Ari Weinzweig: Dignity & Beliefs

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and structures of belonging.  Brad Wise is the host for this episode. He was a Common Good Collective Fellowship participant and he runs an organization called Wolf House Fables.

Today's episode is a live conversation, hosted by Bobby Slattery at Fifty West Brewing Company in Cincinnati, between Ari Weinzweig and Peter Block. They talked about Ari’s new pamphlet A Revolution of Dignity in the Twenty-First Century Workplace.

Ari is the CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses. Ari's unique leadership approach earned him the distinction as one of “The World's 10 Top CEOs (They Lead in a Totally Unique Way)”, and he has written numerous books, including A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business and A Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business.

Six Elements of Dignity:

1. Honor the essential humanity of everyone we work with.
2. Be authentic in all our interactions (without acting out).
3. Make sure everyone has a meaningful say.
4. Begin every interaction with positive beliefs.
5. Commit to helping everyone get to greatness.
6. Create an effective application of equity.

More information on the self-fulfilling belief cycle can be found here.

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change - Eliminating Personal Economic Isolation. 

Transcript

 pamphlet is on dignity.  just came out a few weeks ago. How it happened is, I mean, it's a difficult, but straightforward story. So two years and two months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine, you all will remember that. For whatever reasons, because I know enough to know that emotional responses are not logical and different people are impacted differently by different things. So I'm not saying it was the worst event in human history by any means. It's not hard to find a lot of horrific events that have happened in human history. There's some going on now, including Ukraine, but anyway, it hit me super hard and have spent a lot of years trying to manage myself in order to keep my energy in a good place, even during hard times. And, uh, I realized I was sort of in despair about it, like I just felt so helpless and it was this horrible thing that was going on that I just didn't know what to do. And I had a few friends who went with World Central Kitchen to work in soup kitchens to feed refugees, which is awesome, but I'm like, I'm not really going to be any better at ladling soup than everybody else that goes and trying to lead a business. It's probably not a great use of my time, and so I really struggled of what to do. And when I feel really down as an introverted, awkward history major that likes to read, the thing that's most comforting to me is to find books. And so, I'm a Russian history major, I knew a fair bit, not a professor, but I knew probably more than the average American about the history of Russia. But I actually knew relatively little about Ukraine. counter to Putin's, philosophy, they're not the same country. They have very different history and a very different culture for many, uh, centuries. But anyway, so I started to study the history of Ukraine and it didn't take me long to find out what everybody who already had studied the history of Ukraine or everybody who lived in Ukraine or anybody who was paying more attention than I would have already known, which is that in 2014. so 10 years ago now, when the Ukrainians threw out the Russian sponsored leader, uh, it became called the revolution of dignity. And when I started to read about it and think about dignity, I was like, that's what we can do because it quickly became clear in my mind that in a country where dignity would be the norm, people like Putin can't be in charge. It won't work. It would never happen. and that conversely, in a country where People like Putin are in charge. We would never be able to do business the way that we do business. It would be illegal. And not on the first day or the first week, but a lot of the things that we do around values and it just wouldn't work because the culture would be so different and Organization of the society would be so different. So then I started to  dignity and like a lot of the stuff I've written about, I mean, obviously I knew the word. It's not a shocking word like vision. Everybody's all for it, but actually hardly anybody actually talks about what it really means. And part of, as those of you who've been to Zing train or read stuff, no, like our whole thing is to stop just having buzzwords and start figuring out what it really looks like in action. So, I came up with six things that seemed like they would make dignity a reality. And then I just test them out. I like trying 'em. And then I talk to people about 'em and then I try 'em out more. And two years later, they're still the same six. 

how about giving us three of 'em?

Want 'em in? I'll do 'em in order. It's hard to do three. I'll start with three. 

Four. 

