Welcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I break down the key learnings by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple that you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. And today's guest is Kevin Johnson, the CEO of Starbucks. But before we go any further, I just have to ask you a question. Do you ever feel like your organization is super duper complex like it takes forever to get anything done? Well, if so, congratulations, you are normal. It's a pretty common issue, especially if you lead in a big organization or one that's growing quickly. Now obviously, Starbucks is a massive company. They operate in 82 countries with something like 383,000 employees, but they're still able to innovate and adapt quickly. In fact, they have a saying I love. They can go from idea to action in 100 days. This works because Kevin uses something called distributed leadership, where associates are empowered to make decisions themselves. But they're also given common values and a strategy that guides them. Kevin tells us how we can use the same principles to stop getting bogged down and instead unleash some really great energy and innovation in our own organizations. So here is my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Kevin Johnson. Kevin, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us. Well, David, it's great to be here with you today. You know, I've done a little homework and I understand you and I were both fans of the great late John Wooden. I actually spent a morning with him at his home, his apartment in Encinito, California, and I interviewed him on leadership. It was just a fascinating morning because I had a leadership program. I used to teach at Young Brands. What made you become such a fan of John Wooden? Well, growing up, my father played basketball when he was a young man and he would talk to me about one of the greatest coaches in NCAA basketball. This is probably when I'm six, seven, eight years old and he would tell me about the great John Wooden. In fact, my father got his PhD from Washington State University and my father would tell me stories about when the UCLA Bruins came to Pullman Washington to play the Washington State University Cougars. My father would sneak into the gymnasium the day before the game, sit in the empty bleachers up high just to watch Coach Wooden and the UCLA Bruins practice. And he described it as basketball poetry. And so as a young man, I fell in love with the game of basketball and every Saturday, that would get on television and try and find out if the UCLA Bruins were on TV and could I watch them? And so he was an influential person early in my life. And I did get to meet him later in life and he signed one of his books for me. He said, on the car, he said to Kevin, "Always keep your socks pulled up, Coach Wood." And so I love that. That's right. That was the fundamentals that he always talked about. But he was an amazing band. And unfortunately, Kevin, you and I also share something else in common. We've both been diagnosed with cancer. And when you look back on that, and I know this was 2012, what impact did that have on how you thought about business and life in general? Well, David, I'd say it had a significant impact on how I think about life and that's probably translated to the way I think about all aspects of life, personal and business. People often ask me, "How did someone who spent 32 years in the tech industry end up running a coffee company?" And I share the story with them that 32 years in the tech industry and 16 wonderful years at Microsoft, and then I stepped in to be the CEO of Juniper Networks in Silicon Valley and was focused on that when one day at just an annual physical, the doctor asked, "How long have you had that mole on your arm?" And I said, "Well, it doesn't look unfamiliar." He said, "Well, I want you to go in tomorrow and we're going to take a look at it." And well, it turns out it was melanoma. And after two or three surgeries to get margins, the next question was, "Did the cancer get in your bloodstream and lymph nodes and other parts of your body?" So I was trying to still do my job as CEO of Juniper Networks and focus on my health. And one day I found myself at the San Francisco International Airport about to board a United Flight to Europe for business, and I had just called and canceled my doctor's appointments for the week. And so as I sat there in the waiting lounge to board that flight, I thought to myself and asked myself the question, "Why, through my actions, am I prioritizing a business trip to Europe over everything that matters to me? My health, my life, my family, the people I love?" And I decided at that moment that for the rest of my life, I would only do things that are joyful with people I love. And so I'd called the Juniper Board and shared with them that I was planning to retire, that I would stay until they had a successor and a new CEO in the seat. But I retired with no intention of ever going back into an operating role with the view that life is short and you want to do things that are joyful with people you love. And so in many ways, that's the principles that I live to to this day. And it's really changed the way I think about everything in life. Wow. Well, out in the world you end up at Starbucks. Well, you know, I had joined the Starbucks Board in 2009, you know, several years before I was diagnosed with cancer. And when Howard Schultz stepped back in as CEO in 2008, 2009, he needed somebody who could bring some technology expertise to the Starbucks Board and he invited me to join the Board and which I did. So I'd been on the Starbucks Board for a number of years when I retired and I was still on the Board as I focused on my health. In fact, my wife and I moved back into our home in Seattle and I spent over a year focusing on my health and spending time with our two sons, wishing I'd spent