Kevin Johnson Essay

Kevin Johnson is the President and Chief Operating Officer for Starbucks Corporation (Hoovers, 2018). He was appointed this position in 2015, however he has served on the company’s board of directors since 2009 (Hoovers, 2018). Johnson leads the operating businesses globally in America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and China/Asia Pacific (Hoovers, 2018). He is also responsible for leading the Starbucks’ supply chain, information technology, and mobile/digital platforms for over 21,000 stores (Hoovers, 2018).

Besides Kevin’s leadership role operationally, he also extends his role into nonprofit businesses. Johnson is one of the founding board members of an organization called NPower, which provides access to technology and skills to help fulfill

Starbucks planned on closing seventy-seven of their Teavana locations at Simon properties nationwide (Thomas, 2017). Starbucks wanted to negotiate these store closures because these stores were creating a decline in profits for the company. (Thomas, 2017). The original lease agreement between Starbucks and Simon for the Teavana brand required, “the tenant to be open and operating during normal business hours. Some of those seventy-seven leases still extend for up to another decade” (Thomas, 2017). This means that Starbucks was trying to negotiate new terms for the agreement. However, Simon could not agree to the closures and took Starbucks to court (Thomas, 2017). The court ruled in favor of Simon and prevented Starbucks from closing the seventy-seven Teavana locations (Thomas,

Johnson sought to extract Teavana from the locations, however, they were not able to terminate the contract and were taken to court (Thomas, 2017). Since Starbucks did not win the case and ultimately was losing profits through up-keeping these locations, this negotiation was not beneficial for Starbucks.

There is not much information online about the post-negotiation relationship. However, I imagine that Simon malls may be thinking twice before arranging new deals with Starbucks. Also, there will probably be no new openings of Teavana. Though, Simon malls must still value the Starbucks brand because of the traffic the store brings to malls, so the company will probably continue a relationship with Starbucks.

If I were the leader in this situation, I would have handled the situation differently. I would have used the collaborating style of negotiating. The collaborating style of negotiating is when there is a high priority for both the relationship and the outcome (Hiam and Lewicki, 2007). I would negotiate in this manner by offering to close less Teavana stores and by seeing what Simon malls wants as well or what Starbucks can do for them to reach an even, mutual agreement. I would use this strategy because many companies have better relationships in the long-run if both parties achieve what they want. Post-negotiation, the relationship would stay the same and Simon would see Starbucks as being fair in