Monday Spotlight: Starbucks and Family

In life, our connections and our family isn’t necessarily what we planned or what is expected in our paths forward.  When I moved back to LA in 2008, I took a job with Starbucks.  As I started Project Kinect, I mentioned my dedication to my team in my store that made my two and a half years with Starbucks so memorable.  What I haven’t talked about though was my team of managers that became urban family members. 

Yesterday our boss posted a number of pictures that she had from different events, gatherings and training events that we had.  Our district in Beverly Hills has become a spotlight district in the entire country because of her commitment, focus and dedication to the development of her managers and the vision she saw for the entire company.   Due to the great integrity of the company and the focus on the product and the customer, Starbucks in my opinion is the prime example of how a corporation can still make money and continue to have social awareness of how it is helping out a community. 

With this group of managers though, greatness happened.  The most simple way to put it is with some simple math.   Each of the 12 managers had an average of 12 employees. That right there is 156 happy, motivated, contagious people.  Each of those stores passed their great energy off to about 1000 people daily.  Now you have 12,156 people happy, motivated, and contagious every day.  If that is sustainable for even an hour after they leave the store, how many people does that influence?    This is why I have a personal belief that amazing customer service can change the world.  I know is sounds like a pipe dream, but it has some truth.

This Monday Spotlight is dedicated to those thirteen colleagues and all of the greatness that they put out into to world every day.  You really had a great influence on me and will forever be called family by me.  Thank you.

This video was my very first for Project Kinect.  It was taken when Whitney and I went downtown to visit Lui at her new store downtown in a new district.  Until the move, the three of us were considered the Century City Sisters: Mabel, Agatha and Bernice.