more time with them when they were younger and enjoying life. And one day, Howard called and asked if I would come have lunch with him and I said, "Sure." And I came down to just have a casual lunch with Howard and he shared with me that he thought, you know, at some point he was thinking about his transition to the next phase of his life and had asked, you know, if I might be interested in someone who could succeed him and take the transition and lead Starbucks into the future. And that started the dialogue between Howard and myself. You know, I must say I shared with him, you know, he knew I had cancer. He asked how my health was and I said, "My health is good, Howard. I've been able to focus on it for over a year now." And but I said, you know, I'm not going back into an operating role. That's not my plan. But it was about two months later, Howard and I had had a number of discussions at dinner with my wife one evening that my wife June said to me, she said, "Kevin, you know, I know you and Howard are having this conversation and you're struggling with this decision." She said, "Here's my perspective." She said, "First of all, you love Starbucks and you love Howard." She said, "This brings you joy." She said, "If you think this would be fun, I think you should consider it. If it's not fun, don't consider it. But whatever you decide, don't look back 10 years from now and say, "I wish I would have." And I picked up the phone and called Howard the next morning and here I am. You have an amazing wife. You know, that's great. I love that story. And now you're leading this transformation of Starbucks from being founder led to being founder inspired. You know, we were talking about John Wooden a little bit earlier. It was tough to follow John Wooden. That was a phrase because he was so good at what he did. You followed Howard Schultz. What was the biggest thing you learned from Howard Schultz? Well, first of all, I kind of was reflecting. You know, I've worked with founders for over 20, the last 20-some years of my life and, you know, certainly working closely on the senior leadership team with Bill Gates for a number of years at Microsoft and then Pradeep Sindhu at Juniper Networks and then the last, you know, what 12 years or so with Howard. You know, I've got a special place in my heart for founders. They're special people. You know, clearly they have a vision. They have an idea. They have a drive. They know how to bring people together. And so I've got this great appreciation for, you know, oftentimes the most significant transition that any company goes through is what I call from a founder-led to a founder- inspired company. You know, I learned many things from Howard. Probably one of the most important things that he shared with me and, you know, he teaches is that, you know, not every decision is a financial one. He says, in fact, every major decision you make for Starbucks, he said, " Imagine two chairs in front of you." And one of those empty chairs represents the Starbucks partners, the people who work for Starbucks, the 400,000 Starbucks partners who proudly wear the green apron, and the other chair represents our customers. You know, the over 100 million customers per week that we serve. And he said, "You ask yourself one question. If I make this decision, will it make our partners and our customers proud?" And I think that's a great lesson because it says that not every decision is a financial one. And I think about the impact and the implications it has on people. And are you taking care of people? Are you putting people ahead of profit? And will it make them proud? And in many ways, that's what the Starbucks brand stands for, and that's what he built over many decades. That is a powerful word picture, you know, of those two chairs. You know, how do you operationalize that notion? Well, you know, one of the things that I really spend a lot of time on, and I really feel this great sense of responsibility to, is to have the wisdom to know what to honor and preserve from the past, and the courage to boldly reinvent the future. And I'm reminded of this the day before we announced that Howard would be stepping down to CEO and that I would succeed him. The day before, we took the leadership team, there are about 12 of us, and we closed the Starbucks store, the Pike Place store, the very first Starbucks that it all started from. We closed that store early, about 6 o'clock in the evening, and Howard, myself, and the leadership team met at that store. And for those who have been to that store, you know, there's no tables and chairs. It's a store that originally sold, roast and ground coffee, and we make beverages there. But it's got a wooden floor, hard wooden floor, that for over four decades, you know, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people have walked on. And we sat together as a leadership team on that hard wooden floor, and we shared stories. Howard shared stories about, you know, the early days at Starbucks and what Starbucks meant to him, and each one of the leaders shared personal stories about what Starbucks meant to them. And at one point, Howard stood up and he reached into his pocket, and he pulled out a key, and he said, "Kevin, this is my personal key to the Pike Place store. It's a key that I have carried for decades." And he said, "Today, I want to present you with this key as a symbol of this transition." Now, David, I carry that key with me to this date, and that key is a reminder of that responsibility I have to have the wisdom to know what to honor and preserve from the past, and the courage to boldly reimagine the future. And it is that balance that's required to lead a great company like Starbucks Forward into the future. You know, Kevin, that's such an incredible shared experience that you had with your team and Howard. How important do you think it is for leaders to create a shared experience