Joseph Michelli

Strip this book of its eye-catching, texturized(!) cover and its subject of Starbucks, and you get a lukewarm read (get it?) It's really a shame, because a book about as big of a success story as Starbucks Coffee should be packed with wittiness and quality rather than excessively enthusiastic adjectives, redundant sentences and self-evident knowledge that is not repackaged in a fresh, clear way. There were simply far too many instances when an entire paragraph could have been revised to be a show more single sentence. I realize that the book's main aim is to be as accessible to as many as possible, yet it comes at the expense of substance. Furthermore, the best of this book cannot really be credited to the author--the heartwarming stories of the Starbucks employees ("partners") transformed my understanding of the company culture, though I still am not a customer of the brand.

I will give credit to the fact that Michelli's five principles are explicitly stated, and the examples he provides have been picked carefully. Nevertheless, (at the expense of sounding too critical,) there are many other authors who write these sorts of business-success books and achieve what Michelli has failed to do. The book's tips can be summarized as "be a good person, show you're a good person, don't compromise your good character and apply these values to your business". In short, I will be keeping my copy because I did learn some things, but it is certainly not because of its literature.

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An interesting cross section of leadership lessons mixed with case studies from Ritz Carlton's well known business practices. The author is in love with his Ladies and Gentlemen, but the WOW lessons learned were good ones.

There is no doubting the success of Starbucks, and Joseph Michelli sets out to identify the principles behind that success in Leading the Starbucks Way. Ultimately, he identifies five driving principles to which he attributes the Company's success: maintaining focus on the product; strive to earn loyalty; respect the identity of the community; be an active part of the community; respect the traditions of the company and its need to evolve. (These are all paraphrased and summarize my take on show more his principles.)

The book is rich with meaningful examples of the Starbucks way of doing business. The principles Michelli identifies are not just idle conjecture - he shows how Starbucks operates, and how it puts its corporate philosophy into practice.

After reading this book, I came away with an understanding of why Starbucks is as successful as it is. Whether the principles that drive this company can be generalized and used effectively by others is another matter, but any good corporate leader would learn a lot about success from this very accessible book. show less

More a love letter to Starbucks than a business book, but somewhat interesting, if you can step away from the excess of laurels heaped upon Starbucks by the author.