Starbucks Bucks Its Workers’ Labor Union

Even though more than 500 Starbucks shops had unionized by the end of 2024, it seems that the company’s management did not respect the new union very much. Unfortunately for the company, one implication that can be drawn is that the company’s management didn’t respect federal labor law very much too. For in not respecting its union enough to negotiate it on reducing employee work hours, the company violated federal law. The “smoking gun,” I submit, was that the management used dissimulation to respond to the government, rather than address the complaint directly.

On October 10, 2024, the “general council of the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint . . . alleging that Starbucks made the scheduling changes in late 2022 and early 2023” without consulting and negotiating with the union.”[1] The complaint reads in part that Starbucks changed workers’ hours “without prior notice to the Union and without affording the Union an opportunity to bargain.”[2] As per federal labor law, Starbucks was required to give prior notice to the union and give it a chance to bargain, as well as to tell the union how the change in hours would impact the paychecks of the workers affected. In its written response, the company’s management ignored this requirement and instead defended a practice that was not against the law and the government was thus not in the government’s complaint.

Starbucks stated, “We continuously review operations decisions to optimally address business needs and customer expectations, consistent with the law.”[3] Indeed, doing so does not in itself violate federal law, but the statement does not address the complaint. Next, the company tried to obviate the complaint, again by not addressing anything that was illegal, by pointing out, “our decisions were made across our system, in unionized and non-unionized stores, and they were made without regard to organizing activity at Starbucks.”[4] Even if that were true, it does not address whether the management had informed the union and given it an opportunity to bargain in the cases of the unionized stores.

By not addressing the violations specified in the complaint, the company’s managers may either have been dissimulating by changing the terms of the dispute or trying to avoid lying by denying the specific charges. Either way, the mentality is sordid, and this in itself can be interpreted in line with the old adage, Where there is smoke, there is fire.  Where there is a devious mentality, there is likely to be a crime.

As a result of the violation, some employees lost the benefit of health insurance because they no longer worked enough hours per week. Therefore, the union’s lawyer said that damages could be more than merely the wages for the lost hours. A conservative estimate could be “north of $30 million.”[5] Lest this seem like enough of a disincentive for the management to begin to respect the union (and federal labor law), I submit that it is extremely difficult to change a company’s organizational culture.

Today, I went to buy a product at a Target store. The shelf was empty so I went to customer service, which the linguistically opportunistic management calls “guest” services. The employee was incorrect that I could not order the product online and have it delivered to the store; she was even wrong that the product was not in the back of the store. I went to a manager, who assured me that she would “coach” the employee.  In a tone of “you’re not getting it,” what I actually said was, “It was not just her mistakes; her mentality—her attitude—was terrible, and that can’t be coached away.” The manager didn’t say anything, but her facial expression was one of dismissiveness. Starbucks’ management at the corporate level needed more than coaching from the government.

1. Dave Jamieson, “Starbucks Could Owe Millions to Baristas Who Unionized,” The Huffington Post, October 11, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Beyond Climate Change: Starbucks Awash in Cash

While it may be tempting to go after companies for hypocrisy on corporate social responsibility, even deeper criticism may be closer to the bottom line, financially. Even though social media castigated Starbucks for its impact on carbon emissions in agreeing to fly its Southern Californian CEO Brian Niccol to Seattle on a company plane each week, I submit that the amount of spending entailed raises questions about cost-containment and even cast some doubt on whether the company’s price increases in 2024 were wholly justified, and thus even on whether the industry was competitive or an oligarchy.

Before Niccol was to assume his role as CEO on September 9, 2024, Starbucks announced that he would “not be required to relocate to the company’s headquarters” during his employment with the company.[1] Because he would be expected to work at the Seattle office at least three days a week to comply with the company’s policy on hybrid working, he would be flying a distance greater than that which is between Berlin and Rome on a company plane weekly. Why could he not fly commercial (business class) and thereby save the company a lot of money? Is a CEO really above such flying?

