work between“ good” and“ bad” qualities, either in me or in the organization overall. But the reality is that pretty much anything we’ re good at is going to, at some point, be carried a bit too far and become a problem.
Embracing the reality of this law makes life far less stressful: instead of fighting our weaknesses, we can actually predict them and then plan ways to manage around, or through, them. If we do that well, managers can be more effective and everyone can have more fun at work. And it also gives each of us— as individuals and organizations— the opportunity to understand why we do what we do and to adjust our behaviors accordingly.
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IT GENERALLY TAKES A LOT LONGER TO MAKE SOMETHING GREAT HAPPEN THAN PEOPLE THINK While most people seem to think that everyone else’ s work or life or whatever is glamorous( the grass is always greener and all that), few things are actually very glamorous after the third or fourth day of doing them. Front line people think it would be great to be the CEO and be in charge of everything; CEOs think about how nice it would be to just be able to go clean the cooler for an hour and not have anyone bother them! And while there are the hole-in-ones of the business world that you can probably point to as exceptions, nearly all great organizations, nearly all long-term, sustainable businesses, take a really, really, long time to build. They may seem from the outside like“ overnight” successes, but very few of them actually are.
My experience here is that it takes about two years for us to achieve some level of equilibrium for any meaningful change or new business. It then takes another year or two to get good. And it’ s only then— three to four years after we started— that we’ ve got ourselves in position to go after greatness. Getting that greatness, in my experience, generally takes another two years, too. And then, in keeping with Law # 7, we just keep working to get better anyway!
GREAT ORGANIZATIONS ARE
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APPRECIATIVE, AND THE PEOPLE IN THEM HAVE MORE FUN Before some cynic says something like,“ Well that’ s easy for them because they’ re successful, so of course they’ re having fun,” I’ m going to posit that in this case, as in so many other things in life, the behavior actually very often precedes the feeling. Great organizations aren’ t having fun just because they’ re great( though it’ s usually way more fun to work with the problems of success than those of failure); rather, they’ re great because the people in them are actively appreciative and have learned to enjoy doing whatever it is they need to do to succeed in ethical and caring ways.
Paul Hawken wrote about this in one of the first— and still one of the best— business books I ever read, Growing a Business.“ Laughter and good humor,” he wrote,“ are the canaries in the mine of commerce. If employees, customers, and vendors don’ t laugh and have a good time at your company, something is wrong.”
BY: ARI WEINZWEIG
CO-FOUNDER, ZINGERMAN’ S COMMUNITY OF BUSINESSES
Today, Zingerman’ s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’ s Community of Businesses has grown to 10 businesses with over 750 employees and over $ 55 million in annual revenue. Aside from the Delicatessen, these businesses include Zingerman’ s Bakehouse, Coffee Company, Creamery, Roadhouse, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Candy Manufactory, Cornman Farms and a Korean restaurant. No two businesses in the Zingerman’ s Community of Businesses are alike but they all share the same Vision and Guiding Principles and deliver“ The Zingerman’ s Experience” with passion and commitment.
Besides being the Co-Founding Partner and being actively engaged in some aspect of the day-to-day operations and governance of nearly every business in the Zingerman’ s Community, Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first four of his six book series Zingerman’ s Guide to Good Leading Series: A Lapsed Anarchist’ s Approach to Building a Great Business( Part 1), Being a Better Leader( Part 2), Managing Ourselves( Part 3) and the newly-released Part 4, The Power of Beliefs in Business. Earlier books include the Zingerman’ s Guides to Giving Great Service, Better Bacon, Good Eating, Good Olive Oil, Good Vinegar and Good Parmigiano-Reggiano.
This article is excerpted from the essay“ Twelve Natural Laws of Building a Great Business” in Zingerman’ s Guide to Good Leading, Part 1; A Lapsed Anarchist’ s Approach to Building a Great Business( Zingerman’ s Press). Available online at zingtrain. com.
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