The Power of Having a Clear Point of View
Getting clarity on your POV can make everything better
American author Carmen Maria Machado observes:
Places are never just places in a piece of writing. If they are, the author has failed. Setting is not inert. It is activated by point of view.
The essay that follows is, I suppose, now officially activated: it’s my point of view about the value of having a point of view.
In a sense, I could say I’ve intuitively understood the import of having a strong point of view about one’s business, products, or services for decades. It’s pretty easy to see that I/we have been practicing it for over 40 years; it’s certainly how we opened the Deli. Our point of view, I would say now, was effectively embedded in our original unwritten vision, and right from the get-go, it (a) drove our work and (b) differentiated us from everyone else around. From the time we opened, we were determined to sell great food, give great service, and create a great place for people to work. We were dedicated to doing it in a down-to-earth way—as it says in our Guiding Principles, “Good food is for everyone!”—and we were committed to always having only one, unique, remarkable Deli, rather than following the familiar path of replicating our work on a national scale in 200 different towns.
Over the years, we’ve pretty much held to all these goals. They remain at the core of our work today. And as we’ve traveled, studied, and learned, we’ve added to our point of view, too: to run the organization as inclusively and democratically as we can figure out how to do. To make dignity part of our daily presence on the planet. To develop more diversity inside the organization and support its enhancement outside. None of these, I hope, are likely to surprise anyone who’s been around Zingerman’s for more than a few minutes. Which is, to be clear, a very good thing. When a point of view is effectively practiced, it seems almost self-evident to all involved.
Although the practice of working with a point of view was intuitive for me, I’d never really written it out, taught it, or gotten clear on how to talk about it. It’s implicit in all we do and all we write, but I’ve never taken the time to develop it into a teachable form. That said, as the amazing abstract artist Mason Dowling describes, “Thoughts accumulate elsewhere and only reveal themselves later, sometimes long after the work is done. There is a delay … where the physical process seems to move ahead of language.”
Looking back now, I know I’d had a kind of vague concept of a point of view in my head for a while, but it was more of a feeling—definitely not a finely honed perspective. My only experience with trying to communicate the concept came about 30 years ago, in the mid-’90s, in the early days of what we now know as the ZCoB (Zingerman’s Community of Businesses). We had a wonderful person working in marketing; she was an English major and could write quite well—her sentences were good, her grammar spot-on, her copy easy to read. The thing was, though, that when I would put myself in our customers’ shoes, I would finish reading a draft she’d done … and I didn’t feel any urge to do anything. I didn’t feel compelled to take action, or make a phone call, or come into the Bakehouse to buy a loaf of naturally leavened bread. It was perfectly fine, but in the context of what I’m discussing here, it didn’t communicate the kind of strongly held point of view that’s so powerful.
Now, I don’t blame her—the fault really was mine for not being able to clarify my unspoken expectations. My frustration—per what I wrote a couple of weeks ago—pushed me to reflect on what was bothering me and then figure out how to explain my expectations more directly and clearly. I needed, I knew, to live the first element of our Training Compact, which asks, “What is expected?” The truth is, I hadn’t even been clear to myself. But over time, I realized that what was “obvious” to me was not to her. I was (mis)handling things in a naive, ineffective way.
Eventually, turning frustration into the kind of creative found object we know it can be, I came up with a little acronym to help our marketing writer; I called it the “WYP” approach. It stood for “What’s your point?” WYP was basically a micro version of what I might now call a “framework,” and it guided her toward a more effective “answer” while still encouraging her to think about the point of view for herself. Whenever she would “finish” a draft, she’d go back and reread it from the perspective of a guest—and if the point wasn’t clear, she could self-manage into another draft. Essentially, in a very rudimentary form, I was working to help her and myself get closer to sharing a point of view on written ad copy.
So, then, what is a point of view? On one level, everyone already knows intuitively, and just about everyone has one, too! It is, I’ve come to see, much like—and actually overlaps with—what I learned from my friend Peter Block, the writer and teacher, about philosophy. Although hardly any of us actively uses the term “philosophy” in daily conversation, as Peter says, we all have one. In fact, he reminded me once, “You can’t make a decision without one,” helping me finally understand the idea of philosophy on a more meaningful level. (See “A Taste of Zingerman’s Food Philosophy” for more on all this.)
