Becoming mainstream
I love coffee.
You will often find me enjoying a delicious jolt of caffeine before, during, or after a meeting. If I’m not consuming it, I’m talking about it. This regular habit has landed me at many unique and lovely, independent coffee shops in the area. But time and again, I find myself going back to my trusty, tried-and-true Starbucks.
How has this global mega-brand found a way into my regular routine, delivering a consistently delicious cup of coffee, while also making me feel seen, like somebody whose needs and desires matter enough to get right, down to the tiniest detail?
There are many interesting facets to the Starbucks growth story that inform the answer to this question: how they turned unique coffee vernacular (tall, grande, venti) into everyday, commonly understood language, how they created a premium lifestyle brand by attracting coffee enthusiasts who helped them expand to the masses, or how they anchored themselves on delivering high-quality coffee and obsessing over every detail of the customer experience.
The idea behind how Starbucks has brought their unique approach to coffee to the mainstream should serve as inspiration as we work to do a similar, challenging task—to bring Montessori into the educational mainstream.
After all, Starbucks has proven that you can standardize without being cookie-cutter and customize without chaos—and, most significantly, you can do it at scale. How did they achieve this? One answer, I think, lies within the concept of standardized customization.
By definition, standardized customization refers to the development of centralized, or standard, components that can be configured in multiple ways to create a final product. The benefit of standardization is efficiency of resources and economies of scale, while customization meets the unique, individual needs of every customer.
Customers at Starbucks, for example, can order a multitude of coffee combinations—extra-hot, skinny, vanilla, latte or flat white, macchiato, mocha—while using the same base components available to everyone—the high-quality coffee beans and the highly trained baristas that make and customize each drink.
These components are set against a standard backdrop that is recognizable from anywhere in the world. From the look and feel of the space and the iconic branding to the customer experience and the familiar green aprons on the baristas—you know when you’ve entered a Starbucks. And still, so many of the standard details, like adding your name on the cup or baristas who are trained to greet you with a smile and friendly attitude, are intentionally designed to personalize your experience.
As we continue to grow and scale, we can build standardized customization into our broader approach to how we deliver our education. After all, the Montessori approach itself is a shining example of standardized customization in action.
The Montessori scope and sequence of intentionally designed materials is standard, but the number of ways that it can be customized and delivered at school or in-home allows us to meet the unique needs of any family and their individual child. Our curriculum allows every child to achieve mastery at their own pace, while choosing the materials that they are most interested in at any given time.
With our approach at the core, we can create the standard backdrop that will allow our families to receive the same exceptional experience in any location around the world, while still receiving a fully personal and individualized experience that meets their needs. From the beautiful look and feel of our schools, to the personal interactions with our highly-trained Guides, and the exceptional quality of the parents’ experience —you should know when you’ve entered a Guidepost or ATI school.
Our success in integrating this approach will help to answer this question as we become mainstream: can we make children’s house or mixed-age classrooms be as commonly understood and accepted by parents as the venti latte has become for coffee drinkers?
If the Starbucks growth story is an indication, I think the answer is unequivocally yes.
Have a great weekend,
Jess