Teaches Business Innovation
contents
03
meet rosalind
brewer
From espresso shots to “shots in
arms,” this groundbreaking CEO
has innovated through seismic
change and modeled leadership
through learning and listening
05
innovation
in action
Roz has made some “really
weird moves” in her career.
Follow her circuitous
journey to the top
1
I.
LEAD BY
LEARNING
07
what is
servant
leadership?
13
choosing
“and”
over “or”
Add to your capabilities;
don’t trade them in
14
A S S I G N ME N T
TRACK YOUR
BUYING HABITS
The wide-ranging benefits
of empowering employees
09
long live
the lifelong
learner
Can you attain new skills,
integrate new information,
and adapt to new
circumstances? The
answer might be trickier
than you think
11
how to write
a problem
statement
The road to success
begins with a whole
lot of “why?”
II.
EXCELLENCE
THROUGH
TEAMWORK
16
how to build
an agile team
7 steps toward vibrant
collaborations and big results
18
a digital
debate
How Roz brought
Starbucks into the future
without sacrificing its past
19
A S S I GNMENT
26
A SSI GN ME N T
34
A S S I G N ME N T
GIVE THEM
A PUSH
FIND A MENTOR,
BE A MENTOR
GATHER
YOURSELF
20
27
35
sink or stream
The curious case of
Blockbuster and Netflix
III.
THE POWER
OF DEI AND
MENTORSHIP
a brief history
of HBCUs
Historically Black colleges
and universities have
elevated American
education for almost
200 years
31
STEAM work
Art + science, technology,
engineering, and math
= powerful results
21
25
the struggle
for pay equity
8 statistics that signal
the urgency of comprehensive
DEI adoption
If you’ve ever struggled to
make time for work, rest,
and play, this is for you
37
A S S I G N ME N T
SELF-INVENTORY
38
A P P E ND I X
decision
crossroads
5 ways
businesses are
fostering DEI
A growing number of
companies are committing
to diversity, equity, and
inclusion; here’s how
11 timemanagement
tips
I V.
MANAGING
YO U R T I M E
33
setting
boundaries
The changing shape
of work-life balance
The pivotal choices
discussed in class, with
answers voiced
by Roz herself
42
roz’s
reading list
9 inspiring books,
selected by the instructor
exclusively for this class
2
M E E T YOU R I N STR U CTOR
rosalind
brewer
From espresso shots to “shots in arms,” this groundbreaking
CEO has innovated through seismic change—and modeled
growth-driving leadership through learning and listening
L
ONG BEFORE SHE SCALED AMERICA’S
corporate ladder and shifted the country’s perception of what a CEO could
be, Rosalind “Roz” Brewer was a precocious kid growing up in a blue-collar Detroit
household. Roz was the youngest of five siblings,
and both of her parents worked in the city’s
robust automobile industry. “All I ever saw was
hard work,” she says.
Hard work became something of a recurring
theme. Far from avoiding the steepest challenges of her career, Roz has actively sought
them out: In the face of unprecedented change,
she digs deep to diagnose problems, rally teams,
and convert uncertainty into success.
3
Having studied chemistry at Spelman College, the historically Black women’s learning
institute in Atlanta, Georgia, Roz put her education to use at Kimberly-Clark, a Texas-based
company specializing in paper goods. She
started as a scientific research technician and
stayed at the company for more than 20 years,
ultimately running manufacturing and operations. Already she had shown a gift for adaptation, and in 2006 she decided to enter the
terra incognita of retail, accepting a job as vice
president at the American “hypermarket” corporation Walmart. Six years later, she was
leading half of that company’s U.S. locations,
but she wasn’t done exploring: In 2012, she
made the leap to the big-box retail chain (and
Walmart subsidiary) Sam’s Club, landing her
first CEO title.
Even then, Roz’s journey was far from over.
In 2017, she joined the Starbucks board of
directors, and within months she was named
the global coffee retailer’s chief operations officer; there, she oversaw a digital overhaul that
allowed Starbucks to boost revenues without
sacrificing the barista-customer connection.
Her move to the global pharmaceutical giant
Walgreens Boots Alliance in early 2021 coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, at a particularly tough time for the company as it was
working to distribute vaccines. That challenge
is precisely what drew Roz to the job. “I really
wanted to be a part of something so much bigger than myself,” she says.
With each new role, Roz has demonstrated an
ability to leverage disruption and motivate teams
with the simple, radical acts of listening and
adapting. In this class, Roz uses her challenges
and triumphs to guide executives, entrepreneurs,
and employees alike through the process of
leadership via innovation. Get ready to get
inspired as she lays out the skills and resources
you’ll need to think creatively on the job, foster
diversity, develop strategies for balancing home
and work life, and execute on the types of big,
bold ideas that have shaped her career.
4
ROZ ’S CARE E R PATH
innovation
in action
Roz has made some “really weird moves” in her career,
taking on wildly different industries and valuing stimulation
over status. Follow her circuitous journey to the top
1984
1984–1988
1988–1998
1998–2006
SPELMAN
COLLEGE
K I M B E R LYCLARK
K I M B E R LYCLARK
K I M B E R LYCLARK
• Bachelor
of Science
degree
• Research
technician
• Market manager
• Director for
skincare
• Vice president
for nonwovens
• Group president
for manufacturing
and operations
• Global president
2001
THE
W H A R TO N
SCHOOL
Advanced
Management
Program
5
AV E R T I N G D I S A S T E R
AND LEARNING FROM IT
AT S TA R B U C K S
TURNING CRISIS
I N TO O P P O RT U N I T Y
AT WA L G R E E N S
two
23-year-old Black men were arrested on suspicion of trespassing. In fact, they were waiting for
an associate to arrive for a meeting. Video of the
incident went viral, prompting a nationwide protest. Roz had just finished her onboarding as the
company’s COO, but she knew she had to act fast.
Starbucks leadership decided to close every
U.S. location for a full afternoon of “racial bias
education.” There followed an ongoing series of
initiatives promoting racial equity and justice at
Starbucks and in the communities it serves.
ROZ JOINED WALGREENS IN MARCH 2021, in the
thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. She came in with
a question—what if Walgreens could be a drugstore and a healthcare provider?—but there was a
more urgent goal to tackle: getting as many “shots
in arms” as possible. Once the company’s COVID
vaccination systems were in place, Roz and her
team took on the goal of creating a one-stop
healthcare shop composed of the Walgreens
drugstore and a primary care physician practice.
By April 2022, 102 dual-purpose locations were in
operation across the U.S.
IN 2018, AT A STARBUCKS IN PHILADELPHIA,
2006–2012
2012–2017
2017–2021
2021–present
WA L M A R T
SA M ’ S C LU B
S TA R B U C K S
• Regional vice president
• Senior vice president
• Executive vice president
for Southeast operations
• President, Walmart East
• President and
chief executive
officer
• Chief operating
officer and
group president
WA L G R E E N S
B O OT A L L I A N C E
• Chief executive
officer
2006
S TA N F O R D
D I R E C TO R S ’
COLLEGE
6
I.
