Starbucks Note - Transparent Communication

I am reading the book "Onward" by Howard Schultz and this is one paragraph that is talking about Howard's hobby of writing that I want to share:

"Writing helped me stay in touch with myself as well as our people, and I resurrected one of my favorite modes of communication: composing frequent memos to Starbucks' parners. Sometimes these memos apprised people of the later decisions being made, like changes to the leadership team."

Running a business never takes one person. It is a team sport and communication plays a big role to hold all people on the same page. We have to hold the communication line with employees. We have to hold the communication line with customers. We have to hold the communication line with the market. The benefits of communication constantly are people understand you before you open your mouth and it makes the decision process so much easier and quicker. I think most of the time, we don't speak loud enough for what we believe and what we stand for; therefore, distraction and confusion are easy to mess up our communication line. Also, the communication needs to be transparency. Whoever and whatever organization want to grow, they must be opened to be vulnerable and communicate honestly to all partners related to them.

(A good source of writing in a powerful way: http://coe.jmu.edu/LearningToolbox/power.html)

I learned another technique of communication from the CEO of Starbucks called "open forum". What I like about this is like a democracy platform so all people, especially employees, can get their voices out to be listened. When people truly believe their leaders are listening, they will put faith in them and join hands in whatever the organization are fighting for. Here is a small share of reading:

"To more formally  involve our partners, I reinstated regularly scheduled open forum. Similar to a town hall meeting, an open forum has always been an opportunity for partners to hear directly from me or other senior leaders, especially on the heels of major public announcements. Our open forums are brief and unscripted, and anyone can ask any question with no fear of retribution. They bring all of us together face-to-face, which helps establish some of the emotional connection lacking in phone calls and emails. Over the years, our forums have yield creative tension and critical feedback, which is good for the organization. But in the past two years, open forum had become less frequent. Now they were back, at least once a quarter." 

For a dose of inspiration, I can feel the CEO is an optimistic leader who always end the writing of each chapter with a positive message. Take a read at this:

"My first memo, "Transformation Agenda Communication #1" was emailed January 7 , 2008, the day I tool over as CEO. By early March I had written more than 10 such memos. All of them concluded with the same word. A word that alluded to the power of our past as well as the potential of our future. 

A word that implied passion as well as planning and spoke to the confidence with which we had to forge ahead, despite daunting hurdles. And a word that implied a willingness o dig deep and get hands dirty, but always with heads held high.

A word I had first written more than 20 years before: "Onward."

Being optimistic, being ready for whatever happens, and being so content at the present moment are those characteristics that I can feel from this CEO.

Onward.