How Starbucks Built a People First Business | A Conversation with Howard Behar

The Playbook With David Meltzer

David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com

Careers, Entrepreneurship, Business

4.9 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, David Meltzer sits down with Howard Behar, the founding president of Starbucks Coffee Company International and the man responsible for transforming Starbucks from a small regional business to a global powerhouse. For 21 years Behar led Starbuck’s domestic business as President of North America, and he became the founding President of Starbucks International opening the very first store outside of North America in Japan. During his tenure, he participated in the growth of the company from only 28 stores to over 15,000 stores spanning five continents. Dive into this conversation to uncover Behar's leadership principles that turned Starbucks into an international sensation. Listen to his personal anecdotes and understand his perspective on humility, trust, love, and forgiveness in the corporate world. Learn about the importance of servant leadership and how putting people first helped him scale the business. Finally, hear his sage advice for living life with intention and planning for success. Tune in and get ready to be inspired by the man who wrote "It's Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks" and has been a beacon of servant leadership in the corporate world

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is The Playbook.
0:06.8	This Dave Meltzer CEO sports one marketing here with Entrepreneur The Playbook and I have
0:12.2	a special guest who allowed us to come into his home.
0:15.1	Howard B. Hart.
0:16.1	Good to see you.
0:17.1	Good to see you.
0:18.1	One of the founders and president of Starbucks and Starbucks International taking as I've read
0:23.5	the company from about 28 stores to over 400, which I think is such a critical piece.
0:29.0	What I'm going to start with is something that probably most people don't.
0:32.6	It's radical humility.
0:36.0	My life changed.
0:37.0	I've been blessed my whole life, similar to yours it seems, as success comes.
0:41.8	But where my life really changed was when I learned those two words, radical humility.
0:47.2	When I stopped taking myself so seriously and thinking, give me a little bit of background
0:53.3	on where this humility of yours comes from and how others can really understand and appreciate
1:01.0	humility.
1:02.0	Well, you know, most of us who we are comes from our heritage, from our roots.
1:08.2	Both of my parents were immigrants in the United States in the early 1900s and my dad
1:12.5	came from Bulgaria, you know, living on dirt floors with sticks as walls and my mother
1:17.9	was the same way.
1:19.0	So that's how I grew up learning and hearing about their lessons in life and what they
1:24.1	learned and how they survived.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.