LEAD
BY
LEARNING
what is
servant
leadership?
The wide-ranging benefits of empowering employees
R
OZ DESCRIBES TWO ways
to step into a new leadership role. One way is to
stand in front of your
employees and give a pep talk, outlining all the exciting new ideas you’ll
bring to the organization. “Many
might enjoy that,” she says, “but then
there’s a second path, where you
could go in and be a keen listener.”
When she joins a company, Roz
makes it clear that she’s there to listen and solicit feedback from employees. “I want to make sure that they
understand I am not coming in to
Monday-morning quarterback,” she
says. She’s been known to show up at
7
her company’s brick-and-mortar
stores to ask employees what might
improve their jobs.
This is a key component of
servant leadership, a concept that
focuses on the growth, happiness,
and well-being of employees and the
communities a company serves. For
Roz, this approach begins with genuine curiosity. By giving everyone a
voice, she’s able to convey to the
organization that she’s willing to
make changes.
Origins
The term servant leadership was conceived by Robert K. Greenleaf, a for-
mer executive at the American telecommunications company AT&T,
who in 1970 wrote an essay titled
“The Servant as Leader.” He was
inspired by the novel The Journey to
the East by German Swiss writer
Hermann Hesse, in which a servant
named Leo keeps up the morale of a
party making a pilgrimage. Spoiler:
Leo disappears, and the party realizes that they were relying on the
servant as a leader.
There’s more to the story, but the
point Greenleaf gleaned was that a
good leader is one who can relate to
(and care for) the people they’re leading, not one who towers above them.
DECISION
CROSSR OA D S
Learn more
about
listening as
“What your organization
wants to know is that
you’re not coming in on
day one to invoke change.
You’re here to listen.”
a leader on
page 38
­
— ­R O Z
Expansion
The idea that everyone wins when
leaders put others’ needs and desires
above their own has spread considerably since the Greenleaf essay. A
2017 article in the American business
publication Inc. lists 10 large companies that espouse it. At TDIndustries,
a construction and facility services
company, employees (known as
“partners”) claim full ownership of
the business. And Ari Weinzweig and
Paul Saginaw, founding partners of
the Michigan-based Zingerman’s
(which started as a delicatessen and
has grown into a multiple-company
organization), offer “open book
management,” sharing financial
information about the company with
employees. As explained on the Zingerman’s website, this makes the
whole team responsible for the company’s success.
These companies demonstrate
leadership that emphasizes communication and teamwork throughout
the org chart. And as Roz puts it, “It’s
the times where you create collaboration and engagement at all levels
that you get the best results.”
8
LEAD BY LEARNING
long live the
lifelong learner
Do you believe you can attain new skills, integrate new information,
and adapt to new circumstances? The answer might be trickier than you think
P
R ACTICING SERVANT
leadership means maintaining a learning mindset
(also known as a growth
mindset), something Roz has done
throughout her career. Whether
that’s meant taking a job in an area
she’s unfamiliar with or gaining
expertise in a new sector at her
9
current company, the throughline
is a willingness “to learn something
new, understand it better, be curious about the future, and then act
upon it.” American psychologist
Carol Dweck popularized the term
growth mindset and its counterpart,
fixed mindset, in a 2006 book
(appropriately titled Mindset). Its
deceptively simple premise: People
who believe they can learn new
skills are likely to be more successful than people who believe that
their skills—and limitations—are
unchangeable. It’s not always easy to
make this distinction in day-to-day
life, however. The following examples might help.
FIXED
LEARNING
I made a mistake;
thus I’ve failed
at this activity.
I made a mistake.
Let me figure out how I made
that mistake and how to
avoid making it again.
FIXED
LEARNING
I’ve become a master in
my current field, so I’m going
to stay right here.
I’m not feeling challenged
anymore. It might be time for me
to move somewhere that
presents new challenges
so I can grow.
FIXED
My company historically
generates its profits from x.
Even though y is starting
to show some promise, we’d
better stick with what
we do best.
LEARNING
FIXED
My company has hit upon a
new revenue stream.
Investing in it further is risky,
but let’s dive into the data
and try anyway.
I’m new at this company,
so I’ll wait for a more
experienced colleague to
show me the ropes.
FIXED
LEARNING
Since I just started at this
company, I’d better
get acquainted with
executives and employees
at every level and
learn its operations
inside and out.
We’ve been selling this
product for a while,
and people are still buying.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
LEARNING
We’ve been selling this product
for a while, and even though people
are still interested, I bet we
could increase our customer
base by introducing
new versions.
10
LEAD BY LEARNING
how to write
a problem
statement
The road to success begins with a whole lot of “why?”
S
IMPLY PUT, A PROBLEM
statement pinpoints a problem you’re trying to overcome.
That may sound obvious, but
sometimes, when presented with a
difficult situation, it can be easier to
see the symptoms and “start with the
wrong problem to solve,” Roz says,
setting a course that leads to a dead
end. Drafting a problem statement
requires the skill, cultivated by Roz
in her days as a researcher, of critical
thinking: plowing through data and
11 identifying the recurring themes
that might help you find solutions.
The goal is to push beyond secondary
issues and get to the systemic ones.
Don’t think about a specific product
your customers are dissatisfied with;
think about the problem that product
is meant to solve—and how that
problem can be addressed more effectively. What comes after that may not
be easy, but it should at least be clear
once the problem statement puts
you on the right path.
DECISION
There are many problem statement templates out there. How you structure yours is up to
you, but the following step-by-step guide can help get you started.
1.
3.
2.
4.
Pay attention to employee
and customer feedback
and any changes taking
place at your company. If
negative reviews appear
online or a particular area
of the business is lagging,
that’s your starting point.
Gather all of the data that
describes the way things
are working. As Roz says,
people sometimes mismatch the problem and
the data—and “that’s
where the flaws come in.”
With the data before you,
use critical thinking to
describe the current state
of affairs. Note the discrepancies between the
present situation and the
desired outcome using
both words and numbers.
CROSSR OA D S
Learn more
5.
about critical
thinking
on page 39
Wrap up by suggesting
some broad solutions.
While the problem should
be articulated in as much
detail as possible, this
part can be more
wide-ranging. You want to
point people in the right
direction, not attempt to
solve the problem with a
single document.
Figure out what you might
need in order to solve the
problem, numbers-wise.
(Do you need to hire more
workers? Increase the
number of hours spent on
a certain project? Lower
expenses by working with
a new vendor?) Calculate
the financial cost of any
necessary changes.
12
CHOOSING
“AND” OVER “OR”
Add to your capabilities; don’t trade them in
A
S ROZ DEVELOPED THE PLAN TO EXPAND WALGREENS
into a healthcare destination, she didn’t tell her
team to scrap the brand’s well-known drugstore
model and start installing doctors’ offices.