I suspect that in the E.U. the answer would be more down-to-earth, or realistic, than in the U.S., where CEO’s are more likely to be reckon as akin to divine emperors. Whereas in Europe, an aristocracy exists that can put the moneyed caste in its proper place, American CEOs reside at the top of the societal pyramid. Being consumed with thoughts of money is valued rather than presumed low. This is not to say that inherited wealth is value-free and thus exempt from a different criticism. Rather, my point is that CEO’s of American companies can get away with being treated like royalty on account of the relatively pro-business (or business-leaning) societal culture.

Rather than criticizing Starbucks for spending too much money on its CEO’s transportation, users of social media expressed anger over the company’s preachments on sustainability while the CEO is to be flown on a private plane weekly, burning thousands of liters of fuel in the atmosphere. On its website, the company claimed that it had “a bold aspiration to be a resource positive company.”[2] The CEO of Conservation International stated that the company was backing up its “commitments with immediate actions to reduce [its] footprint and invest in nature.”[3] The hypocrisy could have been easily obviated by having the CEO fly business in a commercial airline.

It is not as if Niccol would not be able to afford the flights, as his annual salary was announced as $1.6 million, not including a possible performance-related bonus of up to $7.2 million and up to $23 million a year in company stock.[4] Of course, the company would no doubt cover the cost of its CEO’s commute, whether commercial or on a company plane, and such money, together with his compensation-level, suggests that Starbucks had money to burn in 2024 even as it was increasing the prices of its drink products.

In 2023, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio in the United States had increased to 251:1, which was up 26% from 2022. Back in 1965, CEOs were paid on average just 21 times more than the medium worker. In 2021, Chipotle, where Niccol had worked prior to becoming CEO of Starbucks, was at 2,998:1, which was the fifth highest in the United States. I suspect that he had rather high expectations in negotiating with Starbucks. That the company relented even as it felt the need to increase drink prices (presumably to keep afloat financially) is a point that the carbon-emission critics missed.

Considering the rise in prices at restaurants and grocery stores since the pandemic of 2020, it is worthy of note societally that a company raising prices would have enough cash on hand to fly one person weekly on a company plane instead of having him fly commercial (and on his own dime!). That is to say, one might wonder how legitimate the rising prices of food (and drink) were even after the pandemic. In competitive markets, new entrants can offer more competitive prices and thus bring down prices generally in an industry, such that the companies cannot afford to be extravagant in spending. Starbucks may simply have been raising prices because it could get away with it, and could thus afford to fly its CEO on a company plane weekly not only to the company’s headquarters, but on visits to company stores and brewing facilities on a regular basis.

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1. “Anger Boils Up over Starbucks CEO 1600km ‘Super Commute’ on Private Jet,” Euronews, August 23, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Starbucks: A Racist Company Against Racism

In June, 2023, Starbucks had to face a unanimous jury decision in favor of a regional manager whom Starbucks' upper management had fired because she had resisted the company's racist policy of punishing innocent Caucasian managers for good public relations, which the CEO felt was needed and appropriate after a store manager had legitimately called the police on two Black people in a Starbucks restaurant who presumed the right not only to sit in a restaurant without ordering anything (before Starbucks allowed this),  but also to ignore the authority of the store's manager. Starbucks cowered to the unjust negative publicity, and thus showed a lack of leadership, and went on to act unethically in wanting to show the world that the company can go after Caucasian employees. This racism is ironic, for several years earlier, Starbucks' CEO had ordered employees at the store level to discuss racism with customers. Interestingly, the anti-racist ideology being preached was partial, and thus contained a blind spot wherein racism such as the company's upper management would exhibit is acceptable. 