like that where people say, "We did this," or "We did that"? Yeah, I think it's extremely important. I think, you know, I believe that shared experiences are what create shared beliefs and common language and a shared vision for the future. It's through shared experiences that you build trust. It's through shared experiences that you collectively build an emotional connection to a mission. And once you are grounded in an emotional connection to a mission and relationships on the leadership team that are based on trust, transparency, and teamwork, then you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. But the way to create that is through shared experiences. And so I'm a big believer in creating those shared experiences and romancing those shared experiences and creating rituals that remind us all of the things that are important and the things that we stand for and the things that we believe in together and why we are on this mission together. Because, you know, especially at times of adversity, you know, that's when that common connection to a mission and those values matter. They matter the most. And teams will rise to the occasion. And, you know, I just reflecting on the last six months with, you know, COVID- 19 and a global pandemic. And the pride that I have for how my Starbucks partners have, you know, really navigated this and that -- and we've navigated it because we are a team. And we were grounded emotionally in the mission of the company. And we led based on principles and the values that we stood for. And that will serve us well for decades to come. >> You know, Kevin, you mentioned you worked at Microsoft and I understand you were in the core team with Bill Gates and then you were the CEO of Juniper, which was a networking company, cybersecurity company. How have you leveraged that technology background as the CEO of Starbucks? I mean, I know you've done a lot of exciting things. >> Well, if you think about what's happening in the retail industry in general, and certainly it's true in food and beverage as well, is, you know, like any industry, there 's a major disruption taking place and much of it has to do with the impact that digital can have on a brick and mortar business. But, you know, I've sort of been clear that my belief is that the two transformative elements of modern day retail are number one, you've got to create a customer experience in your brick and mortar presence that is a destination, that customers seek out that destination. And number two, you have to extend that customer experience in your brick and mortar store to a digital mobile relationship. And so technology plays a significant role in, I think, all aspects of modern day retail. Now, at Starbucks, you think about what we differentiate ourselves on and we create is this experience of connecting with other human beings over a cup of coffee or cup of tea in our stores. And so, you know, much of what we try to do is use technology to really enable human beings to be more human. And you know, in a lot of ways that digital customer relationship combined with the way that we use technology in our stores is part of what creates that experience. Kevin, you talk about what you call distributed leadership. You know, I've never really heard that phrase before. You know, what is it and why is it so important? Well, here's, I guess, my experience has been that, you know, when a company starts and it's a young company and it's a startup company, it's a very centralized leadership model. You know, there's a founder and there's some number of people in the company and the decisions are really made by that founder, that central leader. But as any business grows in scale, scale and complexity can become the enemy of speed and agility. And oftentimes what happens in large companies is that, you know, sort of the bureaucracy and the scale and complexity slows the company down to where they're not able to make decisions fast enough. They're not able to transform fast enough. They're not able to innovate fast enough. And so, you know, I'm a believer that you can unleash that innovation. You can unleash that energy throughout the organization in what I call a distributed leadership model. To do that, you have to be, you have to have a mission, a common mission that creates that emotional connection to each and every person that's contributing. You have to live by a set of common values that are understood and are built through shared experiences. And then you have to be very clear about the strategy and where you're going. But from there, you empower people. You empower people to make decisions. You empower people to create. With empowerment comes accountability. So people have to learn. If I'm empowered and I make a decision, I have to be accountable for my decision. But I'll just take, you know, I'll just take through COVID-19. You know, we set three simple principles for how we were going to navigate this global pandemic. And we set these three principles back in January when this started to unfold in China. And those three simple principles are number one, prioritize the health and well-being of our Starbucks partners and the customers we serve. Number two, partner with government and local health officials to help contain the virus. And number three, show up. Show up in a positive and responsible way in every community we serve. Now with those three simple principles, we made hundreds of decisions a week in 82 countries around the world. And they were made by distributed leadership. They were made by the leaders in those markets. And they stayed true to those principles, true to our values, true to our mission. And as a result, you know, I think we've navigated this and actually created, you know, the store protocols and the operating capabilities for us to just continue to operate in the COVID world until there's a vaccine or there's therapeutics. So you