NPR Mocks Starbucks Improvement Efforts, But Not Me

Panel Round II: Wait, Wait : NPR

It’s unfortunate that NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” show would mock Starbucks and their Lean efforts, as had been somewhat half-documented in the WSJ (and discussed here on this blog). But, I had to admit I chuckled and laughed at the audio that I linked to up top.

They start discussing Starbucks and their use of Mr. Potato Head about two minutes into the clip. The NPR folks took the Mr. Potato Head exercise very literally and someone asked basically, “If they want to do a better job of making coffee drinks, why not practice making coffee????”

The point of exercises like these aren’t to develop manual dexterity or anything directly transferable to the actual work itself. It’s about demonstrating how a process that “can’t be improved upon” (in the minds of staff) can actually be improved if you get creative in your approach to solving problems. I’m sure the Mr. Potato Head exercise is all about developing their brains, not their arms and hands.

There were also some funny quips in the NPR show about making a latte with a foam mustache or a hat… funny.

If you’re going to not understand why Starbucks is using Mr. Potato Head (as an eye-opening “what is possible” exercise), you might as well be funny about it, unlike the Gawker blog was with their misguided attempt to claim that Starbucks was turning people into robots.