As the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz had employees promote his political ideology on two social issues: gay marriage and race. Regarding the latter, he ordered employees, whom he artfully called partners, to write race messages on cups so customers would unknowingly enable employees to impart Schultz’s position on the issue by raising the topic. I assume that the employees could not begin such conversations. I have argued elsewhere that Schultz’s use of the employees for such a purpose was not only extrinsic to making coffee as per the employees’ job descriptions, but also unethical.[1] In terms of corporate governance alone, the shareholders, as the owners of the company, should have decided whether to have their company used to promote partisan positions on social issues. In 2023, Target and Budweiser would learn of the perils in wandering off the knitting to get political on social issues. In terms of jurisprudence, the “right” of a company, a legal entity, to have free speech is dubious, as abstract entities, even if legally recognized as such, are not human beings. Rather, the “free speech” claimed by companies is really that of the human beings who work for the companies. Using an abstract entity that itself cannot speak to gain additional publicity for one’s ideological views is unfair because the vaulted or amplified speakers are not so from a democratic standpoint. In short, why should Howard Schultz have access to a megaphone and employees to propagate his political ideology on social issues, when you and I have no such means of self-amplification? Whether we agree or disagree with the former CEO’s political ideology on race is not relevant to my point. To be sure, that his employees were told to speak against racism is in my opinion much better than had they been told to advocate racism against Black people. That Starbucks would then engage in racism is that much harder to understand, but perhaps the hypocrisy reflects a hidden negative aspect of Schultz’s ideology on race. American society could benefit by having that aspect uncovered; such a benefit vastly outweighs any benefit to business. Even in a pro-business culture, a lower good should not be put over a higher one. Aristotle refers to this error as misordered concupiscence.

In June, 2023, a jury in New Jersey “found in favor of former Starbucks regional director Shannon Phillips, who sued the company for wrongfully firing her, claiming she was terminated for being White.”[2] The company’s position was that Phillis’ boss fired her because she had displayed weak leadership. The use of such vague jargon as leadership for what is actually management is itself problematic. Even if Phillips had “appeared overwhelmed and lacked awareness of how critical the situation had become,” as her boss presumably had written, does not constitute weak leadership, for she was not in a leadership role[3]; instead, the company’s CEO should have got out in front of the issue and provided a vision for the company.[4] If Schultz was the CEO at the time, the failure of his leadership would be especially telling, considering his earlier foray into politics using the company to promote his ideology.

The triggering incident that had overwhelmed Phillips, according to her boss, whom the CEO at the time must agree in retrospect failed as a supervisor but presumably was not fired, involved two Black men who had refused to leave a Starbucks store in 2018 even though they would not purchase anything. They were thus not customers, and the incident occurred before the company allowed non-purchasers to be in the stores. That the two Black men refused to leave the company’s private property means they were trespassing, so the store manager was on solid legal grounds in having the local police remove the men from the store. Being Black, even if that race has been (and is) subject to racism generally, does not give a person the right to trespass on private property, and efforts to remove such trespassing is not racist, for anyone trespassing would be legally subject to removal from the property. 

I contend that Howard Schultz’s notion of racial reconciliation suffers from the weakness of being blind to the racial presumption displayed by the two Blacks. In having employees talk about the need not to be racist to customers, Schultz was assuming that racism is something that non-Blacks do to Blacks. Employees were not told to suggest to Black customers that being Black does not give them special exemptions from the law or in society. Schultz could have had employees suggest to Black customers that jay-walking between intersections in a major street even if cars are coming is not “a Black thing” that is justified because the race in general has been subject to discrimination. Furthermore, the use of the word, nigga, cannot be allowed only if the speaker is Black, for that would be a racist position. For a Black person who uses the word to become hostile or aggressive towards an Indian, Oriental, or Caucasian who also uses the word is itself racist (and of course the hostility is unjustified unless the related word nigger is used in a hostile manner). The U.S. Constitution does not indicate that free speech depends or is limited by race; such a clause would be prime facie racist.