know, that concept of distributed leadership has really served us well over the last six months and really been strengthened by what we've had to navigate just here recently. Your company has known, your brand has known so much for its focus on its customers and the baristas and how they'll mention your name personally and all that. It's great to see and it's great to see that kind of customer focus. Do you have a personal process that you use to stay on top of the needs of the customer? Well, you know, I spend a lot of time, you know, I spend a significant amount of my time connecting with partners. We call everyone that works at Starbucks a partner. So I connect a lot of my time with partners in our stores who are close to customers. But you know, we've also transformed the way we do innovation at Starbucks. You know, we've gone from what I consider a long cycle innovation approach to one where we embrace the mantra of going from idea to action in 100 days and then learn and adapt. If you have some event that happened at Starbucks where you said, you know, we 've got to change things around here. We got to get more sense of urgency. Remember when that light bulb went off in your head? Well, if I think about the number one complaint Howard had when I was when he was, you know, here CEO and I joined as chief operating officer to begin this transition, the one complaint he had is any project we had, the minimum amount of time was going to be 18 months and then it took longer after that. So he's like, why can't we get anything done faster than a year and a half? And so I started thinking about it. And actually what I did was I took all of the things that I learned in the tech industry over a 32 year period about innovating and developing software and bringing innovation to the market rapidly and basically embrace that at Starbucks. And so the first thing I had to do was realize that the reason things were taking so long is that people were afraid to take risk and they wanted everything to be perfect. And so they said, hey, I have to, you know, if there's 32,000 people, I have to say, you have 32,000 Starbucks stores, I have to have the perfect solution that works in 32,000 Starbucks stores and that's going to take a long time. But if I said, hey, I just want to try something in 10 Starbucks stores and if 80% of it is right, then I embrace what I learned and then I adapt and I correct the other 20% and then we deploy it to 100 stores. So we just changed the methodology simply because I'm a believer that, you know , as I said, scale and complexity are the enemy of speed and agility and any company that does not have speed and agility in a world that's changing rapidly is going to fall behind. And that's how, and, you know, and if you fall behind, that's how you end up getting in trouble. So this was one of the things that I knew had to happen. Now to do that, we, you know, we had to bring in, you know, we had to, we had a number of Starbucks partners that just embraced that concept. We injected it with some new talent that new fundamentals around human-centered design and agile work environments and we just blended the team together. We then built like a 20,000 square foot incubation lab, basically modeled it after a Silicon Valley incubation lab, 20,000 square feet downstairs here in our headquarters building, support center here in Seattle. And so now they do innovation down there. And so it's not done, you know, in your silo of whatever organization or team you're on, it's done in cross-functional teams. It happens rapidly. It's transparent. And it has really changed, it's changed the sort of the, our ability to do things quickly and do things that impact the customer. It has strengthened our understanding of what customers' needs and wants and preferences are to where people understand when they're designing something. They know how to design it to support our partners and design it in a way that 's relevant to our customers. And I tell them, if you can innovate in a way that inspires Starbucks partners and is relevant to our customers and meaningful to our business, that's the trifecta. Inspire partners, relevant to customers and meaningful to the business and then just learn and adapt as fast as we can, take the risk. It's better to take risk and celebrate the learnings and then adapt things rapidly than to sit back for two or three years and wait for something to happen. We're going to be dead by then. We've got to move. Well, what innovation are you most proud of that's happened as a CEO? Well, you know, there's a lot of little things that have gone into our stores and then there's a lot of bigger things. And if I think on the tech side, I think what we call the digital flywheel is very well known, the mobile app and the rewards program. But in the last year, year and a half, I think our technology team around artificial intelligence has done some phenomenal things. We spun up an artificial intelligence group and we developed a platform that we call Deep Brew, you know, just like the coffee, Deep Brew. And this artificial intelligence now, we've used it in our stores to now start to predict and do inventory management. Artificial intelligence can do a better job predicting how much inventory to order for a store. Artificial intelligence, you know, when Deep Brew does that, it reduces the amount of time a partner has to spend counting inventory and deciding what to order. That frees up time for them to connect with their customer. Deep Brew can predict, you know, how many partners we need at a certain time of day in every store and they can do a better job than human beings to figuring that out . And by doing that, it's really done two things. It's given us more time for our partners, Green Apron partners to connect with customers in our stores and we've actually made their jobs easier. So those are some simple things that matter a