I don’t think I fully appreciated at the time what a privilege it was for me to be able to record an interview with Howard Behar, a past president of Starbucks.   I think part of the reason may be that I am not a coffee drinker (I’ve never had so much as a sip of it) and my visits to Starbucks are very few and far between.  But I certainly understand what an important company it is-  and also the extraordinary example it has set for other companies in the way it has treated its employees.   Mr. Behar served as president of Starbucks during the years when it first took off like a rocket.   After he retired from the company,  he wrote a book titled “It’s not about the coffee” in which he outlined some of the leadership lessons that he learned during his time with Starbucks.   Here is a portion of our conversation.