Empower the Strategic Corporal in your Organization.

Starbucks reported more than $22 billion in sales and revenue in 2017. With more than 175,000 employees and 8,000 company-owned stores in the United States (and 25,000 around the world), Starbucks controls about 40% of the market share and dwarfs their nearest competitor.

Quantifying the benefits of any one interaction between any of those 175,000 Starbucks employees and a customer is surely overwhelming. What is easier is quantifying the effects of a bad customer experience: As the result of one store manager’s decision on one April day in a downtown Philadelphia Starbucks, the company will close all 8,000 of its stores to conduct “unconscious bias” training – and forego about $60 million in revenue. One simple act has had a disproportionately negative effect on Starbucks’ brand, reputation, and bottom line.

In the military, we called this the “strategic corporal”: that one person in your organization, presumably with limited responsibility and reach, who somehow finds him or herself faced with a decision that can directly impact your ability to achieve strategic success.

The “strategic corporal.”

Marine General (Retired) Charles Krulak coined the term in a 1999 article on leadership. Using a fictitious war, General Krulak illustrated the principle that in modern military conflicts, the “diffusion of technology, growth of [a] multitude of transnational factors, and the consequences of increasing globalization and economic interdependence” create complex issues that demand mature judgment and rapid decision-making from even the lowest-level leaders in your organization. For General Krulak, this meant a corporal, arguably the first rank of leadership in any of our armed forces.

Who is the strategic corporal in your organization? Though written nearly twenty years ago, General Krulak’s argument should resonate with leaders and managers in all organizations, whatever the size. In today’s social media-driven world, where we react first and ask questions later, your strategic corporal is…everyone. From the CEO to a consultant acting on your behalf, anyone representing your company can affect your bottom line.

So what tools are you giving your people to mitigate risk and to maximize opportunities for success?

The Starbucks Response

On April 12th, two mid-twenties black men walked into a Philadelphia Starbucks for a business meeting. They were early for their appointment, and asked to use the bathroom while they waited for a colleague. The manager told them it was for paying customers only; when the two young men took a seat instead of making a purchase, she called the police. The result has been prominently displayed wherever you get your news.

The Philadelphia Police Department’s short-sighted actions notwithstanding, Starbucks has taken the brunt of justified national outrage. Their response has been to close all Starbucks for a day of “unconscious bias” training. But this is about more than just addressing our biases – unconscious or otherwise. This about good leadership, about organizational culture, about identifying and mitigating risk, about empowering that potential strategic corporal within your organization.

Mitigating Risk & Empowering Employees

El Capitan is 3,000 vertical feet of granite in the Yosemite Valley in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was first climbed in 1958, and it took the three men who did it 47 days of drilling holes, setting anchors, and prepositioning equipment, and another 12 days to actually scale the rock.

(photo courtesy Jimmy Chin/National Geographic)

In 2017, Alex Honnold did it in 3 hours and 56 minutes. And he did it without a rope.

Is Honnold that much better a climber than those who came before him? Maybe. But what’s more likely is that Honnold identified a goal, came up with a plan, painstakingly identified all possible points of failure, then took measures to reduce risk to a level for which he was comfortable.

It’s unlikely you face the same risks of life or death in your business, but the effect of failure is no less real. What are you doing to prepare your own ‘strategic corporal’ for that opportunity to make a good decision? Is there clear guidance as to how to react to the litany of situations junior managers might find themselves in? Is there a person or office they can reach out to when they’re not sure? Do you have outside assistance to test your existing policies and procedures, and to assess how you respond to crisis?

Starbucks is a behemoth, and will surely weather this storm. But maybe not – there are literally thousands of places other than a Starbucks to get a coffee just in greater Philadelphia (see map at right). Do your own customers have alternatives if someone in your company makes a preventable bad decision?

Probably.

But more importantly, have you empowered your employees to make the right decision so your customers are never faced with the choice?

Jay Morse/Founder, Faro International