Instead, she and her colleagues discussed how to bring
those two services together.
Adding a new aspect to a business means ensuring that
employees are not just on board but invested. According to
Roz, that’s how Walgreens pharmacists felt about the
expansion: It would let them “both test and treat…instead of
counting out pills and dispensing pharmaceuticals every
day,” she says. This “and” could lend more meaning to the
pharmacists’ jobs and the training that got them there.
But a servant leader doesn’t expand an employee’s
responsibilities without lightening their load in other areas.
Roz did this for Walgreens pharmacists by automating
13 paperwork they previously filled out by hand. With this
change, they could easily update customer information in
a digitized system. Not only would this give pharmacists
more time in the day; it would make reviewing a customer’s
history easier, and those benefits would land on both sides
of the counter. (A similar “and” pivot took place at Starbucks: By automating the ordering process, the company
freed up the baristas to deliver the product at scale while
maintaining the human connection the brand is known for.
More about that on page 18.)
Clearly, “and” leadership is ambitious—but it’s not
idealistic. Roz wanted to “make sure that we were not
creating something that you couldn’t
Above: The first
execute.” That’s the key to developWalgreens location,
ing an “and” strategy: ensuring that
opened in 1901 on
Chicago’s South Side “and” is desirable and feasible.
A S S I G N M E N T
TRACK YOUR BUYING HABITS
Keep a list of your online and brick-and-mortar purchases for one week. At the end of the week,
look back at your buying habits and answer this question: What’s one change retailers
could make to improve your experience and their bottom line?
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
14
II.
EXCELLENCE
THROUGH
TEAMWORK
15 7 steps toward vibrant collaborations and ingenious results
A
N AGILE TEAM IS ONE
that leaders muster from
several departments in
order to take on a challenge that likely can’t be tackled
using standard practices. Agile, to
Roz, doesn’t just mean fast. “Speed is
one component of it,” she says, “but
agile also means willing to change
based on your learnings.”
Equally important: An agile team
shouldn’t replicate the conventional
org chart, with a CEO above other
executives, who are above managers,
and so on. Think of it as “a matrix
structure that’s set up temporarily
against a problem to solve,” Roz
says. In other words, think diversity, not hierarchy. Put the problem
“in front of a group of individuals
of different backgrounds, different
thought processes.”
With those overarching ideas in
mind, check out the following tips
(pulled from Roz’s class as well as
a few scientific studies) on building
an agile team of your own.
DECISION
how to
build an
agile team
CROSSR OA D S
Learn more
about agile
learning
on pages 38
and 40
1.
Hire Rule Breakers
The goal of an agile team is to come
up with something new and different, not to repeat the status quo. As
you consider potential additions to
your team, assess whether they seem
too comfortable with tradition and
well-worn habits. Roz looks for the
one who says, “I skipped 10 steps,
but I learned x.”
16
E XC E L L E N C E
THROUGH TEAMWORK
2.
Set Targets
The challenges that agile teams
face should be framed with clear
timelines and objectives. Buy-in is
crucial here: Roz wants a team that
“believes in the pace of work” and
understands “how important it is to
stay on target.”
3.
Create
“Uncustomary
Collisions”
Ambitious brainstorming requires a
range of personal backgrounds (like
ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and
gender) and professional experiences (industries worked in and
roles taken). Roz gives the example
of an operations specialist working
alongside a product developer:
When those two can “jive together
and come up with really creative
ideas,” it can create “an uncustomary collision between two disciplines.” Putting together a productive team isn’t about filling a
conference room with people who
laugh at the same jokes; it’s about
complementarity.
4.
Keep It Tight
Agility can get harder in direct proportion to the number of people
working together, which is why it
often helps to limit the head count. A
2019 study published in the international journal Nature found that
while both large and small teams can
get things done, the smaller teams
were much better at coming up with
17 Roz speaks to a group of Starbucks executives in 2018
new ideas and disrupting industries,
whereas larger teams were better at
building upon the status quo.
5.
Model Emotional
Intelligence
With any team, but especially with
diverse ones, it’s important for
members to be sensitive to one
another’s views, experiences, and
feelings. Case in point: A 2010 report
published in the American magazine
Science found that small groups performed better the higher the average
of members’ social sensitivity. (Having more women on the team tended
to raise this average, as they often
exhibited more social sensitivity
than their male colleagues.)
6.
Find Your
Talent Balance
Stacking a team with the best of the
best can be self-defeating: Egos can
get in the way, and team members
may jockey for attention, believing
that their expertise deserves top billing. A 2014 study titled “The TooMuch-Talent Effect” explored these
consequences by digging through
archival studies of teamwork across
sports franchises. With highly interdependent sports like football and
basketball, the researchers (who represent higher-learning institutes in
America, the Netherlands, and
France) noticed that teams suffered
when their rosters were overloaded
with top talents.
7.
Hold the Team
Accountable
All of the above steps are for naught
if the team loses sight of its mission.
It’s your job to ask questions, make
suggestions, and, perhaps most
important, let teammates know that
their work matters.
a digital
transformation
debate
At Starbucks, Roz had to decide how to incorporate
e-commerce into the company’s operations.
Read through the pros and cons of each option,
followed on the next page by Roz’s decision
OPTION
1
STARBUCKS MAINTAINS
ITS TRADITIONAL
BRICK-AND-MORTAR
MODEL
OPTION
2
STARBUCKS ADDS
ONLINE SALES
CAPABILITIES
PROS:
CONS:
PROS:
CONS:
Competing directly with
online-native brands
would be tricky for Starbucks, which sold its first
latte in 1984; it might as
well stick to its strengths.
Plus, the in-person experience is what Starbucks
customers cherish, and
digitized sales points
might send them running
for another coffee shop.
Long lines have become
a problem. If Starbucks
doesn’t modernize, it
could go the way of
Blockbuster, becoming
outdated next to its
younger competitors
(read more about Blockbuster on page 20).
With consumers now
buying all kinds of products online, Starbucks
would be better positioned
to meet them where they
are. Starbucks could even
find new customers who
are more likely to engage
with a brand online than
in person.
Going head-to-head with
digital-first retailers could
be a major time and
resource suck with scant
results. Plus, the company
might lose that personal
connection it has with
customers in stores.
18
E XC E L L E N C E
THROUGH TEAMWORK
DECISION
CROSSR OA D S
Learn more
about going
digital at
Starbucks
on page 40
I GN NM ME EN NT T
A AS SS SI G
GIVE
THEM A
PUSH
Roz prizes employees who take on
big projects and ask her for feedback and resources. Make a list of
three projects you could own and
what kind of support you would
require of your manager. Remember
that their job is to provide necessary
resources and clear away obstacles,
not to solve problems for you.
19 ROZ’S CHOICE
A HYBRID OF THE TWO OPTIONS
Customers could now order online and stop by their
nearest Starbucks to pick up their drink. This cut down on
lines while preserving that crucial moment: the handoff
from a smiling barista. The implementation costs were
considerable, but as Roz says, “You have to have patience,
and you have to have a really good plan for execution so
that the outcomes eventually deliver.”