We'll see what happens.  , somebody will ask for the other two. So these are just, it's just stuff. I'm going to tell you what they are. They're things that we can all do. They're free.  They don't need national legislation, they don't need anybody else to do anything. They work at home, they work at work, they work walking down the block, they work when you go to the CVS to pick up your prescription or whatever. the first is to honor the humanity, which is what Peter said very nicely, is to honor the humanity of everybody that we deal with, and it doesn't mean we have to agree with them, but no matter who people vote for, no matter what they do, it was just, I could still honor them. they're all struggling and they all have a hard time in their life and they all get issues and challenges and pain and the second one was to be authentic, but with the heavy, parenthetical statement next to it, which is, but that doesn't mean acting out. So being true to who we are, but not by dumping on other people or not by Blurting out things that are accurate. It's, yes, it's accurate, it's what you think, but it's not appropriate and helpful to share it in that way. So, authenticity, like being true to who we are, and creating spaces where other people around us could be true to who they are, but also without acting out. The third one is to give people a meaningful say. doesn't mean everything has to be by consensus, although we do a lot by consensus at the partner level. It doesn't mean you have to vote on everything, although that's okay too, but to have a way that people have a meaningful say to contribute to the conversation. So not, full employee focus groups where an HR person goes and takes notes and then passes it to the bosses who nod and smile and don't do anything about it, but to actually have people have a meaningful say.  And the fourth is to start with positive beliefs, which is a whole thing. much bigger book on beliefs, which is just really choosing to believe the best. And that even when people I'm put, I'm pissed off or frustrated or hurt or whatever, that I still just have learned to train myself to just believe that their intentions are the best they can do at that time. And there's the first fourth. 

You want to do the other two now? 

I don't know. You want to hear the other two?  

Yes. 

the fifth one is to help everybody get to greatness. So, in the context of work, it means that people aren't just whatever tools for bosses to get,  be able to flip their company later. sometimes greatness, like we hire some people who are 17 and they're going to go to college next year. So it's just that they can learn some skills that they're going to carry with them or have a rewarding workplace to be part of. And there's some people want to be managing partners and everything in between. There's people who have already left, but we could still try to help them get to greatness. And what greatness is, is up to them. So it could be. retiring. It could be staying at home to raise kids. It could be opening a business. It could be anything, but it's just trying to help them get to greatness in a way that works for them. and then the last, which is probably the hardest, in the long run is to create some sort of meaningful level of equity. Now, It's easier said than done. I don't know what that actually looks like, but I have come to believe trying to do it in a real way is actually a good start. when I teach the new staff orientation class, I just say to people, like, I don't know exactly what that's going to look like. It's not going to shock the people we just hired that my pay is higher than theirs. Duh. But if my pay was as much higher than theirs is what we read about. At General Motors or whatever, that's ridiculous. and going back to where I started, Russia has the highest, income and equity in the world. Followed only by the U. S.  So, those six. My belief is I could do all six of those every day with everybody I'm around if I'm on my game. Which I'm not every day. But you could do them with your kids, you could do them at work. 

Pick one, I think it would help if you could. Yeah.  What would it look like?  What's different about it? If I worked there, what would I find with you that I didn't find anyplace else? Because nobody can argue against the six. Nobody says our goals. 

They don't. They just don't do them. first of all, I screw them all up every day, so let's be clear about that. don't know. Honoring the humanity of everybody there.  

What's that look like? 

It looks like understanding that they have a life. Like they came from somewhere. They have a family. Some version of a family. I don't care whether it's like a literal legal family. 

But then, suppose I'm one of those people, what would you say to me that most places wouldn't say? 

Well, I might ask you,  like what I ask people a lot when it slows down for five minutes. What have you been learning lately? What have you been reading? If they're in school, I ask them what they're learning, you know, how's school's going? But, uh, It just depends on who they are, but it's just honoring that they exist as a human being that has nothing to do with their job.  that they all get struggles and, you know, like I said, I mean, there's 75 year olds working with us whose parents are in their nineties and they're trying to take care of their parents and deal with all that. We get 16 year olds who are freaking out about their grade point average. And I said, I get it that it gets you into a college. But now that I think about it, In 40 years of interviewing, I've never asked anyone what their grade point average was. So I understand it's important, but 

what you're saying is that you've been curious about who these people are. Yeah. Where most leadership thinks they should be curious about who I am. Yeah. We think leaders should be role models.  You know, and have visionaries and parents of another kind. 