lot. You've talked about the importance of creating human connections and customer connections. That's your purpose. You know, when you think about yourself as a leader, Kevin, what do you see your purpose in the world? If I think about sort of how I grew up and what shaped me, you know, in my journey of self-discovery, you kind of go back to, you know, what your life is a child and how you grew up. And you know, my mother was the pediatric nurse in Los Alamos, New Mexico. And so she's one of the most compassionate people I know. She, you know, every parent in Los Alamos that had a young child that went to that doctor's, they knew my mom. So if you went to the grocery store with my mom, she knew everyone in town that had a child. And my father was a physicist. And so the combination of, you know, my father's intellect with my mother's compassion is kind of who I am. And so, you know, in a lot of ways, you know, I believe I play a role in being a bridge builder, bringing people together. I play a role in, you know, helping co-create and solve hard problems, and I play a role in enabling people to achieve aspirations. They didn't think possible. And so, you know, for me, that's, I get my energy from people. I get my energy from, you know, being a part of a team. I get my energy from creating an environment where a group of people can come together and connect through shared experiences towards a common mission and then work together and achieve something they never thought possible. And that, and doing that is joyful. And so that's kind of how I'm wired. Yeah. And, you know, you've made innovation such a big part of what you do. How do you think about innovating and reinventing yourself? Well, you know, I've always believed in being a lifelong learner, which in many ways requires you to constantly be willing to push outside of your comfort zone. And you know, throughout my life, you know, I started off as a systems engineer and, you know, when an opportunity arose at IBM for me to switch from being a systems engineer to being in sales and marketing, I thought, you know, I can do that. So let me go give it a try. And so I made that change and, you know, it was still tech-based, but I had to learn a completely new function and a new role. And I grew from that. You know, when, you know, when an opportunity, you know, and I kind of saw this whole technology disruption with personal computing and graphical user interfaces and I got, became enamored with sort of the future of that where it was going. And, you know, then it was sort of an opportunity to say, wow, how, what if I went to work for this company called Microsoft, you know, and my wife goes, you're leaving IBM and I've never heard of a company called Microsoft. What do they do? You know, that was good call. Yeah, it was a good call. But you know, that was in the early days too, where there was, you know, it was in the early 90s and, you know, Windows 3.1 was just out and it was sort of this, but you could just see this technology disruption, this wave was just going to be massive. And so, you know, to be a part of that and, you know, I took some risk and decided, you know, this is what I want to pursue. So once again, I had to learn some new things, some familiar, but some new. And so I think pushing outside your comfort zone allows you to be a lifelong learner. Now, I would have never predicted I would be, you know, leading Starbucks coffee company, but that too is an example of, you know, I think going from a career in tech into leading Starbucks, but there's many similarities, you know, in both, in most, in most all cases, it's about people. It's about people and really understanding, you know, how can you play a role in bringing people together and grounding them in some common mission and then inspiring them to pursue, you know, an aspiration and then how do we go achieve that aspiration? You know, and you talk a lot about Starbucks being authentic to what it really stands for. And, you know, Kevin, you're known, you're reputed as a very authentic leader. There's no question about that. I don't know too many people on Wall Street that have the nickname of KJ. Okay. So, you know, what is it that drives your personal authenticity? Well, I'd say that's something that I've learned the importance of it over my life. And probably earlier in my career, earlier in my life, you know, it's probably, I was far less authentic because I was always worried about how people perceived me. And so I would always try and either mask things that I thought people would perceive as weaknesses or I would try to be someone that I thought would better fit in with. And it wasn't until I got older and, you know, reflecting a little bit more on my own personal life journey that, you know, began to have a better realization of who I was and what I, and have the confidence and the courage, I guess, to, you know, to be myself . And then a breakthrough sort of happened where you figure out that the most powerful way to connect with other people is to demonstrate your own vulnerability. I mean, authenticity is about vulnerability. And oftentimes you sit here and you think, well, I must be the only one that has self-doubt and fear and uncertainty and insecurity. But you know what? Everyone on the planet has it. It's the, you know, this thing we call the human experience. It's all about, you know, fear and uncertainty and self-doubt and then overcoming that fear and uncertainty and self-doubt. That's what the hero journey is all about. And so the hero's journey in some ways you say, well, if I'm transparent and I 'm willing to be authentic, it's much more liberating for me because I don't have to pretend I can just be who I am. But it's also the most powerful of all human connectors. And so if there's any advice I would give somebody earlier in their career, I'd say, you know, really go on this journey of self-discovery