Not About the Coffee book notes

It's Not About the Coffee, Howard Behar. Now I have to read Howard Schultz's book, too.

In a nutshell, it's about the people. Your customers and your employees. Seth says the same thing, but so many companies and employees just don't get it.

• Have a BHAG -- Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
• Serious runners visualize a 110-yard dash (in a 100-yard race). 
• We expend time, money and effort taking care of ourselves and our image rather taking care of others. We get tangled in our underwear, in our individual concerns, individual results, and individual resumes. We lose sight of why we're here and what we're trying to accomplish. 
• Critical mass and the 100th monkey. We lead and make a difference by doing what is right. You make lots of things happen if you don't worry about who gets the credit. 
• If you are not able to work on your dreams, if you're only working on work, you're not in the right place. 
• "Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirit." -- studs terkel in working.
• The person who sweeps the floor should choose the broom.
• It's all too easy to get caught up in the following the rule book rather than meeting the true needs of the people we serve. 
• Ideally, management should never tell someone how to do something or what to feel. 
• Guidelines we need to as a set of standards or expectations. Rules drive me crazy. 
• Instead of writing manuals that lock people into dehumanizing behaviour, we should focus on outcomes we want and the reasons behind them.
• Sweeper / picks broom -- Once everyone has come to an agreement about what needs to be accomplished, then the people with the hands-on expertise can follow through in the most effective way. 
• Bruce Nostrom: about providing freedom as the primary job of the employer: freedom to serve, freedom to make decisions right on the spot, and a management willing to live with those decisions. 
• Take the time to explain what needs to be done and why.
• I ask them to think wisely but act independently. Or know why you're here and act accordingly. 
• Care. People don't care how much you know. They want to know how much you care. -- saying. 
• Care, like we mean it. 
• Caring isn't easy, and it isn't the same as being nice. It's about words and actions that everybody sees and recognizes. 
• If we have a problem, we bet on the human spirit and believe that when people come together, face-to-face, the human connection wins out.
• Small is beautiful, book -- "The fundamental task is to achieve smallness within a large organization."
• Listening. Paying attention to all the things the customers weren't saying or asking. Have your antennae up anywhere and everywhere. 
• I'd listen to the walls.
• Listening to the unspoken. We needed to meet their needs -- not our own. We needed to truly listen and care. 
• Compassionate emptiness involves listening with compassion but without preconceived notions. Full of compassion but empty of solutions.
• You get to the bottom of a lot of problems quickly by trusting the silence to reveal the heart of things. 
• When money isn't the driving force, there are lots of things you do to make the work meaningful, to make the experience better, to serve your customers better.
• A crisis demands the truth -- to ourselves and to others. It demands that we know, and remind ourselves, why we're here, what we're trying to accomplish, and where we're headed as an individual and as an organization. 
• We are always human beings first.
• Every organization can survive catastrophe if its people are open and honest and accept responsibility.
• People have always come first.
• Start finding ways to say yes as a matter of practice.
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