The power of beliefs in business
Zingerman's highlights, the belief cycle, and how to write a mission statement, vision, and guiding principles
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Hi there 👋
I hope your week is off to a good start. Over the past few days, I’ve finished reading an interesting new business book by the owner of a nationally-recognized deli, Zingerman’s, which is based in Michigan (USA). Well, I guess it’s more than a deli now — Zingerman’s has branched off from a chain of delis to include management training, candy shops, and seven other distinct businesses that altogether employ 750 people and bring in $55M in annual revenue.
See below for some of my highlights from the book.
Wishing you a great week,
Kevan
P.S. Here are two quick links I also found quite good this week:
How E-commerce Platform Elliot Fell Back Down to Earth
Positional Software: How Today’s Best Business Software Goes Viral
The Power of Beliefs in Business
by Ari Weinzweig
Our beliefs often develop without us knowing what’s happening at the time.
But once they’ve formed, they remain with us, frequently for the rest of our lives. We assume that their perhaps odd orientation is, in fact, “normal.” Over time, our beliefs are taken as facts.
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We cease to be lost not by returning but by turning into something else.
— Rebecca Solnit
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Perhaps the biggest form of privilege may be growing up surrounded by people who believe in themselves, who believe in you, who can push past the obstacles that others — often unfairly and inappropriately — may put in your path.
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Mission Statement
A Mission Statement, as we see it, is meant to answer four questions:
What do we do?
Why do we do it?
Who are we that’s doing it?
For whom are we doing it?
We view it like the North Star; though we can’t ever actually arrive at it, it provides a good sense of long-term direction.
Vision
A Vision is a description of success at a particular point in time in the future, written out with a good bit of richly engaging detail and emotionally meaningful descriptions. A vision, as we see it, gets very specific about what we want to do at that point in the future; how we’ll feel about it, how others might feel about us, etc. Our vision for Zingerman’s 2020 is about nine pages long. Our mission, on the other hand, is short, just six sentences.
Guiding Principles
Guiding Principles, or values, are not where we’re going or why we’re going there but rather a detailed description of how we’re going to relate to each other and the world around us while we’re doing this work. They are, I suggest, the most closely held of our beliefs, the ones that we don’t want to change even when holding true to them might cause us significant pain.
Systems
Systems are the processes we use to produce products, maintain sanitation, develop our services, sign up new staff, make potato salad, etc.
Culture
Culture is really everything about our day-to-day existence. It’s the way our lives at work really work — not what we say we’re going to do but what we actually do.
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How do we find out what we believe?
One way I’ve learned to discover my beliefs is to do this simple exercise: Begin by writing this statement, “This I believe …” Then keep writing for 10 or 15 minutes. Even five minutes will get you going. Basically, you keep writing without stopping for the entire time allotted. Writing straight through keeps you from overthinking. If you want, you can focus the exercise on a particular subject — yourself, your work, your significant other, your mother, society, the world.
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Belief cycle
The self-limiting belief cycle by Bob and Judith Wright
When we have a belief, it’s likely that that belief will lead us to take some sort of associated action. For instance, let’s say we believe that our ideas aren’t worth much and no one really cares about what we think. The action that follows might be that we rarely voice our views at work. That behavior will likely feed the belief in others that we have little to offer or perhaps aren’t very committed to the company’s success. Which will then lead those coworkers to take action accordingly — they might not ask us for our views on important issues or include us in discussions. Which will then reinforce our original belief that others don’t value our views.
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Exercise: Backtracking on Beliefs
Try tracking the Wrights’ belief cycle in reverse. Start with the actions others are taking that reinforce your beliefs and then head back up through the cycle (going counter-clockwise instead of clockwise).
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“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”
— Victor Frankl
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Road sign in Tennessee:
“Choose your rut carefully. You’ll be in it for ten miles.”
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Reflection is the best route I know to track our beliefs. The challenge is to push ourselves to take time for some introspection — to really become mindful of what it is we believe and then to correlate that with what we want.
What do we believe about the following?
Ourselves
Our lives
Our livelihood
Our friends
Our staff
Our boss
Our customers
Our family
Our future
To get going, simply settle on any subject that’s on your mind. Start things rolling by writing out the simple statement: “This I believe about X …” and then just keep writing for at least 15 to 20 minutes.
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From E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful:
"We lived the Industrial Age deluded by three great magicians, illusionists. One was the illusion that somehow, against all laws of nature, infinite growth in a finite environment is possible. The second entertainer said that by some strange law of nature there is an unlimited supply of people who are prepared to do mindless repetitive work for quite modest remuneration. The third illusion, which is still rampant, is that science can solve all problems.”
The inverse of each illusion is a positive belief. Mindful and considerate growth is far more sustainable; everyone wants to engage in meaningful work; although science has important things to share with us, intuition, emotion, and the natural world are all integral to a healthy and rewarding existence.
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If we expect the best from folks and believe they’re going to do great work, it’s way more likely we’re going to get it.
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Four styles of responding
by Margin Seligman
How to mindfully process the way we respond to others:
Active constructive: Enthusiasm and encouragement are offered for what’s been said. Even if we don’t agree with all of the content, we can still come across as supportive. We could say, “Wow! That’s a seriously interesting idea! I’m gonna give that some definite thought. Tell me more about how you got there.” Julia Cameron calls those who respond this way “believing mirrors,” people with whom it’s a great idea to share an early version of your personal vision. The approach I’ve taken of greeting every idea as if it were a new customer fits right in here. It’s my intellectual version of the 10-4 Rule — when I get within ten feet of an idea, I make direct eye contact and smile. And when I get within four feet, I give it an enthusiastic greeting! This doesn’t mean you can’t offer input or insight about how to make someone’s suggestions even more effective. But it does mean you start with good listening and encouragement, and then begin to actively support the person in exploring their proposal.
Passive constructive: Acknowledgement is given, but that’s about it. This is a less generous and less effective response, though at least it’s not negative. It could be a simple “That’s interesting” or “Good idea,” but with no real follow-up.
Passive destructive. The other person is tuned out in any number of ways that all send pretty much the same disengaged and unsupportive message.
Active destructive. This least generous response finds the shortcomings in whatever the other person proposes and then actively undercuts that person’s efforts.
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12 Natural Laws of Business
An inspiring, strategically sound vision leads the way to greatness (especially if you write it down!)
You need to give customers really compelling reasons to buy from you
Without good finance, you fail
People do their best work when they’re part of a really great organization
If you want the staff to give great service to customers, the leaders have to give great service to the staff
If you want great performance from your staff, you have to give them clear expectations and training tools
Successful businesses do the things that others know they should do … but generally don’t.
To get to greatness, you’ve got to keep getting better all the time!
Success means you get better problems
Whatever your strengths are, they will likely lead straight to your weaknesses
It generally takes a lot longer to make something great happen than people think.
Great organizations are appreciative, and the people in them have more fun