they had.
-- Howard Schultz

#Educational #Drinking #Coffee

I grew up in a working class family where there was no health insurance. I saw first hand the fracturing of the American dream and the bitterness that comes when there is no hope and a lot of despair. So I wanted to build the company, in a sense, that my father never got a chance to work for.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Father #Class

There's a metaphor Vincent Eades likes to use: "If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies.
-- Howard Schultz

#Butterfly #Law #Aerodynamics

Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.
-- Howard Schultz

#Thinking #People #Training

Starbucks has stores in America in many, many communities that are governed by many, many different municipalities. Starbucks cannot dictate to a municipality in Cincinnati or Kansas City or Sacramento how or why or when there should be a recycling program.
-- Howard Schultz

#Kansas City #America #Cities

Passionate conviction ... sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn't dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.
-- Howard Schultz

#Dream #Winning #People

Growing up I always felt like I was living on the other side of the tracks. I knew the people on the other side had more resources, more money, happier families.
-- Howard Schultz

#Growing Up #People #Track

My parents really wanted me to get out of New York, be exposed to other people, other ways of life.
-- Howard Schultz

#New York #People #Parent

Most business people today are not going to invest in the uncertainty that exists in America.
-- Howard Schultz

#America #People #Today

There's this myth that has been exacerbated by others that Starbucks means a $4 cup of coffee, which is not true.
-- Howard Schultz

#Coffee #Mean #Cups