It took me a really long time to recognize the truth of this law. But having realized the reality of it I can’t recall a single time that it hasn’t proven true. I can tell you, too, that accepting it has radically reduced my stress level. 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.

So, for instance, I’m personally very focused and I don’t let go of something I believe in very easily. Certainly that quality has contributed positively to what I’ve been able to achieve over the years. But it’s sort of inevitable—following this natural law—that sometimes I’m going to stick with something longer than I should. The same holds true organizationally. One of our strengths here at Zingerman’s is that we’re a very participative workplace. What’s the almost inevitable weakness, then? Sometimes we have so many chances for people to participate that things take longer than they might have otherwise.
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.

Twelve Natural Laws of Business:
There are organizational principles that consistently work and, in the big scheme of things, follow a natural order. We call these “Natural Laws of Business.” Our experience here is that the natural laws are applicable for any business regardless of size, scale, age or product offering. Exceptions exist, but I’ll say up front I wouldn’t recommend expending much energy trying to prove these rules to be wrong.

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 in the moment than to have too few good people.

Quick story to illustrate the point. A customer was having dinner at Zingerman’s Roadhouse not long ago. While he and his family were enjoying their evening’s experience he shared with his server that the person who had taken their order during a morning visit to the Deli just hadn’t been as enthusiastic as our staff usually are. His server that night was on top of things—she apologized (even though she had no idea who it was at the Deli nor any inkling of what had really happened). She took the initiative to buy the family an extra appetizer as a way to help make it right and follow up her verbal apology.

As the guest and his family were leaving I stopped him to add to the apologies that the server had already given, to check that his dinner experience was good, and to thank him again for sharing the story so constructively. “Look,” he said with a smile. “I’ve been a customer of yours for nearly 20 years. We started going to the Deli when we were students here. Now we live in Florida and we’re huge fans of everything you do. It’s just that you guys have set the bar SO high that when we got service that would probably be fine most places but just isn’t at the standards we know we’re gonna get here . . . it just surprised us. It wasn’t bad—it just wasn’t very . . . ‘Zingy.’”

I love getting a customer complaint of that kind. So many other businesses have set the bar so low that their customers don’t even notice the shortfalls anymore, let alone say anything about them. While the latter is certainly less stressful in the moment it definitely doesn’t lead to success. Ignorance only feels like bliss; reality remains the same whether anyone tells us the truth or not.

Twelve Natural Laws of Business:
There are organizational principles that consistently work and, in the big scheme of things, follow a natural order. We call these “Natural Laws of Business.” Our experience here is that the natural laws are applicable for any business regardless of size, scale, age or product offering. Exceptions exist, but I’ll say up front I wouldn’t recommend expending much energy trying to prove these rules to be wrong.

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.

(By the way, it took me a long time to learn it but this drive for improvement can very much coexist with appreciation for what we’ve already achieved.)

Twelve Natural Laws of Business:
There are organizational principles that consistently work and, in the big scheme of things, follow a natural order. We call these “Natural Laws of Business.” Our experience here is that the natural laws are applicable for any business regardless of size, scale, age or product offering. Exceptions exist, but I’ll say up front I wouldn’t recommend expending much energy trying to prove these rules to be wrong.

While business books often focus on some stroke of Steven Jobs-like genius, I think 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. For whatever reason the best businesses do it, while their (oft-complaining) competitors can’t quite muster up the energy to make it happen.

I could tell a thousand stories to illustrate this point but the one that always sticks in my head is about how we got our bread back when we first opened the Deli in the early ’80s. We knew that if we wanted to have a great corned beef sandwich (a key part of our vision) we had to build it on great bread. After testing loaves from better than 20 different sources, we settled on the rye bread from a bakery about 45 minutes away, in the Detroit suburbs. Our excitement quickly turned to uncertainty when we went to talk to the owner. He was happy to sell to us but he didn’t deliver to Ann Arbor. So working with him meant someone had to leave Ann Arbor early enough to get back with the bread before we opened the doors at 7 a.m. And, mind you, the winters in Michigan make for difficult driving. I think nearly every other bakery was willing to deliver. But we wanted the best bread we could get, and that meant we were going to drive to Detroit every day to get it. Which we did about 3800 times (round trip) until we opened Zingerman’s Bakehouse in 1992.

I’m not telling you this story to brag, but merely to illustrate the value of the law. At the time we probably didn’t agonize that much over the decision—it just seemed clear to us that it was the right thing to do.

If you look around at the most successful businesses in any industry I bet you’ll find that each has a folder full of similar stories. Not only are they an important part of the company’s initial success, but the truly great organizations continue to do such things even as they grow and mature. While their competitors cut corners, they just keep doing all those unglamorous little things: they stay open late, they open early, they thank a few more staff and customers, they pay a bit more to get better raw materials, they forgive loyal employees who err, they give a bit more to the community…

Twelve Natural Laws of Business:
There are organizational principles that consistently work and, in the big scheme of things, follow a natural order. We call these “Natural Laws of Business.” Our experience here is that the natural laws are applicable for any business regardless of size, scale, age or product offering. Exceptions exist, but I’ll say up front I wouldn’t recommend expending much energy trying to prove these rules to be wrong.

This concept is the core of Zingerman’s Training Compact, which we developed under the leadership of Maggie Bayless, managing partner at ZingTrain, back in the mid-’90s. We’ve been working to live up to it—if imperfectly—ever since. To run a great organization it’s very clear that we need to be clear about what we’re asking from the folks who work for us. And then we need to effectively teach them how to meet our expectations.

The validity of this natural law was confirmed in Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman’s book, First, Break All the Rules, in which the Gallup Organization surveyed 1,000,000 workers and 80,000 managers to determine which factors were most important for keeping the best workers in their jobs for the longest period of time. Their single most important element? Clear expectations. Second most critical? The tools to do their work, among which effective training figures at the top of the list.

Twelve Natural Laws of Business:
There are organizational principles that consistently work and, in the big scheme of things, follow a natural order. We call these “Natural Laws of Business.” Our experience here is that the natural laws are applicable for any business regardless of size, scale, age or product offering. Exceptions exist, but I’ll say up front I wouldn’t recommend expending much energy trying to prove these rules to be wrong.