Yeah, because they're, they're as important as I am. 

Beautiful. 

And I mean it. 

Give me some other examples of what a conversation with you might look like, or what you've done. 

Well, giving people a meaningful say, not that we can be a lot better at it, but like there's systemic ways that it happens. So we're open book management. So I learned that from the book, great game of business, which came out 30 something years ago. So it's not about showing everybody the financial statements. It's about involving everybody in running the business in order to do that. They need to see numbers because how could you play basketball without knowing the score or the rules or having any stake in the outcome? So we've been open book. 

How many times a year and what structure would form, is that true? 

it's a little different in each of our businesses, but, generally it's a weekly huddle. Bobby was just at the Roadhouse one on Google Meets yesterday. How was it?  What did you like about it?  

Wait, come here Bobby.  

So it's that one's never gone back in person, which is okay. Cause they see each other most of the week anyway, and we're open seven days. So it's helpful for people not to have to drive in, for the huddle, but it's on Google means so Bobby came.

Yeah. So first off I was invited, by one of your service staff. I don't know how many of you work in restaurants, but it was, one of their servers.  Sorry.  I can't get my emotions in check. I keep crying.  

We're here. We're here for emotions. 

How's it going?  

So, uh, it was the end of a night at, at, at the restaurant. I've worked in restaurants for the last 15, 20 years. Traditionally for any of you that have worked in a restaurant, usually when you're getting off your shift, You wanna go home, but you're like, done. And Sharon, who had nothing to do with Zing Train, who just happened to be working that night, stopped me and asked me if I ate the mac and cheese. Most of the time, kitchens wanna go home, everybody wants to get out of there. She felt like it was really important for me to try the mac and cheese. and so we started talking and she started just talking about the way that they do things and how it changed her life. And then she invited me to their open financial meeting on a Tuesday at some time, which was very strange.

Now y'all can come too.  

So she, she said, here's my email.  If you'd like to come, just let me know. And so, I emailed Sharon and, I sat in and 

what struck you about that. conversation. What was unique about it? 

She was just so empowered.  you could tell that she felt purpose in her life.

Wow. 

Wow. Awesome. And what  were your thoughts about the huddle? 

Very well organized. the open book management was, in my mind, I thought it was going to be just like, Oh, like, Oh, here's the bottom. Like there were, you were, they were open about the numbers, but also there were numbers in there. So one of the things that stuck out was like, use check average as an example. Traditionally, your check average is going to be the person that was talking about check average. It was not the manager, it wasn't Ari, it was one of another server that worked there and the purpose behind it was like, hey, the server is the one who cares about the check average. They're trying to get their tips up. That's the person that should be in charge, not the manager that's not dictated by this or is told that. And so you saw the empowering piece of that. and it was just a really nice way to look at your company and understand that, you know, you preach this all the time, but it's almost stupid to live in a world where you wait for somebody to get to manager before you empower them. It doesn't make any sense. It's counterproductive to the business. and so to see that in action, I think it's interesting to hear Ari talk, but anybody can go out there and say, Here's what we're doing. And it's all this great stuff. And then you find out, you talk to the people involved in it, like, well, yeah, but you don't know about this, this or that going on. So to watch it in action, to watch the people empowered, to watch the passion of trying to, make the company better in, in every facet they can, and also very open about their mistakes. It's not like you made a mistake. This is terrible. How could we do this? It was like, Hey, every week, we're going to make a lot of mistakes and we're going to talk about them and figure out how we can improve and go from there.

what was so touching about that for you? You can also say, leave me alone. 

Ah, no, you're good. No, no, you're right, sir. I  can't believe I'm crying out here again. 

