West Coast Tour Stops

Posted on June 16th, 2009 by Keith Ferrazzi
Starby's HQ in Seattle

Starby's HQ in Seattle

Today I was at Starbucks, Amazon and Microsoft giving talks. Interesting to see the different corporate cultures as reflected in their office environments. At Starbucks they've got cubes, but with coffee kiosks and seating areas where employees gather casually - pretty cool. They also have the Creativity Lab, a tricked out conference room for brainstorming.

Amazon's environs are super sparse, a cultural nod to the fact that Jeff Bezos furnished the original offices with used pieces and did all the handiwork himself.

Tomorrow is Facebook, where I'm told everyone is skating around on 2-wheeled skateboards. (Maybe I'll get a lesson...) I also know that they've named all the conference rooms in the new HQ after mashups of video games and condiments (e.g. 'Donkey Kong Chutney').

I'm so looking forward to my round table there, in part because I know that principles of authenticity and empathy are deeply rooted in their company culture. Last year while I was researching Who's Got Your Back Tim Kendall, the director of monetization, said this:

“One of our stated corporate values is to ‘practice empathy....That’s all about creating mutual understanding and respect among teams and individuals. We expend effort and energy trying to understand someone else’s job, it’s challenges, to then take the next step of seeing how a person or team can help that other person do their job better.”

How is your workplace culture and values codified in the office itself - layout, common areas, art, etc.? How would you like it to be?

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One Response so far | Have Your Say!

  1. Keith,

    Congratulations on the success of your book. Thank you for the link to information about Starbucks CreativityLab.

    As cool a company Starbucks is, it *is* surprising that there is a cubicle culture. The CreativityLab was just what partners (employees) in the Seattle Support Center (that's what they call the HQ) needed... A space to get away from their cubes... a place for recess to think big ideas.

    Glad they're still using it!

    Paul

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