SINK OR STREAM
The curious case of Blockbuster and Netflix
O
NCE UPON A TIME,
Blockbuster Video had
some 9,000 locations
across the U.S. with
roughly 65 million customers.
Debuting in 1985, the home
video–rental company boasted a
multibillion-dollar valuation by the
late 1990s. But in 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy, with a
debt in the hundreds of millions.
It’s not as if the company, commonly associated with the humble
VHS tape, never adapted to
changing tides. Blockbuster
started renting out video games in
the early 1990s, and in 1999 it
announced the addition of DVDs.
The following year it made a deal
with the American energy and
commodities company Enron to
build out a video-on-demand service. But deals between Blockbuster and film studios were slow
in coming, and the project’s development slipped by the wayside
while the company continued to
focus on its original—and increasingly obsolete—business model.
Back in Blockbuster’s heyday,
an American entrepreneur named
Reed Hastings got fed up with the
company’s steep late fees and
envisioned a DVD-by-mail rental
service that would let users keep
the discs as long as they liked. In
the summer of 1997, he and a
partner launched Netflix. While
Blockbuster remained dedicated
to brick-and-mortar business, its
new rival expanded its offerings to
streaming and, eventually, original
programming. The year Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy, Netflix
was generating more than $2 billion in revenue. As of 2022, there’s
only one Blockbuster location left
in the world.
The moral of the story? Innovation drives success, whether you’re
offering videos or vaccines.
20
20
III.
THE POWER
OF DEI AND
MENTORSHIP
5
ways
businesses
are fostering
DEI
A growing number of companies are committing
to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Here are
some of the many methods they’re using
21 R
OZ HAS SPENT A LOT OF
time taking calls from
CEOs—most of them white
men—hoping to improve
their companies’ DEI, or diversity,
equity, and inclusion: an effort (with
roots in the American civil rights
movement of the 1960s) to advance
equitable representation and opportunity at work, in school, and beyond.
Roz’s record shows why she’s
received those calls: Among other
things, she has painstakingly compared the salaries of her employees to
ensure pay equity, and she has
acknowledged that the work of
employee empowerment doesn’t end
at the recruitment stage. “You have to
create an environment where…their
voice is heard so that they can show
off their wares,” she says.
DEI has a complex history, littered
with companies that have sung its
praises while maintaining exclusionary practices. One question among
experts in the field: Is the primary
goal of these efforts fairness for its
own sake or bottom-line success?
The argument that DEI makes good
business sense (because, for example,
a diversity of perspectives promotes
revenue-driving practices like critical
thinking) could, according to a 2022
study published in a journal of the
American Psychological Association,
end up alienating marginalized people from the very companies that
make that argument. Still, the logic
behind the good-for-business case is
well-established. A study conducted
by global consulting firm McKinsey
analyzed data from 366 public companies across Canada, Latin America,
the U.S., and the U.K., and found that
those in the top 25 percent for racial
and ethnic diversity are 35 percent
more likely to see above-average
financial returns.
But however a company frames its
DEI mission, it’s unlikely to result in
significant change if the messaging is
not grounded in sustainable practices.
So how can your company take
meaningful steps toward greater
DEI? From the break room to the
C-suite, here are five strategies. Keep
in mind that there are many more
out there and that achieving true
diversity, equity, and inclusion
requires deep commitment and a
range of approaches.
1.
Delving
Into Data
Working toward DEI can be a nonstarter if you don’t know exactly
where the problems lie; that’s why it
makes sense to build DEI strategy on
a solid foundation of data. The ACT
Report, a sweeping document
released in 2021 by a coalition of
tech companies, including Snap Inc.
(the company behind the social
media app Snapchat), stresses the
need for a DEI data infrastructure: a
22
THE POWER OF DEI AND MENTORSHIP
system of metrics that can expose
biases and track progress in recruiting, promotion, retention, and elsewhere. Diversity among applicants
and hires is, to be sure, an important
data set, but the authors argue that a
company’s measurements should go
beyond representation: They should
illuminate how employees are treated
at every stage of their job cycles. Likewise, data infrastructures should
focus not on the number of policies in
place but on the results of those policies. Once a company has chosen
which numbers to track, it can use the
data to set goals and make changes.
2.
Top-Down
Representation
The 2022 Fortune 500—a ranking of
America’s largest companies by revenue, compiled by American business
magazine Fortune—featured only six
Black CEOs. Clearly, the corporate
world has a long way to go when it
comes to executive- and board-level
representation, but there are some
signs of improvement. A 2021 survey
jointly conducted by American business-tech outlets Fast Company and
The Plug found that, of the 42 U.S.
technology companies included in
the survey, 71 percent had at least
one Black board member. (It should
be noted that 37 percent had been
appointed no earlier than 2020, a
year of worldwide protest following
the murder of George Floyd at the
hands of a police officer.) When it
comes to increasing diversity at the
highest levels, companies have several models to consider, some of
them industry specific. One
high-profile (if controversial)
23 Roz has used in-house data to pinpoint and correct pay discrepancies
example is the National Football
League’s Rooney Rule, which dictates
that at least one “minority candidate”
be considered, via an in-person interview, for any general manager or
head coach position. Many law firms
have adopted the Mansfield Rule,
which requires the candidate pools
for leadership positions to consist of
at least 30 percent women; those
who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (also known as BIPOC);
LGBTQ people; and/or people with
disabilities. And under the 4-2-50
rule, final interview rounds for top
positions must include four candidates—two of them from historically
underrepresented groups.
3.
Targeted Talent
Acquisition
Some companies have recruited
more inclusively by building a pres-
ence among communities where
strong candidates might otherwise
be overlooked. American software
company Intuit launched the
Apprenticeship Pathway Program,
which offered coding courses to prospective employees without computer science degrees, focusing on
women and BIPOC people. More
than 80 percent of those who
entered the program were hired,
Intuit reports, and 33 percent of the
company’s technological roles are
now occupied by women—an
improvement on the tech industry
average of 29 percent. Another, less
elaborate strategy: diversity-focused
recruiting platforms, which range
from general (Mogul) to specialized
(Latinas in Tech). After—and even
during—the hiring stage, some companies connect candidates and new
employees with relevant employee
resource groups (learn more in the
next section), which can be an potent
source of support and advocacy.
4.
Safe Spaces
The vast majority of Fortune 500
companies have employee resource
groups, or ERGs, which allow
employees to gather around specific
backgrounds, experiences, and characteristics. This is one way to instill a
culture of belonging—to add the
“inclusion” piece while diversity is
addressed at the recruitment stage.
Outside of the ERG system, some
companies solicit anonymous input
(on the messaging platform Slack, for
example) from employees so they
can speak out about office conditions without fear of reprisal. Others
organize events aimed at building
stronger communities within the
company. Erin L. Thomas, vice president and head of diversity, inclusion,
and belonging for the freelancing
platform Upwork, put together the
company’s first Black Excellence
Summit in 2020. Throughout the
event, Black employees could have
honest conversations about their
work environment and, as Thomas
later said, “chill while Black at work.”
