Debbi Gillotti

It’s certainly a rare event when Starbucks Corp. serves up free java to millions of customers.

But that’s what happened April 14, 1998, when the upscale coffee retailer tried to make its customers happy after a computer glitch shut down cash registers at 1,400 Starbucks cafes across North America.

A hardware upgrade knocked out the cash registers anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours, depending on the store, but not the cappuccino machines coffee-lovers depend on.

Behind the scenes, most of the 200-member information technology staff at Seattle-based Starbucks spent a half-day fixing the problem. Starbucks’ then-CIO, Debbi Gillotti, says inaccurate data caused the registers to shut down.

The IT team assigned to the company’s help desk answered questions from store managers and helped them restore data on their backup files. “It basically involved some file manipulation,” recalls Gillotti, who is now senior vice president and general man-ager of Starbucks X, the company’s e-commerce division.

“If the store registers aren’t operating, it’s an inconvenience to customers and employees. The store networks are the lifeblood of our company,” she says.

Tom McKievor, vice president of MIS at Starbucks, credits Gillotti’s ability to keep calm in the face of a crisis. “She got all of the relevant resources focused on (the situation),” he says. Gillotti assembled a war room to work on all facets of the problem.

She broke the problem into three or four major areas and assigned a leader to each team. The groups worked independently, came up with an answer, reconvened and put together an action plan.

Gillotti’s response also involved updating five corporate officers and 20 field managers about the groups’ progress.

McKievor says Gillotti demonstrated her skill as a leader by focusing on fixing the problem, rather than assigning blame. “It’s not a time to find out whose fault it was. Nobody felt like they were under attack,” he says.

Gillotti says the No. 1 task for a leader is to develop excellent listening skills. “Don’t assume you know the answer until you listen and learn. Make sure people who work for you help educate you,” she says, offering leadership advice to new managers.

How do you know when you’ve arrived? Gillotti says: “The best compliment to you as a leader is how good the people who work for you become. It’s a high compliment when people who work for me are sought after for other jobs. It shows I’ve done a good job.”