Biography of Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz is an American Businessman that known as the chairman and CEO of Starbucks and a former owner of Seattle Supersonics. He is born on 19 July 1953 in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from Northern Michigan University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication before becoming the director of retail operations and marketing for the Starbucks Coffee Company in 1982. In year 1987, he purchased Starbucks and become CEO and chairman of the company after founding the coffee company II Giornale. He announced that he was resigning as CEO of Starbucks in 2000 but after 8 years, he returned to lead the company. Starbucks had more than 21000 stores worldwide and a market cap of $60 billion. He is currently stayed in Seattle with his wife, Sheri (Kersch) Schultz, and two children, Jordan and Addison.

Entrepreneurial traits that demonstrated by Howard Schultz

1.      Observant

Observant means quick to notice and observe things. The leader will make the changes instantly when they realize the problem have been occurred and will affect their business. From Howard Schultz first time entered the original Starbucks store in 1981, the attractive coffee aroma lets him feels like he is at home. This feeling give him an idea to open a coffee shop. He think that this coffee shop may lead him to success in the coffee drink industry. Then, he met the founders of the company and listened about the story of the coffee. After one year meet with the founder of the Starbucks Company, he received the job as the director of retail operations and marketing for this company. Now, Starbucks had more than 21000 stores worldwide and a market cap of $60 billion.

2.      Proactive

Proactive is the creating or controlling a situation rather than just responding to it after it has happened. The leader will make the precaution towards the problem that he thought may occurs in the future but not just find the solution when the situation happened. To make sure that he really understood about his job, Howard Schultz spent most of the waking time in the four stores at Seattle. He tasting different types of coffee beans, working behind the counters, got the feedback from the customer about the coffee beans, have a good communication with the colleague, and teaching himself about the retail aspect of the coffee business. He also trains himself for the process of roasting coffee.

3.      Visionary

A visionary person means a person that has the thinking or planning for the future with imagination or wisdom that included short-term plan and long-term plan. When Howard Schultz just started work in Starbucks Company, he set the mission for himself. Later, he got an idea to sell coffee drinks instead of just selling coffee beans to the customers when he influence by the number of coffee bars that he encountered during Milan’s travel in 1983. He has an idea to open the coffee bars in Starbucks stores but the company’s creator oppose about this suggestion due to the background of the company as the coffee bean business. With his persistent towards this idea, the owner finally lets him created a coffee bar in a new store that was opening in Seattle. This idea was an instant success to Schultz and the Starbucks Company because it attracted hundreds of customers per day and help in develop the brands new product that call “café latte” in the Seattle in 1985. After the merging of II Giornale and Starbucks, he had a vision to open 2000 physical stores by the year 2000.

4.      Open risk taker

Open risk taker means a person or a business that tends to be present in a way that may cause financial loss or physical harm, but might also bring an opportunity for a rewarding outcome. The success of the coffee bar didn’t bring the original founders to follow the direction of Howard Schultz wanted to take them, but just keep their business as a coffee bean retailer instead of restaurant business. So, Howard Schultz left Starbucks in 1985 and open II Giornale, his own coffee bar chain. With the success of his company and have enough venture capital, he then purchased Starbucks two years later and combine it with II Giornale. After that, he became CEO and chairman of the Starbucks. He had to convince the investors that the Americans would pay in a higher price to get a high quality of coffee drinks, but in fact coffee bean consumption in the United States had been going down since 1962.

5.      Failure is an option

Failure is something hasn't achieved what they set out to. When someone faced failure, he may learn the lesson from it and be more careful next time. There were some projects that Starbucks failed to launch it. One of the memorable projects is Joe Magazine. This is a magazine produced by Starbucks in partnership with Time Magazine in 1999. The main reason of this project subjected to failure was the customers didn’t want to buy this magazine. This causes a big loss to Starbucks. As a reminder, Schultz kept these magazines in his office and let everyone read through these magazines to encourage them have the courage to face the failure.

      As a conclusion, Howard Schultz is a successful entrepreneur because he performs the entrepreneurial traits of observant, proactive, visionary, open risk taker and failure is an option. He is an observant leader because he can pop out an idea of selling coffee drinks through his observation in the original Starbucks for first time. Howard Schultz is also a proactive leader as he spend most of his time in tasting different types of coffee beans, work behind the counters, got the feedback from the customers, communicate with colleagues, teach himself about the retail aspect of the coffee business and even train himself for the process of roasting coffee without the order from his superior. Besides that, he also is a visionary leader. He has an idea to open a coffee bar in Starbucks stores, but this idea had been opposed by the owner of the Starbucks. Due to his persistence toward this idea, the owner let him created a coffee bar in Starbucks. He also had a vision to open 2000 stores by the year 2000. Howard Schultz is an open risk taker. He took the risk to open his own coffee bar chain, II Giornale, and then merge with Starbucks after left the Starbuck in 1985. Last but not least, Schultz is a person who holds the quote which is failure is an option. He faced the failure when he produced a magazine call Joe Magazine in partnership with Time Magazine and didn’t have customers want to buy it. Then, he kept these magazines in the office to remind everyone in the company that we need to face the failure courageously. We must learn lesson from it and take more consideration when making decision next time.

