Industry Magazine Canterra Lighting Magazine Spring 2017 | Page 10

BELIEFS IN BUSINESS
The Power of Beliefs
In Business
BY: ARI WEINZWEIG, ZINGERMAN’S COMMUNITY OF BUSINESSES
FOR AS much as I’ve studied, taught,
and written about both business and
self-management over the years, up until
recently, I’d hardly paid a coffee cup’s
worth of attention to the ways in which
beliefs were impacting my world. In the
course of Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the books
that make up the Zingerman’s Guide to
Good Leading series, I’ve covered mission,
vision, values, culture, Servant Leadership,
self-management, and a whole lot more.
And yet it’s only in the last few years that
beliefs are finally getting their just due.
Although beliefs can shift in a split
second, more often than not they change
slowly. Some small thing happens, usually
unexpected, that makes us take pause
and wonder. We listen to a different
perspective, see something surprising,
read an insightful book, hear a new song,
or meet a particularly interesting person.
Any or all of these occurrences can
present us with beliefs that are not aligned
with our own. Seemingly small shifts in
beliefs can develop over time into deep
roots, from which enormous benefits—
or if your beliefs pull you in a negative
direction, potentially big problems—may
eventually grow. One day, whether we fully
realize it or not, our belief has changed.
In some cases, this new belief could be
the complete opposite of what we’d once
thought to be truth.
Today, many of my beliefs about
business, leadership, and life couldn’t
be further from what they once were. If
SPRING 2017
they hadn’t changed, Zingerman’s would
surely never have happened. Even if my
partner Paul Saginaw and I had opened
the deli in 1982 (in a 1,300-square-foot
space with just two employees on our
payroll), we wouldn’t have transformed it
into the thriving, engaging, imperfect, and
interesting community of ten businesses
(all here in the Ann Arbor area), with
over 700 staffers and $60,000,000
in sales that it has become thirty-five
years later. My life—both personally and
organizationally—is about 1,800 times
more rewarding and in alignment than it
ever would have been had I held tightly to
my original beliefs.
Beliefs may be the biggest single
force at work in our organizational lives.
Economics, education, environment, and
employee engagement are all important,
but beneath the surface, most of what
is in play are the beliefs of the various
folks whose views are being bandied
about. While everyone has some beliefs
that he or she is conscious of—politics,
religion, sports, and popular social issues
seem to provoke speedy expressions
of support or scorn—we actually have
far, far more beliefs at play in our lives
than that. The difficulty is that those
beliefs are frequently framed as facts,
certitudes, thoughts, theories, norms,
shoulds, and should nots. Most of us fail
to recognize them for the beliefs they are.
They’re down there in the dirt, below the
surface, sitting solidly in our subconscious
minds. Many are so far below our levels of
consciousness that we never even realize
we have them. Whether we know it or
not, though, our beliefs are almost always
calling the shots. As William James wrote,
“Belief creates the actual fact.”
After living most of my life with beliefs
that I barely even realized I had, the last
few years of studying this subject have
been life- and business-altering for me. In
the past, while I paid a lot of attention to
actions, arguments, and analysis, I gave
little or no thought to beliefs. That too
has changed nearly 180 degrees. I work
hard almost every day to be in touch with
my own beliefs. I’ve also become far more
sensitive to others’ beliefs. I now watch
the way that beliefs are being reflected—
for better or worse—in relationships,
projects, problems, profits, and, perhaps
most importantly, the growth and
success of the people who are part of our
organization.
While specific beliefs may come and go
(the world, it turns out, isn’t flat), the role
of beliefs has surely been in place for all
of human history. Belief has always been
at t