Phillips’ complaint, which the jury accepted unanimously, states that following the arrest of the two Black men, Starbucks “took steps to punish White employees who had not been involved in the arrests, but who worked in and around the city of Philadelphia, in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident.”[5] Phillips was ordered “to place a White employee on administrative leave as part of these efforts, due to alleged discriminatory conduct which Phillips said she knew was inaccurate. After Phillips tried to defend the employee, the company let her go.”[6] It does not sound like Phillips was overwhelmed; in fact, she was being pro-active and ethical in defending an employee from an unjust punishment. The implication is that the person who fired Phillips acted unethically.

Moreover, in being willing to sacrifice Caucasian employees based on their race for good public relations, the company’s upper managers were being racist. An unseen implication is that those managers believed that the public reaction against the company for having the two Black men removed from the store in Philadelphia had some validity—that Black people should not be treated like that or that Black people deserve special treatment due to their race. But such a belief is itself racist. Schutz’s talking points for his employees to discuss with customers on race did not include mention of the racism in such beliefs. Moreover, he did not have the company’s employees talk about racism by Black people stemming from resentment. Any ideology is partial, rather than whole, and even claim of being against racism can fall short. In going after Caucasian employees, including Phillips, Starbucks’ upper managers fell short; the failure of leadership ultimate belongs to the CEO at the time. At least at the time of the trial, Howard Schultz was the CEO.

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1. Skip Worden, Bucking Starbucks’ Star.

2. Danielle Wiener-Bronner, “Starbucks Ordered to Pay $25.6 million to a Manager Who Says She Was Fired for Being White,” CNN.com, June 14, 2023.

3. Ibid.

4. Skip Worden, The Essence of Leadership.

5. Danielle Wiener-Bronner, “Starbucks Ordered to Pay $25.6 million to a Manager Who Says She Was Fired for Being White.

6. Ibid.

Bucking Starbucks’ Star

Common sense would perhaps dictate that a company sporting a managerial culture of pathological lying as the default way of dealing with stakeholders must inevitably go under at some point. Kant’s categorical imperative insists that mendacity is unethical, for it violates the non-contradictory law of reason. What would the Prussian Kant say, however, to the good Germans who lied to NAZI Jew-hunters about hiding the enemies of the state? As laudable as such lies are, unsavory business managers seem instinctually wired to take advantage of the slippery slope by ignoring the rationale of avoiding extreme harm. What begins as a trickle can become a deluge. Perhaps that is what happened at Starbucks.

In late October, 2022, the director of the U.S. National Labor Relations Board “accused Starbucks of threatening to withhold benefits and wage increases from workers if they unionized; selectively enforcing work policies against union supporters; disciplining or firing workers who were activists; and failing to bargain in good faith.”[1] Starbucks had closed a store in Ithaca, New York. The lack of good faith can be seen in the Congressional testimony of Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ CEO, in 2023. He sanctimoniously “admitted” that people he had spoken with could erroneously infer intimidation. In other words, it’s on the other guy. Such toxic pomposity easily belies a mere patina of portrayed honesty.  

NLRB officials claimed in 2022, The “company has repeatedly broken the law by firing pro-union employees, cutting their hours and offering pay hikes and other benefits to those who decline to unionize.”[2] Least the company’s management’s denials of these claims be believed, fast-forward to April, 2023, when it was revealed that the company had lied that negative publicity and a related strike played no role in the company’s decision to permanently close another store in Ithaca.

The story begins back in April, 2022, when Starbucks’ public-relations firm notified its client that employees “went on strike due to repeated grease trap spills that caused an unsafe environment and lack of action from management.”[3] The lack of action regarding a known safety hazard at a store that the company had written had the “strongest real estate trade position in this area” such that “any relocation would be inferior” points to a single-minded and expedient orientation to money.[4] Such a mentality is ripe for pro-union votes. A managerial culture of mendacity just adds fuel to the flames.