She reported that 100 percent of
attendees gave positive feedback on
the event and its impact.
as bonuses, stock options, relocation
packages, and other extras. Depending on the size of the company, HR
departments or third-party consultants can conduct regular audits,
weighing a number of factors to
determine the value of each employee’s work and spotting areas where
prejudice or favoritism may be exerting an influence. The resulting salary
adjustments, according to a 2019
study conducted by American organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry,
can amount to less than 1 percent of
the company’s total salary budget.
Another option is pay transparency,
whereby any employee can view the
salary of any other employee—
including managers and bosses.
American grocery giant Whole Foods
has been publishing average wages
for years, and multiple companies are
cropping up to provide software that
can help businesses adopt the practice. Of course, that doesn’t mean
everyone is automatically paid fairly,
and some argue that it shifts the
responsibility for equitable compensation to employees—but pay transparency at least gives them more of
the information they need in order to
effectively ask for more.
“This is not a numbers game.
This is about equity and value.
This is about a true meritocracy.
This is about earning your way,
regardless of your background.”
­
— ­R O Z
5.
Pay Equity and
Transparency
As related in class, Roz has called for
reports on the salaries of her staff
and worked to correct gender- and
race-based discrepancies. This is an
example of pay equity: ensuring that
the work of all employees is compensated according to the same standards. It encompasses salaries as well
24
THE POWER OF DEI AND MENTORSHIP
THE STRUGGLE
FOR PAY EQUITY
To understand the urgency of comprehensive DEI adoption,
just look at a handful of numbers
36 18 64.8
40 74 29.5
43
Wage gap in cents for
Black women compared with
white, non-Hispanic men
Wage gap in cents for
Native American women
Wage gap in cents between
full-time men and women
working year-round
Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020 data
Number of extra days American
women would have to work in order
to earn what men earn in a year
(marked by Equal Pay Day, which in
2022 landed on March 15)
National Committee on Pay Equity
Wage gap in cents for
Hispanic women
Center for American
Progress; 2019 and 2020 data
25 Employment-to-population ratio
for women with bachelor’s degrees
(excluding those with advanced
degrees) the ratio for men is 74.4
Employment-to-population ratio
for women with less than a
high-school diploma; the ratio for
men is 52.4
Bureau of Labor Statistics 2022 data
25 to 34
Age range where the
wage gap is narrower,
suggesting a shift
in the right direction
Pew, 2020 data
A S S I G N M E N T
FIND A MENTOR, BE A MENTOR
ROZ CAME TO APPRECIATE
the importance of mentorship
early on in her career. “I
quickly learned how important
it was, because our new
employees…feel like they’re on
an island when they first join a
company.” Mentorship by a
trusted leader not only transports them off that island; it
also helps create “future leaders within your company.”
In this exercise, you’ll
identify someone who has
been a mentor to you and
someone you have mentored.
In the first column, put down
the name of your mentor (former or current), and underneath, rough out a list of how
that person has supported,
nurtured, and pushed you. In
the second column, do the
same with a mentee of yours,
MENTOR
MENTEE
Name:
Name:
Qualities:
Qualities:
itemizing how you’ve helped
them. If you can’t think of a
mentor and/or mentee, use
these columns to identify
people who could fit either
role; how do you envision
those relationships?
When you’re done, notice
any overlap and think about
why the qualities that appear
in both columns are important to you.
26
THE POWER OF DEI AND MENTORSHIP
a brief history
of HBCUs
Historically Black colleges and universities have played a vital role
in America’s higher education system for almost 200 years
B
EFORE THE 1964 CIVIL
rights Act, which outlawed
segregation in U.S. businesses and public schools,
most white learning institutions
barred Black students from matriculating. To give Black Americans
access to academia, colleges and universities explicitly for Black students
began opening up in the mid-1800s.
These came to be known as historically Black colleges and universities,
or HBCUs.
Today, there are 101 HBCUs and
predominantly Black institutions (or
PBIs) in the U.S.; together they represent 2.3 percent of the country’s total
of degree-granting higher education
institutions as of 2017, according to
the National Center for Education
Statistics. HBCUs continue to be a
boon for students like Roz, who benefited greatly from attending an institution where racism didn’t get in the
way of her learning.
“Every year, when [Spelman]
graduates somewhere between 450
and 500 young women, you realize
27 that these institutions are critically
important,” Roz says. “Those 500
students could be doing something
dramatically different, but they’ve
been brought together on [Spelman’s]
campus to learn amongst people that
look like themselves, so that they can
build upon what they’re learning from
their peers and become the best of
themselves.”
1837
The African Institute, the
country’s oldest HBCU, is
founded by philanthropist
Richard Humphreys. Today, the
Pennsylvania-based school is
known as Cheyney University.
Spelman founders
Sophia Packard and
Harriet Giles with
students in 1886
1851–1856
Three additional
HBCUs are established:
first the Miner Normal
School in 1851 in Washington, D.C., then Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University in
1854, and finally Ohio’s
Wilberforce, which the
African Methodist Episcopal Church opens in 1856,
making it the first HBCU
run by African Americans.
1863
President Abraham
Lincoln signs the
Emancipation Proclamation, which announces
that enslaved Americans
are now free, allowing
HBCUs to spread
southward.
1867
Multiple HBCUs open up
across the country,
including Alabama State
University, Fayetteville
State University, Howard
University, Johnson C.
Smith University,
Barber-Scotia College,
Morgan State University,
Talladega College, Saint
Augustine’s University,
and Morehouse College.
1881
Sophia Packard and
Harriet Giles, a pair of
Baptist missionaries from
Massachusetts, establish
the Atlanta Baptist
Female Seminary, which
later becomes Spelman
College. The school
launches on April 11,
operating out of the
basement of the local
Friendship Baptist Church.
Howard
University’s
Main Building
in 1900
28
THE POWER OF DEI
AND MENTORSHIP
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and
Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. at the signing
of the Civil Rights Act
1884
Atlanta Baptist is
renamed Spelman
Seminary in honor of
abolitionists Harvey
Buel and Lucy Henry
Spelman; their daughter
Laura Spelman
Rockefeller, an abolitionist
herself, is married to
Spelman benefactor
(and oil tycoon)
John D. Rockefeller.
Laura Spelman
Rockefeller
29 1887
Spelman’s first
graduates get their high
school diplomas. (Yes, high
school: Spelman offered
pre-college courses until
the late 1920s.)
1930s–40s
During World War II,
HBCU administrators hire
German Jewish scholars
facing persecution and
likely death in their home
country. According to an
article in the American
newspaper The Washington Post, 50 lives are saved
thanks to these efforts.
Spelman’s
first
graduating
class
1964
The Civil Rights Act
is passed in the U.S.
