OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and the situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1)  Name and describe your organization. 

The name of my organization is Starbucks Coffee Company. Starbucks is a company that has
been around since 1971, when they first sold whole-bean coffee to customers in Seattle, WA.
Their iconic name comes from the old tale Moby Dick, speaking on the mythical creature, the
siren, who lured men to their death out at sea. Starbucks’s mission is to create a culture of
warmth and belonging where everyone is welcome, but its mission statement has recently been
scrutinized. While Starbucks has made great strides in adapting to change, will its leadership be
able to adapt to the new generation of workers? 

2)  Describe your role in the organization (it can be an internal or external role).
I play an internal role at Starbucks, as I am currently an assistant store manager. While I work
most of my hours on the floor with my baristas, I carry a few managerial responsibilities. I am
responsible for admin each Monday, where I go over my store’s results from the previous week
and have a weekly district meeting. Admin gives me an idea of the opportunities my store has,
and with weekly shift meetings as well, I can use my shifts eyes to point out our huddles and
bring them along with me in overcoming them. Currently, I am operating a new store under
another store manager, which means we often experience new and unique situations. With the
store manager’s background, we can usually work through these issues pretty quickly; however,
we see a consistent trend of facilities issues due to the construction of our building which is a
challenging obstacle to overcome. 

3) Please describe the situation, including information you think will help the reader
understand the most important elements of the situation. (This will require selectivity: part
of the art of case writing is separating the essential facts from the mass of information that
might be included). 
The situation that I would like to focus on is the unionizing crisis that Starbucks is experiencing.
I think the root cause of this issue is leadership, not just Howard Shultz, but the store managers
within the unionizing store, and even occasionally the district leaders that oversee those store
managers. From my experience in the company, most unionized stores unionize due to the lack
of leadership in those stores. With an up-and-coming generation that will not settle, this may be
the most formidable challenge that Starbucks will face. There are speculations that management

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is taking extreme action against unionized leaders to prevent this crisis from spreading. Most of
the time, it is the threat of termination without cause. Now, these speculations do not go hand in
hand with Starbucks’s mission statement, and if I have learned anything in my role, these
baristas are being robbed when they unionize. Instead of giving factual information to ensure
baristas know the pros and cons of becoming a union, Starbucks does not even want
conversations about unions in stores. How can baristas make an informed decision if they do not
know what they are voting on? Starbucks goes into union negotiations with clear guidelines that
they will not budge on, and most of the time, they strip away essential perks like headspace,
ASU, or Lyra. 

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 Reference or References

Garone, E. (2022, February 23). The Starbucks Unionization Fight is getting messy. Time.
Retrieved from https://time.com/6150391/starbucks-cassie-fleischer-union-fight/

Lucas, A. (2022, April 9). Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says he's not anti-union, but his past
tells a different story. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/09/starbucks-
ceo-howard-schultz-has-history-of-opposing-unions.html