Ten 24 Media

BusinessWeek has a short piece entitled Starbuck’s Secret Ingredient. It looks at how you can incorporate coffee chain chairman Howard Schultz’s persuasive communication skills in your workplace.

In summary, here are the top 3 lessons:

Lesson 1: Dig deep to identify what you are truly passionate about (hint: it’s not always the product itself) and convey that message to employees, customers, and colleagues. When you are passionate, you come across as excited, energetic, and enthusiastic — all of the qualities people like to see in others. And if people like you, they’re more likely to do business with you or to back your vision.

Lesson 2: Inspire your colleagues, investors, or employees by painting a picture of a world made better by your service, product, company, or cause.

Lesson 3: To get the most out of people, a leader has to tap into their emotions as well as their minds. People can relate to stories. They can see themselves in other people’s stories. The ability to use stories to get people to buy into one’s vision with their hearts is a powerful leadership capability.

You can read the whole article here. Better yet, grab yourself a copy of Howard’s book and head to your local Starbucks for a little reading.