Why it pays to treat competitors with “genuine camaraderie”
- As CEO of Green Mountain, Bob Stiller decided to share company expertise as widely as possible with consumers — and with industry peers.
- Putting expert employees forward as the face of the company is a powerful way to show that leadership believes in them.
- Green Mountain’s efforts to improve prospects for young coffee farmers was simultaneously an opportunity improve coffee quality and help the industry.
Developing trusted relationships with all your organization’s stakeholders also means sharing your knowledge with them in a thoughtful, collegial, and compassionate way. I wanted Green Mountain Coffee to play a role in establishing the specialty coffee industry among the broader public, and I thought the best way to do so would be to share our expertise as widely as possible with consumers—and with our industry peers.
Participating in the emerging specialty coffee industry community, we shared what we were learning as we went along and benefited immeasurably from the knowledge that others shared with us. While some of us could technically be seen as each other’s competitors, I think most of us in the industry saw other coffee companies more as partners on a journey, figuring out together how to get better and to be more successful.
Green Mountain was one of the main supporters of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (now called the Specialty Coffee Association), a trade group founded in 1982. Both Dan Cox and Rick Peyser—who moved from his original job in mail order to manage public relations and eventually became our director of social advocacy and coffee community outreach—served as organization presidents. Each year, Green Mountain would send 20 or 30 people to the SCAA conference. Mike Pelchar, then our national service manager, led packed sessions where he taught brewing techniques. He was really good at it. Other employees would give presentations on roasting technology, coffee sourcing, or other aspects of the business.
Presenting at SCAA and other events helped enhance our profile among industry peers, of course. It also gave our employees the positive experience of being recognized by industry peers as “experts,” boosting their self-confidence and their overall sense of engagement with the company—both prerequisites for successful co-creation for a higher purpose. Studies of the so-called Pygmalion effect consistently demonstrate the power of positive expectations to impact a person’s sense of self, behavior, and performance. Putting employees forward as the face of the company was a powerful way of showing that we believed in them.
There was a genuine camaraderie in the early specialty coffee industry. Everybody wanted to help each other—and I was hungry to learn and to see how we measured up to peers. I remember how Donald Schoenholt, a pioneer in specialty coffee at Gillies Coffee Company in Brooklyn, let me hang out in his store until two in the morning to share ideas about building and running a successful coffee business. We were probably sipping some coffee, too, I imagine!
Visiting George Howell at the Boston-based Coffee Connection (acquired by Starbucks in 1994), I was struck by seeing an entire palette of boxes that he had going out for mail order. And he was sending out one of these once or twice a week! I just kept thinking, “Oh my God, look at all that coffee.” In that moment, I saw what I wanted to achieve. Looking back just a few years later, though, that was nothing! By then, we were shipping out whole tractor-trailer loads. But having that image as a specific vision to aim for was tremendously motivating.
The network of specialty coffee producers would also be instrumental in promoting industry standards and philanthropic efforts to help coffee-growing communities. Coffee Kids was founded in 1988 by Bill Fishbein, who started the Coffee Exchange in Providence, Rhode Island. It was one of the first independent nonprofits to focus on improving prospects for young coffee farmers. Originally, because Coffee Exchange was a competitor, I remember thinking, “Should we really support this?” But I felt we had both an obligation to help these coffee farmers and an opportunity to improve coffee quality and help the industry. Green Mountain was a company committed to a higher purpose, to using our business as a force for good. Whether we did that on our own, or in partnership with others, was less important than simply trying to do the right thing. For years, Green Mountain employees served on the Coffee Kids board and in various leadership roles including president. When we later expanded our own philanthropic programs in coffee-growing communities, our Central America connections through Coffee Kids proved invaluable.