I can. That's what we do. You're human.  We cry. 

I mean, I'm an entrepreneur. I've been doing this for long time, but I think that, uh you start a business and you do it because you you want to make something happen, right? And then it becomes a challenge of like, are you trying to make the most money ever? What is it that you're trying to accomplish? And I think it just,  I got it. I really love people. And it just, it pointed that out to me to see somebody empowering people. And, there was a day, I don't know, probably a year ago where I would say,  Oh God, I have 140 employees. How did I do this? This is so hard. And it just changed my mindset to be like, wow, I'm so lucky to have 140 people that are following something that I just made up in my head a long time ago. and sort of watch that empowerment.  And just to see that you're making a difference in people's lives. it moves me. It touched me. It's why I want our team to be here today. So I'm going to quit crying.  

It's awesome.  You make a neat guy quietly over here. 

 Okay, so belief. Who's heard the word? Everybody. So like dignity, it's a word that I have clearly used. I don't think I would have made it to University of Michigan if I couldn't use the word belief, but I really never thought about it at all in any kind of meaningful way up until about 10 years ago when I was reading Bob and Judith Wright's book.  I recommend it. This belief cycle is not the main point of the book, but it's in there. I forgot what page it's on it's a self fulfilling belief cycle.  So They had like three pages of 200 pages were on this cycle, but it totally blew my mind. And then like dignity, I just did what I know how to do, start studying. And then I started like, I don't know anything about this. I never thought about this. This is nuts. And then I read more stuff about it. And then I thought about it more. And then I'm like, this is going on all day long. I don't know anything about this. I did more than it was a 600 page book. it changed my life, which was already pretty good before this. 

did it change your life? 

