Last week Howard Schultz took the same four-hour anti-racial bias training program that 175,000 Starbucks employees are undergoing Tuesday.
"There were a number of tables where people began to cry," he said of the session with about 40 top Starbucks executives at the company's Seattle headquarters.
Schultz, speaking Tuesday morning to a small group of reporters before the unprecedented afternoon closure of 8,000 company-owned U.S. stores, said the tears came from the emotion of the personal stories that executives shared, and reflections on "the critical importance of what we were about to do."
Most stores were scheduled to close at 1:30 p.m. and reopen on Wednesday morning.
The program, part of a broader effort that includes policy revisions and ongoing training, was developed with the help of outside consultants in a little more than six weeks after a Starbucks store manager in Philadelphia called the police on two black men waiting for an associate. Video of the arrests blew up on social media, sparking protests and sending Starbucks into crisis mode. Schultz said the store manager, with whom he talked in the aftermath, ultimately agreed to a separation agreement "which she felt was best for her."
Schultz has long sought to balance the company's business growth with a social component as he built it from a small chain of cafes modeled on the community-centric espresso bars of Milan to a global coffee titan.
Tuesday's training included this short film by documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson:
Over those years, the company has implemented many programs "that advance the cause of the culture and values and humanity of Starbucks," Schultz said.
But the training, he said, stands out. "I can't think of anything in our history that we feel is as critically important, especially at this moment in time in the country, as this."
Schultz has billed Starbucks as a "third place" _ not work, not home _ that is, in his vision, welcoming to all. That's more challenging to live up to today than it was three decades ago when the company had 11 stores, he said, citing systemic issues in society that present themselves in stores including mental illness, homelessness, the opioid crisis and the racial divide.
The Philadelphia arrests laid bare the extent to which Starbucks is not always a welcoming place to everyone, prompting recent policy changes that allow anyone to stay in the store or use the bathroom regardless of whether they've made a purchase (the Philadelphia men had not).
"We don't want to become a public shelter. We don't want to become a public bathroom," Schultz said. At the same time, "we want to manage the company through the lens of humanity, and that's a very fragile balance."
The training effort is not without its skeptics, and Schultz is not without his critics.
With its very public push to conduct the Tuesday training, Starbucks has been accused of a "self-righteous and disingenuous public-relations stunt" _ in the words of Orlando political activist T.J. Legacy-Cole _ without making meaningful changes that would benefit those impacted by systemic racism.
Schultz said the company has attempted to make amends with the two Philadelphia men with an offer of college tuition, an undisclosed financial settlement, and a day spent visiting Starbucks headquarters last Friday hosted by chief executive Kevin Johnson. He also pointed to stores the company has opened in recent years in communities where it hadn't previously ventured such as Ferguson, Mo., Jamaica Queens in New York City, and Oakland, Calif., and programs to hire young people who are unemployed and not in school _ mainly people of color, Schultz said.
Some Starbucks shareholders have also been critical, calling to ask how much all of this is going to cost, and how the company justifies it, Schultz said.
"I don't know of another company in the history of American business that's done anything remotely close to this," Schultz said. "I think, from my perspective, it takes moral courage to do this. I'll also say it's quite expensive."
(The company has yet to disclose a specific financial impact of the store closure and training program.)
However, said Schultz said, he views it "as an investment in our people and the long-term culture and values of Starbucks," in the same vein as its stock option grants, health insurance and college tuition benefits.
Moreover, he said, Starbucks employees sent him hundreds of emails supporting the company's response and looking forward to the training.
This is not the first time Starbucks has made a high-profile attempt to discuss racism in America.
In 2015, Schultz convened a series of open forums with Starbucks employees in the aftermath of a string of police killings of black men.
Schultz said the Starbucks board held an "entire meeting to talk about racism in America and our role and responsibility, and we decided that we were going to take the bold step of writing 'race together' on the cup and using the cup as a communication device to try to elevate the conversation."
The cup-writing campaign was derided and ended abruptly in what the company said at the time was always meant to be a weeklong conversation starter. Schultz said Tuesday that he and employees _ partners in Starbucks parlance _ were proud of the 2015 attempt, "but we shut it down primarily because of the concern we had for the safety of many of our partners. It just wasn't a program that was ready for 2015."
Whether Tuesday's anti-racial bias training program is ready for 2018 remains to be seen. Asked how he would measure the effectiveness of the training, Schultz said, "we've been asking ourselves that. This is not science. This is human behavior."
The training, he said, will strengthen the bonds among store employees and provide tools to help them treat customers with more empathy and compassion, and create a welcoming environment.
"I'm very confident that what we're about to do is going to accomplish that," Schultz said.
A spokesperson added that the company is surveying employees before and after the training, and a plan for measurement would be developed with outside experts as Starbucks maps out its longer-term program, which is to include monthly trainings and a summit next year for store managers.
Schultz is hopeful that the Tuesday training will inspire other companies and organizations to take similar steps, but he has no illusions about what can be accomplished in one afternoon.
"There's no expectation on anyone's part that a four-hour block of training is going to comprehensively solve the issues of racial bias or inequities, discrimination, however it's critically important to start this conversation," he said. "This is the beginning of a long-term journey."