Winnipeg-based marketer, author, and business coach Tad Hargrave, who runs Marketing for Hippies, has a really simple and direct way to get at the definition of one’s point of view: simply answer the question, “Why do you do your work the way you do it?”
It sounds easy enough, but I would suggest that even here in the ZCoB, where point of view has been powering us for decades, we can forget to maintain clarity—and/or successfully communicate that clarity—around our point of view. Without a clear, compelling point of view, we’re essentially either trying to sell everything to everyone or, alternatively, floundering in the dark hoping to bump into a helpful answer. And one’s point of view isn’t really driven by what others want (though your action steps may, of course, later be influenced by them). Rather, it’s your passionate belief in a particular framing or approach to your line of work! It comes from one’s own head and heart, not the happenstance of the modern marketplace.
Hannah Shaw, founder of the design studio Studio Founded, shares how point of view fits into the selling work she—and we—tries to do:
Most brand advice starts with the offer. Refine your messaging. Clarify your niche. Define your ideal client. All of it useful, and none of it wrong.
But there’s a particular kind of frustration that emerges when you’ve done all of that and something still feels off. The website looks right. The messaging is coherent. The offer is clear. And yet the brand doesn’t quite feel like you. Or it does feel like you, but it isn’t connecting in the way you hoped.
That gap is rarely a messaging problem, but a distinct point of view. The accumulation of things you care about deeply enough that they quietly shape every decision you make. Most businesses already have a point of view: the question is whether they’re allowing it to be visible.
Along similar lines, Hargrave discusses how point of view moves things away from the typical transactional approach of “two for $10,” etc., and instead focuses—as we always try to do here, too—on talking about why you like the product, the quality of ingredients, and so on. Hargrave writes,
In essence, it’s the shift from selling yourself and your products and services to sharing and making the case for your perspective. It’s you making the case for the best way to solve a certain problem or make a certain product. This takes so much pressure out of the marketing. Consider this: If they don’t buy the concept, they won’t buy your course. If they don’t buy the premise, they won’t buy your program. If they don’t buy your diagnosis, they won’t buy the prescription.
This sort of selling was once, historically, far less relevant. People made so much themselves, buying and selling were often superfluous. Journalist Jill Lepore, writing in The New Yorker in 2021, explains,
At the time of the nation’s founding, American households had all kinds of ties to markets, even to far-distant markets, but Americans also made their own clothes and houses and furniture; they made their own bedding, their own bread and beer; they made their own music. If hardly anyone made everything—because people also traded and swapped and bought and sold—nearly everyone made some things.
That was 250 or so years ago. The power of making things with one’s hands is enormous. Today, of course, we’re in a very different world. Things are being bought, sold, and scrolled over all day long. And our guests, clients, and customers have more and more options from whom to buy. In many cases, a clearly articulated and powerful point of view is what will keep them coming back.
But, you might ask, how can someone be in business and not have a clearly articulated point of view? It’s easier than you’d think:
- Sometimes there was a clear point of view in the beginning, but it’s become diluted over time.
- Businesses get sold, priced by the purchasers primarily on financial figures. New owners buy the finances, but they fail to grasp the philosophy—of which point of view is one particularly important part.
- There may be a clearly communicated point of view for an organization overall, but there’s not an effective and more specific one for a particular “unit” or product line.
- At times, there’s a clear point of view for a product line overall, but not for a particular product.
We can also let social pressure push us to abandon our point of view. There are situations where an original, important, and potentially powerful point of view is present, but where people don’t have the emotional wherewithal to stick to it in the face of the inevitable pressure to conform. British designer Paul Arden, who served as the creative director of Saatchi and Saatchi for decades, comments (correctly, I think) in his book Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite, “Having an original point of view or angle is a novelty. Recognizing its value is intelligent. Having the courage to stand up for it in the face of public opinion is what makes you a winner.”
Looking at this list of what might go awry, I can see pretty quickly that, at various points in the past, I have fallen short on pretty much all counts. As with nearly everything else I’ve written about, though, my hope is that by gaining clarity here, I will be better able to stay diligent going forward!
Does having a strong point of view guarantee success? No. Having one in our heads is no guarantee that we can get it across to others in a meaningful way. And there are scenarios where a point of view is right on but not right for the times. It’s not a good feeling. As Carmen Maria Machado puts it, “You tried to tell your story to people who didn’t know how to listen.”