and understand who you are and have the courage to be authentic. It's okay. A lot of CEOs think when you're the CEO, you've got to have the answer, believe it or think, oh, I've got to have the answer. I can't, you know, I've got to be this or I've got to be that. You know, can you give us an example where you've, you know, put yourself out there and really demonstrate your vulnerability? Well, look, I think a lot of times it's sharing personal stories that shaped you. And you know, when being diagnosed with cancer and melanoma, you know, there's periods where I tried to, you know, hide that or not necessarily be transparent about that. But then I just figured that's part of my journey and so sharing that. You know, I think at other times was, you know, when I travel around the world pre-COVID with Starbucks, you know, I visit stores and I'd say the first year or so I was in the job, I would do store visits and they were very orchestrated, David. They were, you know, basically I'd arrive at the store, the district manager would greet me, the store manager, we'd go into the store, I'd meet the Starbucks partners in the store, they'd tell me a little bit about the store format, we'd do a coffee tasting, and then it'd be time to do some photographs with the partners and then they'd load me in the car and I'd go off to the next store. And after you've done that, yeah, I bet you've done a few of those. And I thought after that, I thought, why am I, I'm not, this is not, I need something more. So I started doing round tables with Starbucks partners and I'd get five or six green apron partners and we'd sit down for an hour and a half at a table and I would just ask each one of them, share with me your life story and where did you grow up and what brought you to Starbucks and what does Starbucks mean to you and what do you aspire for in your life? And each one of them would share their stories and I share my story just like they do. And it's through those sessions and listening to their stories and the authenticity and the vulnerability they demonstrated and, and you know, my willingness to be vulnerable and authentic, it just creates this powerful connection and I learned so much more about people and they learned so much more about me and it just makes everybody comfortable. And so that's, that's kind of my, my ritual at Starbucks. That's a great way to do it. And, you know, you did lead an amazing turnaround of the business and coronav irus hits. You know, how did that affect your psyche as a leader and what went on in your mind about what you needed to do? Certainly in the early periods, it was probably mid January that I first, you know, I became aware of coronavirus early January is in China but had sort of not anticipated that it would become, you know, such a global event. But it was mid January that I started working with the leadership team in China on their response and what we were going to do. But it was actually then two days before our earnings call in January that, you know, talk to them again, they said, Kevin, we're going to have to close 90% of our storage right now. And I thought, okay, well, here we go. And you know, what, what you realize is like when you go into a very unknown situation like that, you know, and you have to go into sort of a crisis operational mode, which means in a time of crisis, what people want and what I think leaders are responsible for doing is you've got to be fully present and engaged. You've got to be calm and thoughtful and principled in your decision making. You have to be transparent and frequent in your communications to all stakeholders. And you just step by step, you address the issues you have to address. You make decisions you need to and you navigate through it. And you have to realize that there's uncertainty, so you're rapidly adapting and pivoting your approach. But I'm very proud of the fact that, you know, in this, you know, we learned a lot by going through in China. We basically built the playbook for how to do this in China. And then we started, we brought it to the U.S. and adapted it for the U.S. and we adapted it for 82 markets around the world. And that became our playbook. I did frequent, frequent communications with all stakeholders and very transparent. And so, you know, regular communications to all Starbucks partners, to our customers, to communities we serve, to our shareholders. And you know, and you just, you've got to be on your game. And so one of the things I'll say that really helped me with that though too is I'm a believer in meditation and I've been meditating, but I really learned transcendental meditation right, you know, at the beginning of January. And so I still to this day, I meditate 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon and that helps, that helps me a lot. It gives me energy, keeps me sort of in the zone and calm. And so transcendental meditation has been a key, but then you got to be on top of your game. I got to ask you, how in the world did you learn transcendental meditation? A little over a year ago, we had been asked if we would play Ringo Starr every year and his birthday has a piece in Love Birthday Party. And so Ringo Starr had a playlist of songs that he wanted Starbucks to play in all of our stores. And so, you know, look through it and say, "Sure, we'd be happy to play these songs." Well, it turns out Ringo Starr invited me and my wife to his birthday party in Los Angeles last June. And so, you know, so we're going to go to Ringo's birthday party and I thought, "Well, what do you get Ringo Starr for his birthday party?" You know, for his birthday. Peace and Love Birthday. And we saw that he, one of his charities that he contributes money to and he supports is the David Lynch Foundation. So, the David Lynch Foundation teaches transcendental meditation to veterans who are suffering from PTSD and PTSD. So, we contributed