The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Chapter 5 opens with the case study of Starbucks. In the 1980s, Howard Schultz became CEO of the coffee chain. One of his key initiatives was an intense training program for employees in which they learned the skill of willpower. Willpower, Duhigg notes, “is the single most important keystone habit for individual success” (131). The author points to the story of Starbucks manager Travis Leach, who achieved personal success working for Starbucks after coming from a troubled home in which both of his parents were drug addicts. Travis deeply benefited from Starbuck’s life-skills training, including self-discipline.

Duhigg then shifts from the corporate case study that opened the chapter to a brief history on the science of willpower. Researchers at universities around the world, from the United States to Australia to Scotland, are studying willpower and the brain. Willpower is a “hot topic” in the scientific field right now, and corporations are taking notice.

Children with strong willpower perform measurably better in every aspect of their lives as they age. Researchers have shown that humans only have a certain store of willpower, however, which can be filled or depleted. We can work to increase our supply of willpower, something Starbucks hopes to achieve with each employee.