Secrets of Greatness: How They Work

There is an extremely interesting article in an issue of FORTUNE magazine called ‘Secrets of Greatness: How I Work‘ — a series of first-hand accounts of how some of the world’s busiest executives handle the constant flow of information around them.

One of those profiled is Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks, who explains a few of his tips for staying one step ahead of the curve:

‘I get up between 5 and 5:30, and naturally the first thing I do is make some coffee; depending on my mood, it’s either an espresso macchiato or one of our Indonesian coffees in a French press. I’ll take my coffee, read three newspapers — the Seattle Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times — and listen to a voice mail summarizing sales results from the past 24 hours. This has been my routine for 25 years. [...]

At work the first thing I do is read the flash report, which is our road map of what we do that day. We manage day-to-day in our business. I’m proud that we are so nimble — we have great information flow to make that happen. So we attend to U.S. business during the day, and of course at night I’ll be speaking with Asia.

I’m always stopping by our stores — at least 25 a week. I’m also in other places: Home Depot, Whole Foods, Crate & Barrel. I was just i”