some money to the David Lynch Foundation. So, at Ringo's party, we're visiting with Ringo and he, "Oh, David Lynch, come on." So he introduces us to David Lynch and David says, "Kevin, thank you for the contribution." He said, "Do you meditate?" I said, "Well, I've been doing it." He goes, "No, Kevin. We're going to teach you transcendental meditation." So, David Lynch sent the top guy in the country, Bob Roth, who, you know, trained under the Maharishi, Bob came to our home for four days and he taught me, my wife and my son and his wife. He taught the four of us transcendental meditation. And to this day, all four of us meditate twice a day. So, I have Ringo's star to thank for my connection to transcendental meditation . That is great. I'm going to have to give that a try. I think a lot of people think I need it. I probably do. You know, so we have coronavirus and the country gets a double whammy with the George Floyd incident, the tragic death of George Floyd. And I understand, you know, you talked a little bit ago just about the importance of communication. I understand that you had a virtual meeting with your partners, all your team members' employees, the Saturday after that incident. Tell us about it. And can you share a story about what impacted you the most from that call? Yeah, I'd say that, you know, it was just a few weeks before that, actually, when the video of Ahmad Aubrey's killing and what had happened in that incident came to light, that was very troubling. And we hosted what we call a courageous conversation. We did it virtually. It was kind of like our typical open forum, but it was done virtually following Ahmad Aubrey. And that was, we had about a thousand partners joined. And in that particular session, you know, we talked about the importance of just creating a safe place for Starbucks partners to share how they felt and to share their stories and just to listen. And then certainly to witness the murder of George Floyd, you know, all this under televisions and what that represented, you know, was just tragic. And so we called for, you know, on a Friday afternoon, basically said, look, I want to have another courageous conversation. And we had on that Saturday, you know, several thousand, three or four thousand Starbucks partners joined us. Many of them at home in their living rooms with their families. And it was a conversation about what it's like to be black in America and, you know, partners sharing their personal stories and how this deeply affected them because of, you know, what they've had to live with and what they've gone through. And, you know, all of us sort of reflecting on our role and responsibility as human beings to stand up against racial injustice and acknowledge that this is an issue that has, you know, has been going on for centuries in America and for us to stand up and understand that we have a role and responsibility to play as a business, as citizens, as humans. And, you know, it was, it was, it was the kind of conversation that, you know, pauses you to just reflect, you know, reflect on your own life journey and your own life experience and the fact that, you know, I, you know, I grew up white as a white man in America. And I don't always understand what, you know, our black Starbucks partners had to go through. But as they share that, you just become, you know, it is, it's a powerful connector because it creates so much empathy and desire to want to help be a part of the solution and improve things in this country. And I think that's what we're on a journey to do. You know, you mentioned that you're in 82 different countries and you're opening up by store, I think every 15 hours in China, you know, how much have you had to change the format in China to get that kind of growth? And is it hard for you to, as a leader to see dramatically different things happen in one country versus another? Yeah, it's interesting. The core, you know, premise of Starbucks and creating that sense of community and a warm welcoming place where you can have human connection and share coffee, that's consistent around the world. You know, in China, you know, the stores we would build are, we build there are beautiful stores, those stores, you know, oftentimes will include Chinese artwork or culturally relevant store design attributes that show respect to the Chinese culture. You know, the beverage, for the most part, the beverage menu is pretty similar. It's almost the same, you know, coffee menu is pretty much the same and the tea menu, there are a few variations. The food menus can be a little bit different, but you would recognize it as Starbucks. You travel around the world and you see that green iconic color and you see the Starbucks logo, you see the green siren and you can go and have a Starbucks experience in any part of the world. So China, you know, we've been in China over 20 years now, David, and the way I think about this is we built Starbucks in China for China. And so we have an entire store development team in China that picks the real estate, designs the stores, we have a food and beverage R&D team that innovates on the food and the beverage menus. We have a digital team and a relationship with Alibaba, China Digital Partnership with them, we do a lot of things with Tencent. So you know, we really built Starbucks in China for China and that served us well. You know, this has been so much fun and I want to have a little bit more with the lightning round of Q&A with you, okay? Oh, here we go. All right, what three words best describe you? Compassionate, driven, and a bridge builder. What's your biggest pet peeve? You know, my biggest pet peeve is I think when people see things happening around and they just, they play victim instead of being a positive action oriented person to do something, do something constructive about the situation instead of sit back and complain about it. If you could be one