If it Captures Your Imagination, it will captivate others.

Often, organizations need bold, grand gestures to galvanize people towards a new mission or refocus their attention.

When I returned as CEO in 2008, Starbucks had forgotten that meaningful innovations balance an organization's heritage with modern-day relevance and market differentiation, so we had to reorient. In one brainstorming session, we visited and observed great retailers, then asked ourselves, 'If Starbucks did not exist, what type of coffee experience would we create?

Social and digital media is a bullet train, and that bullet train is not coming home.

We woke up one day, and all the sudden Starbucks was in the middle of this political crossfire between the people who want to bring a gun into Starbucks and the people who want to prevent it. It is a very difficult, fragile situation.

Success is the by-product when you work toward the target.

We are not in the coffee business serving people, we are in the people business serving coffee.