Can a point of view change? Yes, for sure. Times change. We change. The world changes. As Brooks Atkinson, the premier theater critic for The New York Times in the first half of the 20th century, once said, “The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.” For example: when we opened the Bakehouse in 1992, we did no milling of grain on-site; today, freshly milled grain, much of it regionally grown, has become a significant part of our work and something we talk about regularly. That said, just because we can change our point of view doesn’t mean we should. There’s a lot to be gained from consistency, as long as it remains authentically true!
How do you figure out what your point of view is? Certainly one straightforward way is simply to follow one’s passions. Flipping through the long list of topics on which I have strongly held points of view, I see that this is how many of mine have emerged. You can also work from the opposite angle—see what’s bothering you a lot, and go in a different direction. This is, I believe, the case for my current work around democracy and the previous pamphlet about dignity, which came into being as I tried to deal with the horror of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
One thing to add here is the import of keeping one’s point of view positive. Without question, a lesson I learned from my longtime business partner, Paul Saginaw, in the early years was to be very conscious of not putting down what others do. In other words, share your point of view; just don’t do it by demeaning others in the process. Build up and tell positive stories; don’t tear down and denigrate others. As Paul said, “The point of view here is never, ‘We’re great, the rest of ’em suck!’ We talk instead about why we believe what we believe, why things matter to us, why they’re worth more money to us, and we hope that perhaps you’ll consider us as an option going forward.” This is not, of course, a putdown of anyone who isn’t yet sure of what their point of view might be. Together, we can get to better places. As my friends at Indigenous Resistance write in Searching for the Dub Sublime, “Those who have the dub power lift us all up!”
What happens, though, if you aren’t clear? Celtic scholar Caitlin Matthews asks, “How can the soul or the world be re-enchanted once it has lost the enchantment? Only by returning to the story of the soul and retelling it up to the point of fracture; only by placing our story within the context of the greater song.” Working to build clarity around a heartfelt and powerful point of view can help make this magic happen!
And no, this isn’t about taking a strong stance at the Thanksgiving table, or firing off a post online in response to someone else’s post that pissed you off. As marketer and author Seth Godin reminds us, humility is key: “Having a point of view is different from always being correct. No one is always correct.” What I’m talking about here is a focused worldview—a cooked-down, concentrated version of your philosophy—not a catchy slogan. A point of view, to my point of view, is a deeply held, strongly believed-in perspective—a well-thought-out and well-articulated sense of what it is you do so differently from nearly any other business.
How do you know it’s working? One way is that your organization is hitting its bottom lines. Another is that you refer to it—along with mission, vision, and guiding principles—when you make decisions. Tad Hargrave says, “One of the surest ways to know your point of view is solid is when people you share it with are visibly relieved. They were lost but now are found. They were blind but now can see.”
A few weeks ago, I referenced the British painter Rose Wylie—now going on 92—who says clearly and directly, “Contrast gives life.” Contrast also offers context. And as Hargrave notes, “The world is drowning in content. What your clients crave is context.” What does he mean? Pick your industry—there’s no end to the examples. Every supermarket has olive oil now! And yet, below, I write about a newly arrived oil at the Deli. Does the world need it? No. Do I need it? No. But it’s REALLY good, and if I did my writing work reasonably well, you’ll understand why it’s so special and worth at least swinging by the Deli to taste. Having clarity on a point of view makes it infinitely easier to communicate what you care about—and why it matters to anyone other than your mother.
A point of view provides context: why folks should come to Zingerman’s Bakehouse instead of other bakeries. Why the books and pamphlets I write are published in-house through Zingerman’s Press. Why we open Zingerman’s businesses only in the Ann Arbor area. That despite the national pressure to conform, we continue our commitment to cultivate great diversity within our organization. That we work only with full-flavored, traditional foods. That we’ll say—and have said—no to financially lucrative opportunities that don’t fit our point of view.
With all this in mind, let’s take stock. What’s the point of having a clear point of view? Here are some of the top reasons I can think of:
- It’s far easier to clarify what we do, especially when there are so many other offerings out there for customers to choose from!
- It leads our differentiation! We need to show our guests/customers/clients why our products and services are different from the rest.
- It helps us make long-term decisions in the same way that vision, mission, and values do when they’re documented.
