“ THE SERVICE THAT THE STAFF GIVES TO CUSTOMERS IS NEVER GOING TO BE BETTER THAN THE SERVICE THAT WE AS LEADERS PROVIDE TO THE STAFF.”
BUILDING A GREAT BUSINESS
> that more often than not the real genius is mostly in doing the sort of drudgerous stuff that anyone who really thinks about it could do, but doesn’ t. Most people don’ t do this type of work because it seems too hard, too boring, too unrewarding... too something. For whatever reason the best businesses do it anyway, while their( oft-complaining) competitors can’ t quite muster up the energy to make it happen.
8. TO GET TO GREATNESS YOU’ VE GOT TO KEEP GETTING BETTER,
ALL THE TIME! The most successful organizations and individuals understand this. From medicine to the arts, non-profits or pro sports— the best in any field are all going after improvement all the time. You can call it continuous improvement, kaizen, or whatever you like. The reality is that if we’ re not learning, growing and improving then the marketplace is going to pass us by.
Early on in my leadership life I used to think we’ d get to some point where success would allow us to coast. Man, was I ever wrong on that one. Fortunately, I realized the error of my ways in time. In truth, I think running the business well actually gets harder, not easier, the longer you go on. But once I made peace with that reality, then living this rule was infinitely less stressful for me.
9. SUCCESS MEANS YOU GET BETTER PROBLEMS Although most of us are raised with the belief that effective work eliminates problems, the reality is quite different. We’ re always going to have problems. The key is to pick the problems you want and then appreciate the chance to work on them, all the while working to get better problems still.
Don’ t believe me? OK, would you rather have too few customers and struggle to make your payroll, or have sales so strong that you have to struggle to keep up? Obviously I like seeing sales levels right“ on plan” best of all, but the reality is that generally I’ d rather have sales be too high than too low. Similarly, I’ d far prefer the problem of having too many good people in the organization and not quite enough opportunity for them all than to have too few good people.
10. WHATEVER YOUR STRENGTHS ARE, THEY WILL LIKELY LEAD
STRAIGHT INTO YOUR WEAKNESSES I used to think there was this big conflict at 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.
“ THE SERVICE THAT THE STAFF GIVES TO CUSTOMERS IS NEVER GOING TO BE BETTER THAN THE SERVICE THAT WE AS LEADERS PROVIDE TO THE STAFF.”
11. 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 holein-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 No. 7, we just keep working to get better anyway!
12. GREAT ORGANIZATIONS ARE 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.” +
Ari Weinzweig is the co-founding partner of the Zingerman’ s Community of Businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Starting in 1982 with 2 employees and a 1300-square foot deli Ari and his partner Paul Saginaw have grown the organization to include ten businesses including a bakery, a creamery, a mail order business and more; a staff of over 700; and annual sales of over $ 60,000,000. Learn about Ari’ s books and ZingTrain( Zingerman’ s training business) at zingtrain. com, and you can learn more about bringing a taste of Zingerman’ s to your front door by visiting zingermans. com
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