Most Important Skills For A Senior Vice President At Starbucks
Michael, a Starbucks Senior Vice President, emphasizes active listening as a crucial skill, learned by observing skilled listeners and consciously incorporating their techniques, stressing that beyond technical skills ("that was just a given"), strong emotional intelligence and interpersonal abilities—including managing, being managed, and influencing others—"become super critical" for career advancement in hierarchical settings.
Active Listening, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), People Skills, Leadership, Communication
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Michael Fink
Senior Vice President
Starbucks Corporation
University of California Berkeley
Harvard Law School JD
Economics
Food, Beverages & Alcohol, Law
Legal
International Student, Honors Student
Video Highlights
1. Active listening is crucial for understanding others and is a skill that can be learned by observing skilled listeners.
2. High emotional intelligence (EQ) and strong people skills are essential for success, even more so than technical skills in many corporate settings.
3. The ability to work effectively with others, manage people, and influence colleagues is paramount for career advancement in hierarchical organizations
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
I would say this is true not only for my job, but for most jobs. One of the big skills is becoming an active listener, which I wasn't originally good at. It's not just about having opinions, but really listening to what others are saying and trying to understand them, whether one-on-one or in group meetings.
I think listening is a really important skill to be successful. A board director at Starbucks once told me that to learn good listening, I should watch a good listener in meetings. He suggested focusing on who seems to be actively taking in information and understanding it, which is evident in their comments.
I did that. I found someone I thought was very good at listening and just watched them in meetings for a while. Then I tried to incorporate those skills myself. So, I'd say that's one of the biggest ones.
The other is having good EQ, or people skills. Most jobs require being smart or technically good, which is just a given. If you couldn't do that, you wouldn't last long. Those are the table stakes.
Beyond that, it's about how you work with people, how you connect with them, whether you're managing, being managed, or influencing. All those skills become super critical. This is very different from school, where you're just trying to excel by getting points from exams or classwork.
In the corporate world, these other kinds of skills become more important to rise up in any organization. All those people skills become super critical for jobs in corporate America or any hierarchical institution. Even at the university, for administrative staff, not faculty, I see that play out a little differently because it's a different setting, but it's still there.