Technically, only
Black-serving colleges
and universities from
before this year are classified as HBCUs. Those
established afterward are
known as predominantly
Black institutions, or PBIs.
Attendees at a 2016
Spelman event
featuring American
pop artist Janelle
Monáe
1995
The National Science
Foundation (NSF) and
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
(NASA) name Spelman a
“Model Institution for
Excellence in undergraduate science and math
education”—one of just
six in the nation.
1996
Spelman’s endowment
grows to $141 million,
making it the HBCU
with the largest
endowment in the
country.
2008
The Higher Education
Act of 2008 sets official
standards for PBIs. Here
are three: At least 40
percent of the student
body must be African
American; at least 50
percent of students
must be low-income or
first-generation secondary education students;
and there must be at least
1,000 undergraduates
studying at the school.
2020
Kamala Harris, an alumna
of Howard University in
Washington, D.C., becomes
the first Black person and
the first woman to be
elected U.S. vice president.
She is one of many
world-changing HBCU
graduates, including media
powerhouse Oprah Winfrey
(Tennessee State), civil
rights leader Rev. Jesse
Jackson (North Carolina
A&T State), and Nobel
Prize–winning author Toni
Morrison (Howard).
Space Shuttle
Discovery
U.S. vice
president
Kamala
Harris
30
THE POWER OF DEI AND MENTORSHIP
STEAM
work
Art + science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics = powerful diversity of thought
I
N 2001, A DIRECTOR AT THE
U.S. Federal agency known as
the National Science Foundation coined the term STEM to
denote the closely connected disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math. (Its prior formulation, SMET, is arguably less catchy.)
These days, as more experiences and
industries migrate online, the
demand for workers with this background is soaring: The nonpartisan
American think tank Pew Research
Center reports that, between 1990
and 2018, STEM jobs in the U.S.
increased by more than 7 million.
STEM’s value is indisputable, but
some argue that it’s missing a skill
set—one that can turn technical
knowledge into groundbreaking
ideas. That’s where the A in STEAM
31 comes in: It represents literature,
writing, philosophy, and other
humanities subjects—collectively
known as the arts—and it brings
outside-the-box problem-solving
methods to the more rigorously
structured STEM disciplines.
STEAM, as Roz says, “gives you the
opportunity to do almost anything,
because you’re learning critical
thinking, you’re learning analytics,
you’re learning creativity and innovation. I think that opens you up to
do so much more.”
STEAM
Through Time
The idea of STEAM isn’t new. The
Conversation, a global nonprofit
news organization, pointed out in
2018 that famous creators throughout history have been combining science, math, and art to drive human
progress. Italian multihyphenate
Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man
(ca. 1490), for example, is a breathtaking work of art that does double
duty as a lesson in geometry.
For a modern-day STEAM champion, consider Australian American
mathematician—and MasterClass
instructor—Terence Tao. In his class,
Terence rejects the idea that his field
is rigid or coldly abstract. On the
contrary: “Because it’s so abstract
and not necessarily tethered to reality, it allows you to be very creative
and very flexible,” he says. “The
abstraction that mathematics has
affords it a lot of creative freedom.”
Through artistic approaches like sto-
rytelling, visualizing, and even emotional investment, Terence has conquered some of the world’s most
advanced mathematical quandaries.
A Fraught
Relationship
Still, schisms often crop up between
STEM and the arts. A 1959 lecture
by English novelist and physical
chemist C.P. Snow detailed the
“gulf” that had grown between science and literature. (In Snow’s view,
English society had leaned too far
on the humanities side.) In early
2020, the U.S. presidential administration spoke of cutting funding to
liberal arts endowments, having
already upped spending for STEM
education in 2017.
This was proposed despite studies showing that students with arts
backgrounds do better across all
academic subjects. According to a
fact sheet prepared by the University
of Florida, students who had studied
the arts throughout high school, on
average, scored 98 points higher on
the SAT (or standard aptitude test)
than those who had studied arts for
half a year or less. In that same study,
an appreciation for music correlated
with higher scores in the test’s math
section. A large-scale 2019 study by
Brookings, an American think tank,
found that students with a robust
arts education performed better
than their counterparts in a wide
range of areas—everything from
behavior to compassion and engagement in school.
Whether or not you work in a
STEM-heavy industry, keep in mind
the powerful symbiosis that can
exist between those disciplines and
the arts. A humanities background
can empower you to use your personal views and experiences in
workplace decision-making, instead
of trying to approach problems
from a purely objective place; it can
also help you collaborate with colleagues (bringing in those interpersonal skills the humanities emphasize) and break down silos between
disparate areas of your business or
past learnings. So try tapping into
that background—and if your
STEM has never seen an A, consider
signing up for a class or two. You
may be surprised at the solutions
you come up with.
32
I V.
MANAGING
YOUR
TIME
setting
boundaries
The changing shape of work-life balance
I
MAGINE WORKING FOR ROZ.
One evening, she calls you while
you’re in the middle of a family
dinner. You have a project pending, so you know why she’s calling.
Do you pick up the phone?
If it were up to Roz, you would
not. Instead, you would send a message explaining that you’re not available at the moment but will get back
to her as soon as you can. “For me,
that means they’re modeling the
behavior that I want them to have—
that family is priority,” she says.
Of course, making family a priority while getting ahead in your
career is easier said than done, and
the pressure to excel at both tends
to fall disproportionately on
women. Perhaps that’s why almost
3 million U.S. women left the workforce between the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic and early
2021. Meanwhile, younger workers
are setting boundaries by leaving
33 jobs that have worn down their
mental health: A 2022 study conducted by the American firm Fidelity Investments surveyed professionals between the ages of 25 and
35 and found that a majority of
them had made career-related
changes in the past two years or
planned on doing so—signaling, the
study says, a heightened demand
for jobs that are both more meaningful and more flexible. (The less
drastic option of “quiet quitting,” or
confining one’s professional duties
to regular work hours and declining
to take on extra responsibilities,
became a hot topic in the summer of
2022.) Another study, this one published by the American tech giant
Microsoft, found that more than
half of its respondents (representing
31 countries and a wider range of
generations) chose to prioritize
health and well-being over work.
For people who have kept their
jobs, the pandemic has shifted
expectations about work-life balance as well. It has necessitated
remote and hybrid work, and many
who’ve enjoyed that flexibility now
“Creating an environment where
people can feel whole in their
workday actually raises their
contribution towards the business.”
— ­R O Z
A S S I G N M E N T
GATHER YOURSELF
“Critical to time management is setting
boundaries,” says Roz. She creates her
own boundaries at work by making time
every Friday afternoon to think back on
her week. She’ll send information and
encouragement to team members based
on what they’ve accomplished, but she’ll
also sit quietly to get her thoughts
together for the coming week. That
means she has a clear head while she’s
planning, which makes things less chaotic down the road. Now it’s time for you
to set aside a weekly window for pure
strategic thinking. Try and adhere to it for
four weeks in a row. Take notes as you go,
and after a month, identify and record
any resulting changes you’ve noticed in
your work (and personal) life.
require it from their employers. The
Fidelity study found that, outside of
financial benefits, 65 percent of
younger workers most valued flexibility in their work schedules and
being able to work remotely—giving
them better control over their personal boundaries.