Andrew Trull, a company spokesman, claimed, “Media attention had no bearing on our decision to close the store.”[5] In an internal email, however, Denise Nelsen, senior vice president of U.S. operations, wrote, “We have to solve these condition issues because we also keep getting media on the store condition there.”[6] A direct contradiction! In symbolic logic, A and not-A cannot both be true. A barista at the store at the time said regarding the closing of the lucrative store, “It was retaliation for the strike we went on because we were being forced to work in unsafe conditions. They didn’t care [before]. They cared all of a sudden now when we’re making national news.”[7] Admittedly, negative publicity can hurt the bottom-line. I venture to say nonetheless that the instinctual urge to retaliate, which Nietzsche claimed is out of control in the weak who seek to dominate, trumps the otherwise-hegemonic money-orientation in Starbucks’ managerial culture. The propensity to fabricate rather than tell the truth serves both the power-aggrandizing and economizing motives, especially when they are extreme urges out of control (i.e., not mastered, or channeled by the individual).  

The culture of mendacity in Starbucks’ managerial cadre reaches even the store-manager level. I know this from personal experience. At a Starbucks’ store in April, 2023, a store manager pointed to the last remaining seat. “It’s right below an air-duct that blows cold air.” I had been there in January. “We can adjust that for you,” the manager lied. “I though the temperature of stores is centrally controlled,” I countered. “Yes, it is; it reduces our carbon footprint.” He gave no outward sign that he had just contradicted himself, which can be construed as a lie on top of a lie. Perhaps he was assuming that customers are idiots and would not be likely to put two and two together. Well, I did, but I was polite enough not to tell him that I knew that he had just lied to me. Instead, I went after the accuracy of his claim that centralized control is environmentally friendly. “Well, I have lived in Phoenix, Arizona, where your stores are generally known to feel like refrigerators even when it is 116F degrees. I’d say that’s a pretty big footprint, wouldn’t you?” He stood there silent, like an idiot. The dumb shoes were on a different foot.

Meanwhile, employees of that store kept to their script—that they like their store manager so they would not vote to unionize. When on one occasion I overheard a shift-manager say that the company’s management had lied about giving the employees an additional day off, he was silent when I asked him if he still liked the management so much he would not vote to strike. He pretended like I had not overheard him, which itself is a kind of a lie. Even the employees, who are in no sense of the word “partners” as the company’s head management pretends and publicizes, lie to customers.

Lastly, when I was living in Arizona, I went to a Starbucks in area of Tempe north of the Salt River, which the city of Tempe lies is a lake even though it looks like any other river. Six police employees on their break on the 4^th of July will wandering around the customer area between tables. I approached a Starbucks employee to complain, as I was not used to looking up from my laptop and seeing so many guns passing by at close-range. She refused to act. Then when the group of guns were blocking the counter where drinks are available, I reapproached her and she finally decided to do something. She politely asked the police to hang out away from the bar. She was met with bloated egos, one of which, with his back to the customer area, kept turning his head to give us suspicious looks.

My thought was: if the guy feels such distrust for the public, perhaps he and his coworkers would feel more comfortable spending their breaks somewhere more comfortable. Somewhere more out of the way rather than front and center. This would also spare us, the taxpayers, from being subject to even the tacit intimidation of seeing bullet-proof vests and guns at such close range as we enjoy our coffee. No, I was not over-caffeinated, though maybe the police were, given all their pacing around the tables. Not that the police employees would have recognized their hyperactive state; after all, fish cannot see the water that they breathe, for they are always in it. I contend that such a blindness is conducive to literally and figuratively taking liberties, whether through intimidation or outright lashing out. 

I do contend that liberty includes freedom of the innocent from intimidation. It can be quite difficult to perceive, yet unconsciously it is surely felt. Notice, for instance, the policeman intently looking at me as I took the picture shown here. Is taking a picture suspicious enough to warrant such rapt attention as a hunting dog might have upon seeing a rabbit? As the youth of today would say, the guy needs to chill. Not that I would have walked over to him after taking the photo and say, Hey dude, just chill out a bit, huh? You're on your break. He would have sternly dismissed such an accusation and turned on me (hence proving my point for me) even though it was, after all, a holiday. July 4th, Freedom from Intimidation Day in the U.S.A. By the twenty-first century, the British Red Coats had all but been forgotten, even, I suspect, in Boston Massachusetts. In Arizona, the Red Coats are homegrown.