Team oriented is more stress a spirit of teamwork and collaboration that can capitalize on the individual strengths of their employees. When the teams are effective, the collective result is greater than the sum of the individual effort. A team oriented means a person who is willing to work in corporation with others. Entrepreneurs must be a team oriented in order to get things done. If entrepreneurs were proud and refused to listen to others who have walked the path he or she is currently on or even refuse to spend time interacting with others, chances are that they won’t succeed. This is because working alone leads to the whole burden lying on their shoulders and end up failing to sustain their business.

Example: Jack Dorsey – Co-founder Twitter

Jack Dorsey is an American programmer and entrepreneur that widely known as co-founder and CEO of Twitter, and not only owns 32 percent of Square, but he also serves as the Square’s CEO that is a mobile payment company. In 2008, he is one of the top 25 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In Year 2012, The Wall Street Journal gave him the “Innovator of the Year Award” for technology.

Jack Dorsey said be a leader, not a decider, because a good leader is someone who guides the people in their organization so that they can make the big decision. Not someone who issues decision down from on high. With this kind of perspective, the health of an organization depends not on the power of its leader, but on the power of its members. Because the employees can give some creative and innovative of ideas to the Jack Dorsey to make decision. Thus, it is clearly explain that Jack Dorsey is an entrepreneur that team oriented and create a friendly and teamwork environment in the Twitter.

Employees of Twitter can’t stop raving about the company’s culture. Friendly coworkers and team-oriented environment in which every employees is motivated by the company’s goals have inspired that praise. “Team meetings on the roof are the best, great teamwork and a lot of smart people”, one software engineer that work at Twitter told to the Glassdoor. The employee added that the company’s core values help steer Twitter’s in a positive direction, while a Twitter account executive said “everyone is friendly” at the company.

Outcome oriented is a term used to describe an individual or organization that focuses on outcome rather than process used to produce a product or deliver a service. The number of processes are used where the most effective and economical process is identified. An outcome oriented manager analyzes productivity of employees based on the number of tasks that he completes in a specified period and the quality of products or services done by him. The primary goal of outcome oriented is to meet objectives and positive growth.

Example: Mark Zuckerberg – co-founders Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and internet entrepreneur. He is known as one of the co-founder of the social networking website Facebook. He also is the chairman and chief executive of Facebook. In 2008, when Mark Zuckerberg at the age of 23, he became a youngest of billionaire as result of Facebook’s success and the number of Facebook users in the worldwide had been reached a total of 1billion in year 2012. Facebook has become a vital part of everyday social life, a tool for building bonds with friends and family as well as an instrument to promote what we love. Today, thanks to Facebook Graph Search, people will be able to go through photos, people, places, and business pages.

An example of an entrepreneur who is outcome oriented is Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg is a hacker and a product person. He wasn’t doing any business, but he built a music player in high school. Eventually, AOL and Microsoft wanted to buy the software and hire him. However, he turned down their offers. When he first created Facebook, he hired Sheryl Sandberg, a Google executive. Zuckerberg thinks it’s important to find people who are aligned with his vision in order to achieve something great.  He had to let go of those who were not. He focuses on hiring people that to build a powerful teams help to execute his vision.

While Sandberg is leading Facebook’s business, other people run sales, marketing, engineering, hardware, etc. Instead of doing things alone, he recruits smarter people and those who have a certain expertise in their own fields. He doesn’t need people to be good at all things, but rather really good at one thing, and together they work as a team to achieve success.

Open culture is a concept that knowledge should be spread freely and its growth should come from developing, altering or enriching already existing works on the basis of sharing and collaboration, without being restricted by rules linked to the legal protection of intellectual property.

Example: Larry page – CEO and Co-Founder of Google.Co

Larry Page holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University. Larry Page is an American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who co-founded Google Inc. with Sergey Brin in 1998 and is the CEO of Google’s parent company until 2001 and grow the company to more than 200 employees and profitability. From 2001 to 2011, Larry was president of products. As a Google’s chief executive officer, he is responsible for day-to-day operation and leading the company’s product development and technology strategy.  Now, Google is one of the top software as a service (SaaS) vendors with its Gmail and Google Drive products.

Larry page is an open culture entrepreneur because he urges his employees to believe in crazy ideas and accept to all ideas that the employees provide. He believe that those ideas are the ideas “that could really change the world”. In order to have a more active management approach at Google, Larry Page strives to work quickly and encourages faster decision to be made. So, Larry Page asks the staff to give him updates on their current projects so he can constantly be involved and also can be efficient in decision making.  Larry is an introvert, so that he more likely to hear other people’s creative and innovative ideas.

Although Googlers share common goals and visions for the company, Googlers hail from all walks of life and speak dozens of languages and reflecting the global audience that they serve. They strive to maintain the open culture often associated with startups that everyone is feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions.

Failure is an option is a trait that a person can choose whether to be failed or succeed in the future. You can avoid to be failed and do your best to recover gracefully and be successful in the future. This is because nobody wants to fail.