- If we diligently stick to our point of view, it enhances credibility.
- In essence, it’s a short version of our vision, focused only on the here and now.
- It energizes the people who work in our organization. Everyone wants to work for a greater cause and work on what they believe in. As Seth Godin says, “It’s the difference between being a cog and making an impact.”
- It attracts customers. Aside from convenience, most people are drawn to doing business with places that share their values. Our point of view helps us promote our values in a concise way.
- It gets the message across more powerfully than just talking about our products alone.
- It allows us to communicate with passion about what we do, without really “selling.”
- It creates a great frame for teaching about why our approaches are different and why they have value for others in the world.
What do you do with your point of view? Use it everywhere you can. Write an e-news. Put it on your website, on flyers. Use it to make decisions—about what to sell, how to sell, and who to sell to. Ji Hye Kim, managing partner at Miss Kim, has made her culinary point of view abundantly clear—offering amazing traditional Korean foods, many sourced from ancient cookbooks.
A widely shared and well-implemented point of view is a powerful element in any organizational equation. It’s a long way from the sandwich line at the Deli to the front lines in Eastern Ukraine, but the value of point of view is universal.
The more broadly shared the point of view, the more impact it will have. An American veteran who’s been fighting with the Ukrainian army for years now shared his own passion for being part of an effort to preserve Ukraine’s freedom:
Over the years that I’ve been here, every single Ukrainian I’ve talked to, from the youngest kid to the elderly, all say that they would rather “die Ukrainian than live Russian.” They are fighting for freedom, dignity, and independence.
On reflection, it seems evident to me that everyone I write about here—everyone I learn from, anyone whom I’ve intentionally added to the huddle in my head—has pretty darned clear points of view. That includes each of the figures I referenced in last week’s piece about seeking and living the “dub sublime.”
Check out these lines that Emma Goldman wrote in her 1910 book Anarchism and Other Essays. At the time, she was only 31 years old but already one of the most influential anarchist leaders in the country. This passage caught my attention immediately when I read it decades ago, and it still sort of takes my breath away rereading it now:
[Our] goal is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the individual … [which is] only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist—the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force.
Emma Goldman was all about holding and expressing passionate points of view. Which is, I would say, a large part of why so many people are still so enthralled, enchanted, and inspired by her work. The good news is that we can all do the same within our own lives and organizations.
The great Toronto-based photographer and teacher Steve Carty says, “Thought leadership means having a point of view; it’s about being clear about what you believe. It means saying something that makes people stop and think. The strongest brands have opinions.” I couldn’t agree more. If you read this regularly, you know I have mine. The reality, though, is that while plenty of businesses (and nonprofits) have wonderful products and services, far too many fail to do the work to get clear about—and then effectively communicate—their point of view.
Tad Hargrave says, “Point of view is a missing element in 90% of the businesses I come across. It is a missing piece in most modern marketing. It is largely underestimated and undiscussed. Ignored. It is also incredibly powerful.” Fortunately—as with our work here in recent years around dignity, hope, and democracy—getting clear on a point of view takes less effort than one might think and costs literally next to nothing.
So what stops people? Anxiety? Fear of failure? I can relate. At the same time, not having a distinctive point of view dooms us to feeling rudderless and following everyone else’s lead—which makes it a lot more likely that we’ll get burned out.
If your business is the equivalent of a restaurant at the rest stop on your state’s toll road, just showing up and doing as little as possible (which is, of course, a point of view unto itself) might be good enough. After all, when the customer has no choice, the power of one’s point of view probably doesn’t matter all that much. But those situations are few and far between. For the rest of us working hard every day to make sound decisions to move toward our vision, stay aligned with values and beliefs, make a meaningful difference in the world, and increase sales without diminishing integrity—for us, a well-thought-out and effectively communicated point of view is an invaluable tool.
To close with a more poetic angle on point of view, I love the following words from Tad Hargrave. What he says is true for any business—and for large organizations, it’s also true for each of their smaller segments:
Point of view is the string that ties together all of the wildflowers of your business. Point of view gives context and meaning to what you’re offering. Your point of view frames your work in the same way that a movie camera frames a shot. Your point of view is the golden thread you weave through everything you do. When it’s clear, it brings an unmistakable and powerful cohesion to your business that most businesses lack.