Fortunately for all concerned, the police huddle-formation soon broke up and the disgruntled cops left the store. I discovered only days later that the head of their local union had been broadcasting that Starbucks had demanded that the police leave the store, which was a lie. The egos were two degrees of separation from realizing that my complaint had some validity, and they felt the need to retaliate against the company just for being asked to move out of the way. Interestingly, the barista had refused to ask the police to stop wandering through the tight-knit customer area yet decided to act when the police were near her.

Laura Ingram of Fox News had decided that I must be a criminal. For its part, Starbucks sent in a vice president, who directly or indirectly told The New York Times that I must be “anxious” and that police of any number whatsoever are welcome in any Starbucks store. Considering the retaliation against employees, or “partners,” who have held strikes or sought to unionize, it is interesting that the vice president capitulated to the local police union—even scapegoating a customer in doing so. I wonder how many customers trust the company and its management; any such trust would surely not be deserved.

The esteemed Starbucks experience, which the company advertised at the time, apparently includes being thrown under the bus (i.e., sacrificed) for making a request that might upset the company’s cosy relationship with fellow power-aggrandizers. Mendacious birds of prey often fly together, for they understand each other, just as alcoholics and drug addicts do. Using people, whether for retaliation or more money, violates Kant’s moral imperative that rational beings (including us, even as we irrationally over-populate and, in doing so, risk even our own extinction) treat other such beings not just as means, but also as ends in themselves. Kant was insistent and adamant: Telling lies violates this moral requirement of what it means ultimately to be human—to partake in rational nature.

Furthermore, as Nietzsche emphasizes in his Genealogy of Morals, an unmastered and excessive instinctual urge of resentment, especially of the strong, and indeed of the ensuing retaliation too, is a mark of being weak. The strong are advised to keep their distance from the new birds of prey. Hence, job-seekers should avoid toxic managerial cultures if possible, and at the very least be on the lookout for the telltale signs—the red flags. A pattern of telling lies is such a flag, hence it is significant when a direct contradiction can be exposed. (Potential) customers should take notice too, though the want of local alternatives can make it difficult, practically speaking, to avoid the chain. Unfettered choices require a competitive market, which as the activities of companies such as Standard Oil, Walmart, and Facebook demonstrate, can be difficult to be maintained even in a republic.

See the booklet: "Bucking Starbucks' Star."

See the essay: "Starbucks Capitulates to an Overzealous Police Union in Spite of In-Store Intimidation."

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 1. Dave Jamieson, “Starbucks Broke Law By Closing Unionized Store In Ithaca, Labor Officials Say,” Huffington Post, November 1, 2022.
 2. Ibid.
 3. Dave Jamieson, “A Starbucks Closed Abruptly—And Its Workers Say It Was Retaliation,” The Huffington Post, April 29, 2023.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

McDonald’s Over-Reach: Blending a Restaurant and a Coffee Shop

In spite of essentially flat sales in the U.S. in February 2013 from the same month in 2012, McDonald’s CEO, Don Thompson, said he was confident that the people at the company had sufficient experience to “grow the business for the long term.” Even assuming that a business can be grown as if it were a geranium plant, the claim can be critiqued both in regard to the underlying assumption regarding “growth” and that of long-term viability. Fusing a restaurant with a coffee shop can be said to be an over-reach that had blended the company too much, at least at the store level.
In regard to the company’s long-term viability, changes in the business environment were important. The fast-food industry had obviously changed from 1970 to 2010, as did American society. As restaurant chains like McDonald's gained substantial economies of scale with the proliferation of restaurants, the increasing popularity of healthy meals gradually undercut the prospects for continued growth.