But even as a growing movement
of workers demands a sustainable
work-life balance, some argue that
the concept itself could use a
rethink. In a fall 2022 interview,
American screenwriter and producer
Shonda Rhimes (right) told the
woman-focused networking site
Chief that she’s regularly asked
about how she manages her work-life
balance—a question that seldom
extends to her male counterparts.
Rhimes, who’s also a MasterClass
instructor, doesn’t see this balance
as a zero-sum game: Sometimes you
choose work, sometimes you choose
family, and “those choices are okay.”
34
MANAGING YOUR TIME
11 timemanagement
tips
Everyone peaks at different hours of the day, and
everyone hits walls. If you’ve ever struggled to make
time for work, rest, and play, try these suggestions
35 2.
Remove Distractions
Use time-management apps to monitor your social media habits, and try
putting your phone away during
work if you don’t need it. (You can, of
course, use it during breaks.) If you
need your phone for work, silence all
nonessential notifications.
1.
Pinpoint Peak Brain Power
3.
“When do you peak?” Roz asks.
“When are your best moments?
What gives you charge, and what
makes you feel challenged so that
you contribute?” Try to schedule
your most important obligations
according to your answers.
Take one day and use a timer to find
out how long you spend checking
your email, preparing for meetings,
chatting with colleagues, etc. Determine where you may be spending too
much time or too little, or where your
energy is draining out needlessly.
Audit Your Time
DECISION
CROSSR OA D S
Learn more
about
work-life
balance
on page 41
6.
Focus on Deliverables,
Not Schedules
4.
Prioritize and Delegate
Roz likes to identify three or four
priorities she’s going to “own
and concentrate on. Everything
else goes to pure delegation.” Try
identifying the skill sets of your
teammates so you know when a
task should be handed off. You can
even write up a skills cheat sheet
to refer to when you’re stuck.
5.
Be Action-Oriented
Make sure meetings and one-on-ones
end with clearly defined tasks. “I need
very few update meetings,” Roz says.
“I need decision meetings.”
If you’re a manager, let your reports
figure out how they’re going to bring
in the necessary results. Avoid fixating
on arbitrary time frames.
7.
Set Time Limits
If a task is taking too long, move on
and work on something else for a
while before coming back to it. You
may find that you feel less stuck on
the second try.
8.
Set Nonnegotiables
Identify the most important events
in your personal life, put them on
your work calendar, and, whenever
necessary, let your colleagues know
that those events can’t be moved.
9.
Reflect
Clear some time on Friday afternoons
so you can look back on the week and
set some goals for the next one.
10.
Get Comfortable With “No”
If you simply do not have the bandwidth to take on a new task, or if that
task isn’t relevant to your work, tell
that to the person who’s aiming to
assign it to you.
11.
Take Responsibility
Roz says it best: “It’s important for
you to build that intestinal fortitude
that says, ‘If I don’t inform the organization of what my priorities are…I’m
going to be the one that suffers.’ ”
36
A S S I G N M E N T
SELF-INVENTORY
Use the following questions to define the values that are most important to you. Then list three
companies you’d like to work for. Research those companies to learn about their stated
(or apparent) values. Consider which of these overlap with your personal values and which don’t.
In a given week, what is most crucial for you to accomplish?
What gets you excited about going to work in the morning?
Which of your career and/or personal accomplishments are you most proud of?
What activities make you feel most fulfilled?
What’s one organization that you support—or, if you had the time to
volunteer for a nonprofit, which one would it be?
What’s one maxim that sums up your day-to-day outlook?
What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
Using your answers to those questions as a guide, list your values in the column on the left.
In the three right-hand columns, list the values of the companies you’d like to work for.
How do their values line up with yours?
VA L U E S
37 C O M PA N Y 1
C O M PA N Y 2
C O M PA N Y 3
A P P E N D I X
DECISION
CROSSR OA D S
in her own words
The pivotal choices discussed in class,
with answers voiced by Roz herself
1
L I ST E N I N G AS A L E A D E R
Crossroads
A hypothetical: You’ve just stepped
into a new managerial role, and it’s
time to meet your reports. How do
you approach that first interaction?
not coming in to Monday-morning
quarterback. When I’m there, quite
honestly, it is for me. It’s for me to learn
and for me to listen, because I’m going
to go back and I’m going to take
action. There are some great ways to
foster innovation, and I want to remind
this audience that innovation happens
at all levels and in all disciplines, but it
starts with asking good questions.”
Paths
1. Deliver a pep talk
2. Prioritize listening, asking questions, and learning
Decision
“It’s interesting to think about the
keen listener. It’s a position that I take
most because, on taking on a new
opportunity, what your organization
wants to know is that you’re not coming in on day one to invoke change;
you’re here to listen, to help and
migrate ideas. When I’m doing something as simple as a store visit, my
first and most important initiative is to
walk in and to listen. And I want to
make sure that they understand I am
2
AG I L E L E A R N I N G AT
K I M B E R LY- C L A R K
Crossroads
Having made the decision to close two
underperforming plants, Roz realizes
that one of them is driving innovation in
ways that aren’t reflected in its metrics.
Paths
1. Stick with the plan and close both
underperforming plants
2. Push to keep the innovative plant
open despite the low numbers
38
Decision
“I reached out to the CEO of the company. I said to him, ‘I think I’ve made a
mistake. If we close this plant, we’re
going to slow innovation, but it will
always underperform. If we are comfortable with mediocre performance,
but we get innovation, would you
support me in not closing this facility?’ He was a man of great stature,
worried about the embarrassment of
the brand and myself, too, but he
supported me and we pulled it. I think
as leaders, we have to learn to be
constant agile learners, be engaged
in the work in front of you—and
always remember, when you are in
these big-decision moments, to not
let the emotion, not let the data and
those things absorb your better
thinking and to continue to go back
to the basics of listening and being
an agile learner.”
Kimberly-Clark raised me, and they
invested in me wholeheartedly. It
came to the point where I knew I
needed to learn more. I left Kimberly-Clark from being a group president
and joined Walmart stores as vice
president in their retail and operations organization. I wanted to learn a
new trade called retail; I did that. I
was at a decision crossroad at that
point in my personal career because I
knew at that point where I wasn’t
learning anymore or didn’t feel
engaged. I took a step out.”
4
R EC O G N I Z I N G T H E
C U STO M E R AT SA M ’ S C LU B
Crossroads
3
As the new CEO of Sam’s Club, Roz
must zero in on the store’s customer
base and try to expand it.
