Leadership Thoughts

I just started Tribal Knowledge today. I’ve been meaning to start on it for a while and decided this week it would start my attempt to seriously plow through some leadership books this summer. When done I’ll try to post some thoughts/review.

But only a few pages into it and there have already been some great thoughts.

Before I get to some of those I discovered that Starbucks calls their employees, “partners.” Moore writes, “Starbucks positioned its employees ( the company calls them partners) as the coffee experts because they were” (4). At LifeConnection we’re doing away with membership language for partnership and instead are calling the-group-formerly-known-as-members, “partners.”

Member has losts its meaning, some recently have even suggested, albeit misguidedly, that “member” is not even a biblical concept. I think this statement betrays how far away we have drifted from Paul’s notion of membership as part of a physical body. Most see membership in a church like they see membership in a country club or fitness center, it’s voluntary. But if we follow Paul’s concept of membership, it’s anything but voluntary, isn’t it? How does a foot leave the body? So partnership seems to be a more fitting concept, and like most things I’m not the first to think so (dangit Starbucks!).

Okay, that was long winded, on to some good thoughts from the book….

Tribal language is that innate language that isn’t written but only spoken, and then, only within the tribe. It elicits followership, radical commitment, inspires, and creates a certain kinds of ethos. (xii)

“Managing a brand is a lifetime of work. Brands are fragile. You have to recognize the success of Starbucks, or any company or brand, is not an entitlement. It has to be earned every day” (Howard Schultz, 3).

“Contrary to what you may have heard or thought, Starbucks never sought to create a brand. Instead, the company passionately sought to create appreciation for a better tasting cup of coffee” (3).

“It was all about the coffee and the experience, never the brand” (5). Now if this doesn’t teach us something about ministry in the church I don’t know what will. With LifeConnection I have to continually remind myself (and us) of this. We’re not trying to develop a great “brand” as the primary goal. It’s all about Jesus and his mission in our world. By focusing on Jesus and following his leading in our lives we will develop an identity. “[Starbucks] built a business of which the by-product was the creation of a strong brand” (5).

Speaking of brand-obsessed business: “Instead of spending money to improve the performance of a product or enhance the customer’s experience, many companies will attempt to build a brand by throwing money into multimillion-dollar image campaigns. The focus moves away from product devotion to the appearance of product devotion” (6).

What do you think?