person for a day other than yourself, who would it be? Well, you know, I just saw the SpaceX capsule just landed the other day. I'd like to be one of those SpaceX astronauts for a day so I can kind of see what planet Earth looks like from outer space. Kevin, do you have a hidden talent? I, hidden talent. I, well, I play guitar. I don't know. It's, I'm not very good, but I do play guitar. So, so I have a guitar in my office and occasionally I did play, I did play as part of a little performance we did for, I think, 8,000 Starbucks partners back in Chicago last September. Okay, great. Maybe you ought to hook up with near and shot or a Panera. He's a big guitar player too. You know, what's something about you that few people would know? Let's see. My oldest son and high, my oldest son's a musician and in high school I was a, was a, a roadie and his little rock and roll band. So I was, I would load in the drums and load out the drums. Father of, father musician. It was the most important thing you, you learned working alongside Bill Gates. The importance of, of looking to the future and then making some long term bets . Now, what would be your epic fail? Oh, let's see. Epic fail. I guess, years ago when I, I transitioned from being a systems engineer to being in sales and marketing for, for IBM, the first year I was in sales and marketing, like at the first half of the year, I was like 20% of my quota. It was like something's not working here. And I figured out that I had like too many, I had too many things I was trying to do and I wasn't doing any of them well. So what I did in the second half of that year was I focused on the five most important things and I did those well and I ended up making my quota that year. But I had to scramble to do it, David. And so it taught me the importance of really focusing on the things that are most important and then just executing against those in a really, really excellent way. What's the three bits of advice you would have for aspiring leaders? Well, I always, you know, the one thing for me is I, one would be authenticity and, and you know, I learned that later in my life and so I would think, you know, for leadership to, especially today, to be an inspiring leader, I think authenticity is very important. I think the second thing would be that, you know, leadership that values matter , understand what values you stand for, especially at times of adversity. At times of adversity, values are tested, values matter. And it's through values that you build trust. Trust is earned through difficult periods and times of adversity. And I think authenticity and values are what enable you to build trust. And trust is one of the most important attributes that leaders can earn. And it's not granted, it's not given to them as a leader. You have to earn it. You know, Kevin, you, you obviously lead with your heart. You know, you got a big heart I can tell and, you know, you're described by many as a servant leader. Now, I, you hear that term a lot of times and it's almost like a buzzword. You know, how does a leader make a servant leader really come alive in your mind? Well, I think, I think in many ways it has to be this authentic desire to create a great experience and a great outcome for others. And I think you have to get energy from helping others succeed. You have to get energy from supporting, you know, someone in their, in their, in their own hero's journey. And so, you know, I think, I think that kind of servant leadership, you know, is, is perhaps a buzzword. But I think at the end of the day, it's, it's those individuals that get energy by helping others. And, you know, I've always found that if I pursued things and put my energy into things that I was passionate about, if I was a lifelong learner and willing to push outside of my comfort zone, and I always treated people respectfully and help them every time I could, and do those three things, opportunities presented themselves. I've read many a lot of research that, you know, people who are the happiest or other directed. And you, you seem like a very happy guy. You got a big smile on your face. Nobody could really see this. But I want to thank you so much for, for making me happy and taking the time to do this conversation and just showing us the power of what pursuing joy really can be. It's very impressive and thank you for sharing your story. Well, David, thank you so much for including me in this discussion and I too have enjoyed it. So thank you. Well, that was such an inspiring conversation. You can really hear that joy coming through when you talk to Kevin and you can tell authenticity and vulnerability aren't just buzzwords for him. They're the way he lives and leads. And boy, I just love his principle of distributed leadership. Now, you probably know you just can't make every decision yourself. It's going to bug everybody else down and you're not going to be able to act quickly. You've got to empower others to make decisions too. All right. Now it's time for a little coaching. This week, as part of your weekly development plan, I want you to find one, just one decision that you can hand off. It can be something small, something someone else is ready to step up and own. But remember, don't just turn them loose. As you heard from Kevin, start with clear guidance upfront and make sure you follow up with accountability as well. But remember, don't just turn them loose. As you heard from Kevin, start with clear guidance upfront and make sure you follow up with accountability as well. Believe me, this is a must learn discipline for any great leader. So spend some time this week getting even better at it. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders distribute decisions so that you can stay agile and you can adapt to anything that's happening in your business. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. [BLANK_AUDIO] [ Silence ]