Paths
K I M B E R LY- C L A R K A N D
WA L M A RT: R E TA I L O F
T WO C I T I E S
1. Focus on the value-conscious customer who makes up the store’s base
2. Pursue a higher-earning customer
Crossroads
Decision
Walmart pursues Roz while she’s at
Kimberly-Clark, a company that has
nurtured and supported her for more
than 20 years.
“What was interesting is the customer
base at Sam’s Club was sometimes
very similar to the customer of a
Walmart store. And typically, a
Walmart store has a lower-income
level, but then at Sam’s we’re asking
you to pay a membership of at least a
hundred dollars a year at the time. So
we were really challenged with two
different paths: Do we take that
Walmart customer and serve them
through a warehouse-club model, or
do we look at the potential for our cus-
Paths
1. Stay put as group president
2. Step down to a vice president role in
an unfamiliar industry—but one with a
higher ceiling
Decision
“I had a fantastic career. I feel like
39 tomer and look at our history and look
at the data and look at the science
that says for some reason they’ve
been continuously capable of paying
a hundred dollars a year to shop at the
store? We chose the path to begin to
migrate that customer to a higher
household-income level. We stayed
with the premise that if you’re going to
pay a membership, there has to be a
privilege to that membership. The real
lesson here is how important it is to
pay attention to data and let the data
at least lead you in the right direction.
The data allowed us to bring in a
whole new customer base, expand
their ticket, and increase their loyalty
to us. And we saw that play out in their
membership fees.”
5
G O I N G D I G I TA L
AT STA R B U C KS
Crossroads
intelligence assigned behind those
espresso machines. Those espresso
machines are tabulating how many
shots are pulled—shots per hour,
shots per beverage—so it helps you
manage inventory. It manages who
comes in the store. It’s tied to when
Roz places a mobile order: The history of my purchases are known by
the barista. The barista is able to
know when I’m coming to the store
because I’ve ordered a beverage by
my phone. That means I’m coming in
to pick up my order. They can send
me back a text to say, ‘Your order has
been prepared.’ But also they can say,
‘Roz, how are you this morning?’
because they know I’m coming.…I
think when you think about things like
coffee, you want an experience. You
want that handoff. You want to know
that it’s
6 almost handmade, and you
feel better about it. You have to apply
technology where it makes sense.”
5
6
Long lines at retail locations have
become a big headache for customers
and employees alike.
SUPPLIERS AND
DEMANDS
Paths
Crossroads
1. Maximize speed, even if it results in
less customer-barista interaction
2. Find another way to solve the
problem with technology
Roz’s world is upended after she
speaks up for diversity in a televised
interview.
Paths
Decision
“The Starbucks app is a really good
example of innovation at its best.
What happens behind the scenes in
that app is also a lot of artificial intelligence. Quite honestly, when you
come in and you see these big
espresso machines, there’s artificial
1. Stay safe and either block out the
blowback or offer an apology
2. Double down on principles and
continue to push for change
Decision
“Being an African American female,
I’m held in a different regard, and my
40
statements have impact. And so I
chose that as a positive. When my
statements have impact, then that
means I’m going to make more statements. And I realize now the power
of my voice and the power of change
and the power of having the freedom
to speak. And I look back on that,
and it was an awful feeling at the
time, but it was a moment of true
change for myself personally.”
5
7
about what you do with the data, and
it’s about you looking at what’s next,
because that would not bode well for
us to give up a beautiful asset like our
Boots business in the U.K. for a price
that I don’t think anyone would’ve
been proud of in the long term.”
8
WO R K / L I F E BA L A N C E
Crossroads
B O OTS U. K . : P I VOT
P R E PA R E D N E S S
Crossroads
Walgreens Boots Alliance initiates the
process of selling the Boots unit in the
U.K.—but market conditions change,
and new data suggests that the time
is not right for a sale of that size.
Another hypothetical: You’re at
dinner with your family and you get
a call from Roz. You’re working with
her on a big project, so you know
what the call is going to be about.
Paths
1. Take the call
2. Text back and let her know that
you’ll return her call as ASAP
Paths
1. Stay the course and sell the Boots
U.K. unit
2. Change the plan and keep Boots
Decision
“We decided to make a pivot and
delay the sale of our Boots business in
the U.K. I think that’s a major challenge for leaders: to make sure that
they are the ones that are leading that
discussion around why it’s important
to keep your eyes on the long view
and manage the day-to-day and use
your resources to accomplish both.
The organization understood it, and I
think in the end they applauded that
we saw it, we called time out, and we
made a pivot. It’s all about the agility
that you have. It’s about the insight, it’s
41 Decision
“What I want to hear from them is,
‘I’ll send you a text message and get
right back to you as soon as I can.’
Because for me, that means they’re
modeling the behavior that I want
them to have: that family is priority,
and they do feel a sense of urgency
to respond to my message or my
note or my call in due order.
I respect that.”
roz’s
reading
list
Land of Big
Numbers: Stories
TE-PING CHEN
Finding Me
V I O L A DAV I S
Trust First: A True
Story About the
Power of Giving People
Second Chances
B RUC E DE E L
W I T H S A R A G R AC E
The Heart of Business:
Leadership Principles
for the Next Era
of Capitalism
H U B E R T J O LY W I T H
CA ROL I N E L A M B E RT
Together: The
Healing Power of
Human Connection
in a Sometimes
Lonely World
V I V E K H . M U RT H Y
Surviving the
Forest: A WW2
Historical Novel, Based
on a True Story of a Jewish Holocaust Survivor
The Light We Carry:
Overcoming in
Uncertain Times
A D I VA G E F F E N
Why We Sleep:
Unlocking the
Power of Sleep
and Dreams
Think Again: The
Power of Knowing
What You Don’t Know
A DA M G R A N T
MICHELLE OBAMA
M AT T H E W WA L K E R ,
PHD
42
“It’s important to
set a big goal—one
that people feel like,
‘There’s no way,
no how we’re ever
going to be able to
deliver upon this.’
Then you know
you’ve almost
gotten it right.”
—ROZ
43 44
credits
AUDIO FROM “A CONVERSATION
WITH ROSALIND BREWER , CO O STARBUCKS”
Courtesy Shaun Robinson Media
IMAGE OF SOPHIA B. PACKARD AND HARRIET E. GILES
WITH SPELMAN SEMINARY STUDENTS, 1886
Courtesy the Spelman College Archives
FO OTAGE AND AUDIO FROM A CNN NEWS INTERVIEW
Courtesy CNN
PRODUCT AND STORE FO OTAGE AND IMAGES
Courtesy Starbucks
PRODUCT AND FACTORY FO OTAGE
Courtesy Kimberly-Clark
PRODUCT AND STORE FO OTAGE AND IMAGES
Courtesy Walmart Inc.
PRODUCT AND STORE FO OTAGE AND IMAGES
Courtesy Walgreens Boots Alliance
COMMENCEMENT FO OTAGE AND IMAGES
Courtesy Spelman College
PORTR AITS OF ROZ
Photographs by Sara Stathas