From "Americana" to "Enjoy Getting Fat": A change in the business environment in the last quarter of the twentieth century in the U.S. that impacted McDonalds at its core.    source: McDonalds.com

The management at McDonald's did relatively well in introducing healthy alternatives to its menu by 2010. The strategy also included blending the restaurant with a coffee shop experience, the enjoyment of which had also expanded due to Starbucks. To cut into that market, McDonald's introduced new drinks, such as smoothies, mochas and lattes, and added wireless internet service. As a result of having adjusted to the health-conscious and coffee shop mini-cultures in the business environment, McDonald’s U.S. sales rose 11.1% in February 2012 from the year before.[1] By 2013, Burger King was renovating its restaurants and adding "coffee shop" drinks too. Even so, the flat McDonald's sales figure in February 2013 was a bit of a surprise. Although the problem could have been the newly introduced fish product, I suspect that the market may have been questioning McDonald’s expansion into the coffee shop business as being an over-reach even it did enjoy certain synergies.
McDonald's was admittedly poised to give Starbucks a "run for its money" concerning that the giant coffeeshop chain had gotten away with mass-producing drinks to sell as premium prices. That coffee chain was essentially charging a premium price for non-premium products, given the manner of production. Even though McDonald's could undercut Starbucks on price and thus potentially gain market share, a McDonald's facility looked and functioned more like a restaurant than a coffeeshop where people would feel comfortable hanging out and getting work done or socializing. 
Adding to the discordance was the decision of McDonald's management to continue to stress the “dollar menu” for the “budget conscious” customer. Put somewhat delicately, the business strategy assumed that two very different market segments would co-exist in the same room. Starbucks had the same problem because of its "third place" policy, wherein people could hang out without purchasing anything. I know of at least one Starbucks' store in which the number of homeless "customers" has driven out otherwise paying customers. McDonald's management, through at least the 2010's, was essentially blurring the company's identity by seeking continued sales growth by trying to combine a restaurant with a coffee shop.
In general terms, a company’s senior management (or board of directors) should not get so caught up with important changes in the business environment that the resulting strategic change involves trying to remake the company into something the company is not. A fast-food restaurant is not a coffee shop. Although some people in the fast-food crowd would relish mocha, blending the social distance between the two cultures could result in a bitter drink that satisfies nobody. Had McDonald's management concentrated simply on adding new healthy fast-food (i.e., restaurant) products, sales would probably have improved without risking an identity crisis at the restaurant level. Alternatively, McDonald's could have built real coffee shops, with suitable furniture and decor, and synergies could still have existed. Perhaps fusing different lines of business, in cases in which each has a distinct culture and customer base, is not wise. To keep up with societal shifts and profit from them while not blurring the business’s identity is the sort of balance that a corporate management should attempt to reach and sustain in formulating strategy over the long-term.

For a critique of Starbucks, see Bucking Starbucks' Star, available at Amazon. 

1. Candice Choi, “McDonald’s Sales Drop Despite New Fish McBites,” The Huffington Post, March 8, 2013.

Starbucks’ CEO Triggering Conversations on Race

Should a company’s CEO use the vast tentacles of the local retail stores to prompt public discourse on race in America? Even though improving race relations is a good cause, extending a CEO’s personal influence beyond the products societally requires its own justification. For a week in March 2015, baristas at 12,000 Starbucks coffee shops implemented CEO Howard Schultz’s intent to “spark customer conversation on the topic of race.”[1] Schultz even made a video in which he told the baristas how they should steer their respective conversations. If this sounds a bit like George Orwell’s Big Brother in the novel, 1984, the question may be whether such societal influence is legitimate from a position of management in business.

Perhaps Shultz ought to devote some time to figuring out some better places for electric outlets in the stores. The middle-underside of a long table is not so good on knees. Put another way, if the management can't get something as simple as that right, what makes them think they can manage conversations on a controversial issue? 

The complete essay is at "Under Starbucks' Star."