When people go...

Good morning... What can I get for you?

When people leave Starbucks, it's been my observation that the company goes into "hush-hush" mode. Nobody wants to talk about it. This leads to rumor... rumor leads to misinterpretation... misinterpretation leads to... you get the rest.

I'll share with you a couple of stories that have really bothered me about a couple of folks that have left and they were never spoke of again.

I attended the going away/retirement of Wanda, a prominent leader in the company. She was tenured... and reported to Jim and Howard. Now, I know that some folks have all sorts of experiences with her and stories about how she was. Mine is that she always said "Hi, Pat!" when I saw her in the gym or otherwise... and that she was always late to spin class... Besides that, she was a little bit of a loose cannon, but I found it endearing. I'm sure many folks had issue with her... and then again many didn't. The sad part of this story was that for the contributions she did make at Starbucks, she was rewarded by minimal attendance at her going away. I was personally sad to think of how she felt that not many leaders came and not many other partners... You see, when people go from a company such as Starbucks, you have a duty to go beyond the "good luck" and then never speak their name again. You have a duty to remember them... to find the good that they accomplished. To go to their damned going away parties. More importantly, the leadership makes sure they go and they encourage others to go. It's called "modeling behavior"

Let me share another going away story... One Friday morning, I saw my friend Joe packing up a few items and being whisked away. There was simply a note on his keyboard that said "On vacation"... or something like that. All of his stuff was there. No word that Joe was fired, or quit, or was promoted to customer. Then the rumors started... and the person that was Joe became this unrecognizable partner who was whisked out. It floored me that leadership sent no message to the department with something like, "We're sorry to announce that Joe will be leaving us effective today. While we can't share any details, we can tell you that anytime we lose a partner it affects us all... and then some crap about how to talk to your "generalist" or company lackey about it, if you have concerns.

Now, I've heard many stories about Wanda and Joe... and why they left. I'm sure some of it is true and some not... The point of this story is that when leadership doesn't say ANYTHING about a partner's departure, they're saying something else. My feeling is that it says "We're scared... we want this to just go away"... and that my friends is no way to be a servant leader.

Now, I know some of you have some of these stories as well. Please feel free to share them in the comments if you like... or not.

We'll see you tomorrow for your usual...

Pat Nerr...