Example: Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah – Failure is an option

Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah, the CEO of Sunway Group. He was born in Pusing, a small town near Ipoh in Malaysian state of Perak. He finished his secondary school at SMK Sultan Commander in Batu Gajah. And after that, he have his business degree at Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. After he finished his degree, he work as an accountant. Then he had invested RM100, 000 to start his tin mining business.

After a few years, the tin have been mine finished. Therefore, Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah decided to change his mining tin work to the mining sand and quarries. The good achievement and performance has made his company to be listed in the Bursa Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.

By the year of 1987, Sunway Holdings Berhad has suffered a huge losses that nearly wiped out the fund of the shareholders. And also by the year of 1997, countries from all around the world experienced an economic crisis. But Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah does not take his emotion when he is making any decision because of the huge losses. He is always in calm and solve all his problems. Normally the activity to expand a business will not running smoothly, there might be some hitch and an entrepreneur may experience some failures along the time, but it is necessary to learn from the mistake to grow. Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah, learn from his mistake has led him back to strengthen his company’s foundation.

As a conclusion, failures are always an option for Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah. By the time the tin is going finished out, Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah decided to choose another path, change his mining work to mining sand and quarries. And also he never take his bad emotion when he is making any decision that might influence the future of his company. And after experiencing many crises over the years, he has been successful in developing his Bandar Sunway although originally many people may have lack confidence in his ability.

Visionary is a trait that in person, who can think or plan the future with imagination or wisdom. A visionary person also can be defined as a person who with a clear, distinctive, and specific vision of the future. 

Example: Akihiko Otsuka – Visionary

Akihiko Otsuka, son of Masahito Otsuka, the second Chairman of Otsuka Pharmaceutical. When the age of 35, Akuhiko Otsuka became the head of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Factory.

In year 1973, the head of the development department, Rokuro Harima has introduced Akihiko Otsuka the idea of intravenous fluids to drink. However, Akihiko Otsuka said it is not the right time to produce intravenous fluids for drinking. In the year of 1976, when Akihiko Otsuka became the third Chairman of Otsuka Pharmaceutical, he felt that it was the right time to produce the intravenous fluids for drinking because at that time, Japanese societies were putting their first priority to their health.

After the experiments that time taken for nearly three years, Akihisa Takaichi has manages to create an infusion fluids and decided to market it with the name of “Pocari Sweat”. In April 1980, the sales of Pocari Sweat have begun. Marketing department of Pocari Sweat started their distribution to public in the local area because they refused and did not believe these products will be sold in their stores. And at the same time, Akihiko Otsuka made a decision to continue the distribution of the drinks, Pocari Sweat for free with a mass in the sport area, sauna and working area. Although the company is making a heavy loss during that time, Akihiko Otsuka continues to perform the free distribution of the drinks as he was convinced that the drink, Pocari Sweat will be successful and profitable to the company in the future. In year 1981, the demand from the public for Pocari Sweat is increasing as the weather on that time is increasing hot. Finally, Pocari Sweat has attracted the interest of all the community and was well known throughout Japan as well as other countries.

As a conclusion, Akihiko Otsuka is a visionary man. He believes that there will be a right time to create a new healthy beverage product with the idea of Rokuro Harima as well as never give up when the experiment. Up to now, Pocari Sweat is sold in 16 countries. But then, at the year of 2014, 11^th of November, Akihiko Otsuka died and the cause was cardiac arrest.

Observant is a trait that a person can notice thing quickly and someone who is always alert all the time in an environment. He or she will also paying close attention to the details of something that there are interested on.

Example: Anthony Fernandes – Observant

Anthony Fernandes, the current Director of Air Asia Bhd. and also the founder of Tune Talk Sdn. Bhd., was born in Kuala Lumpur on 30 April 1964. He finished his primary studies at The Alice Smith School in Kuala Lumpur. And starting at age 12, from the year 1977 to 1983, he had his secondary studies at Epsom College, which is a boarding school in England. After that, he continued his studies at the London School of Economics and he graduated with a degree in accounting.

Upon his graduate, Anthony Fernandes has work at Virgin Atlantic as an auditor, and subsequently, he has becoming the financial controller of the Richard Brannson’s Virgin Records in London from 1987 to 1989. Fernandes has become an Associate Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) at the year of 1991 and also became a Fellow Member in 1996.

In October 2011, Fernandes came to meet up with the Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. Mahathir advised Fernandes to buy an existing airline, Air Asia, the heavily indebted subsidiary of Malaysia Government which facing a massive losing. Fernandes mortgaged his personal belongings as well as his personal savings to acquire the company. In 1 year time, Air Asia had broken even and cleared all its debts. Its initial public offering (IPO) in November 2004 oversubscribed by 130 per cent.

As a conclusion, Anthony Fernandes is an observant entrepreneur. He knew that the current economic of each country, each person who may not effort a high cost of flight ticket, therefore he introduced the first budget no-frills airline to public, with the tagline “Now everyone can fly.”. After the introduction of the budgeted airline year by year, revenue performance of this company moving up and up. This also showed that Fernandes managed to turn Air Asia from a failing government-linked commercial airline into a highly successful budget airline and also as a listed company in Bursa Malaysia.