Making time for training

Yesterday evening, nearly all of the 7,100 Starbucks stores in the US closed to re-train baristas on making perfect lattes. The 3 1/2 hour session focused on "Espresso Excellence."

Yes, Dunkin’ Donuts was running 99-cent specials on their lattes during the shut down. Yes, local coffee roasters poked fun at Starbucks and offered free coffee during those hours. And yes, Starbucks executives were concerned about the customers who would be caffeine-less, posting a list of things to do for 3 1/2 hours (roast a turkey, get your hair highlighted).

But CEO Howard Schultz is more concerned about staying true to the "…standards of quality that are the foundation for the trust that our customers have in our coffee and in all of us." Schultz and others mandated the training amid falling sales and the increasing commoditization of the Starbucks brand and product.

While the investment of time and the risk of lost profit during the 3 1/2 hour training session are interesting, we find the commitment to training from the executive level to be even more impressive. In a recent interview, CEO Schultz said that Starbucks was committed to "…reinvent and reinvest in training the likes of which we have not done." It is unlikely that the undertaking of closing every store and retraining every worker at the same time on the same day (adjusted for time zones) would have been done without this high-level encouragement. In that same interview, Schultz says, "I think our people are the reason we've been successful…the equity of the brand is based on the experience they create, and we want to unleash that creativity and that passion. They have it. We just have to give them the tools and the resources for it to come out."

Many leaders talk the talk, saying "Our people are our biggest asset," but few do what Schultz has done and take the gutsy moves necessary to emphasize learning and make investing in human capital a priority. What’s your organization’s commitment to learning? Are employees required to revisit and relearn key skills as well as to develop new ones? How do your leaders demonstrate their commitment to learning, high performance, and customer care?

Give me a grande latte and don’t hold anything!


Grace Boone is Barnes & Conti's Marketing Manager. Her favorite drink is a Gingerbread Chai with a shot of espresso.


Barnes & Conti Associates delivers dynamic programs in 2-day, 1-day, and half-day sessions, making it easy to make time for training. For more information, visit www.barnesconti.com

$41 Worth of Influence

Today I put my influence skills to work….I fought a $41 parking ticket!

I live in the city and parking tickets are a regular part of my life, something that I like to think of as a charitable contribution for the betterment of the city. Occasionally, however, I get a ticket which I feel justified fighting…and today was my hearing.

Awhile back, our urban neighborhood had one of its many "events" where hundreds of people with their cars drive into the area. This particular event goes on for about one month, so needless to say, it wears thin. Despite permit parking, there are absolutely no parking spaces available and creativity is needed! After an hour of driving around for the 30th night, I found my spot. So what if one-fourth of my car was in a bus zone, three-fourths of the body was legal. Given the circumstances of the demand for parking, I felt justified….apparently the police didn’t think so!

My husband laughed when I told him of my plans this morning to fight the ticket…."Why bother," he said. "You were parked illegally". Like pregnancy, there is no such thing as "a little illegal".

But off to traffic court I went. Much to my surprise I was called in after only a 15 minute wait to meet with the hearing officer…Things were looking good despite the 3-way screaming match I had just witnessed between another ticketed resident, the traffic court receptionist and the security officer.

Upon entering the hearing officer’s office, I noticed a tremendous array of sports paraphernalia. So, I opened our conversation with a little rapport building through humor and said, "So, I can see you like the ballet." A little confused at first, he laughed. We then got down to business. I mentioned my conversation with my husband this morning and told him how my husband thought I didn’t stand a chance fighting this ticket. After all, I was illegally parked (Attune/Disclosing). I asked him if he ever attended the annual event in our area (Inquire/Ask Questions). He said he was familiar with it but never attended. He mentioned that he heard it was a real mob scene and parking was difficult….he then mentioned that he heard several complaints from others. I restated, "So you know how crazy it can get" (Listen/Check Understanding). He replied, "Of course…your ticket is reversed and I have backed it out of the computer system." I thanked him and as I was getting up to leave I asked him how he felt about the Super Bowl outcome (Inquire/Ask Questions). We chatted about the great lessons of the Giants being replayed to kids for many years to come (Enlist/Envision) despite neither of us being Giants’ fans (Attune/Identify with Other).

Back at my office, I reflected on this conversation with Kim Barnes. She asked what made my influence attempt successful and I realized it was because I behaved in that moment counter to what my natural inclinations would have been. I stayed on the Receptive side, guiding our brief discussion without ever having to convince the hearing officer of my rightness. What a pleasant experience and again, as I behaviorally dissect it, I am learning from it!

Lauren Powers is Barnes & Conti's Eastern Regional Director.

For more information on Exercising Influence visit: http://www.barnesconti.com/programs/influence.html. Exercising Influence will be offered as an open enrollment program on March 4-5 in Washington, DC, March 11-12 in Pleasant Hill, CA, and April 10-11 in Atlanta, GA. To register for a public program visit: http://www.barnesconti.com/ppsched.php

Let's agree to disagree...

This week, when voters in 22 states cast their ballots in Presidential Primary races, they took part in what is a 230-year-old social experiment. When the framers were writing the Constitution, it was feared, amongst many people in the young nation, that a nation could not be formed because the power of factions would undoubtedly trample the rights of the minority.

In the months following the writing of the United States Constitution, a group of men – Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison – wrote a series of essays arguing in favor of forming the Union. Signing them “Publius,” these essays appeared in various papers to persuade wary voters to ratify the constitution. Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison, provided a pivotal argument for the creation of a union. Madison writes:

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

In this statement, and throughout the essay, Madison argues that a diversity of ideas encourages liberty and that a republican government prevents any one faction from trampling the rights of others. In other words: reasonable people can disagree.

And so, for the last 230 years, we have been a nation that disagrees without being disagreeable…well – with the exception of the 4 years of the Civil War. It could be argued that this commitment to enlightened discourse that has helped propel the US through the trials that would otherwise undo any young nation.

So what does this have to do with corporate training? Well, if a diversity of ideas is key to the birth, growth, and success of a young nation – what can it do for your organization? At Barnes & Conti, we call it Constructive Debate. This process allows you to express your ideas, engage the opinions of others, build on one another’s ideas, challenge one another’s thinking, and empower your organization to move forward. Constructive Debate is at the cornerstone of all collaboration efforts and prevents great ideas and “off-the-wall” notions from being quieted by loud voices and emotion rather than passion.

As this election year presses on, we are reminded that this democratic experiment has succeeded largely because civil discourse has allowed the best ideas to rise and for majority rule to exist without trampling minority rights. Similarly, discussion and debate can be the air that feeds the fire of success in your organization.

Grace Boone is Barnes & Conti's Marketing Manager.

For more information on how Constructive Debate can help your organization, visit: http://barnesconti.com/programs/debate.html or call Barnes & Conti at 800.835.0911

For the full text of Federalist No. 10: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed10.htm