Because I never thought about beliefs. So it's a self fulfilling cycle. So it turns out that we all have like thousands of beliefs. I didn't know that. When I say beliefs, I don't mean religion, sports, and politics, although those are the three conversations that happen all the time. I mean like beliefs about Work. Beliefs about vulnerability. Beliefs about crying. Beliefs about beer. Beliefs about days of the week. Like that there's something wrong if you have to work Sunday. Which I'm not judging, but I'm a not religious person. restaurant person who lives with a farmer and dogs. it's the same every day, not in a bad way. we have beliefs about age. We have beliefs about race. We have beliefs about everything, based on our beliefs. We take action based on our, it's convenient. I'm wearing this, uh, based on our action, the people around us form beliefs of their own, Based on their beliefs, they take action. And what blew my mind is 95 percent of the time. Their action reinforces the original belief. So to stories that Bobby heard me tell it in a seminar, but they're good ones. So one is imagine that you work in a workplace, where the boss, leader, CEO, whatever, she or he believes training is a waste of time. There's lots of them. It's not rocket science. What action will they take? No training. So now you work in a place where there's no training, no development potential for you. What do you start to believe about the job and your future there? Not very much future. What kind of work do you do when you believe there's not really much future for you?  Crappy work is what a lot of people say. That's the technical definition.  And the boss goes, Thank God we didn't waste any money on training. Look how bad these people are. It's funny, but it's not funny. If you change the belief, which is what everybody in this room probably has, certainly we have, is that training is a great idea. What do we do? Duh. Lots and lots of internal classes. Mara and I have lost track, but there used to be like 70 before the pandemic. Maybe we're back there again. What are the people who come there like Mara did 14 years ago to work for a year, start to believe about their potential to grow as a human being, to be participating in something that has value and meaning. What do they start to believe about the future? They're more likely than not. You could grow. This is cool. Wow. I thought it was just a paycheck, but there's actually something happening here. Then what kind of work are they more likely to do? Not a guarantee. Good work. And we go, man, his training is awesome. Let's do more. Here's the other one. Who here manages people? And have any of you ever had maybe once where two employees weren't getting along? Is anybody texting about it now while we're here tonight? Okay.  So let's say Billy believes that Alex, is a jerk. How will Billy treat Alex? Like a jerk. What will Alex now believe about Billy? He's a jerk. And on we go. What if Billy changes his beliefs? And he goes, man, when I started Zingerman's, it was totally overwhelming. There's so much to learn. There's all these personalities. You can't really tell who's in charge. Everybody's like has strong opinions and they're all having these conversations. And I don't know, you know, in my old job, they just gave me the SOP and I just shut up and hope nobody noticed me. But now they're asking me all these stupid questions. So he goes, maybe he's just overwhelmed. That's a new belief. Now, how will he treat him? Yeah, come on in man. Let me show you around I remember when I started I was freaking out. It's gonna be fine. We're gonna help you. Don't worry What's Alex now believe about Billy?  He's a nice guy and on we go I used to say countries go to war over this but now you could turn on the news. So two more points   There's a filter, although if you're in science, which I'm not, it's called a confirmation bias, but I'm only history major, so I don't understand that, so I just call it a filter. We all filter out all the information that doesn't fit what we already believe, and we take in the information that supports what we already believe. So when you change your beliefs, everything looks different. Who's heard the saying, I'll believe it when I see it?  Okay. So it's totally wrong. Cross it out in your mind if you can do that. What should it say? I'll see you when I believe it. So, when you change what you believe, everything looks different. Okay. So I'm guarantee you at that first company scenario, some employee learned something and did awesome work, but that CEO goes, they're an exception. Their parents are in business, you know, whatever. And I guarantee you somebody at Zingerman's went to a class and quit the next day with no notice. And we go, I'll bet they're having a really hard time at home.  Change what you believe. Everything looks different.  So I had a Corgi for 17 years named Jellybean.  Now I'm gonna cry. She died  in 2015. So next month will be nine years. six months later. Tammy, my significant other farmer now dog rescuer. If you need a dog, let me know. got us a Corgi puppy for my birthday. We named her Bean Sprout  from Jelly Bean.  Sprout's awesome. Sprout's like four or five months old, and one day Tammy takes the broom out of the closet and starts sweeping, and Sprout goes super ballistic.  And me being me, I tried logic, like Sprout is just a broom.  Of course, that had no impact whatsoever, but I happen to be working on the belief stuff, and I'm like, change what you believe, everything looks different. Everybody in this room knows it's just a broom, like, who cares? If you're a little corgi puppy, what's dog's number one job? Protect their owner. What does it look like? This long, scary thing with bristles got a hold of your beloved owner, and no matter how she moves, it won't let go.  It all looks different, okay? So, Then I started to understand where beliefs came from, which is that they're all learned. They don't come from Amazon. It's not software. People are raised to say stuff like that's just how I am, but it's actually not. It's how we were trained to be and then I realized if they're all learned, they could be changed. So then it was like this super powerful thing that I'm like, okay, I have beliefs that are unhelpful. And then I started to weed the garden of my. brain, because I started to look at beliefs like the root system of our lives, because we don't see them and everybody's arguing over the plant, but if you just pick a weed at the surface line, what happens?  Just grows back stronger. And I started, last thing is to look at beliefs in three broad categories because it's a good It's a simple recipe model, not an SLP that says there's negative beliefs, neutral beliefs and positive beliefs. So if beliefs are the root system, you don't have to be a farmer to figure it out. What do you get from negative beliefs?  Negative outcomes. Neutral beliefs don't do much. Positive beliefs create positive outcomes. You could create chaos. You could tear countries down. You could get divorced. You can get in big fights. You could be angry and suspended in anger for years. But you can't make anything positive on a negative beliefs and that's not to say false positivity or Pollyanna There's loads of problems, but you could have negative beliefs about a problem, which is like we're stuck. We're screwed. We're victims It's their fault or you could have positive beliefs about a problem, which is we could do something about it. Let's get going which is what Peter Taught me how to do that in a way that was not hierarchical So, that's the belief stuff, and obviously, in 600 pages, there's more than that. 

Beautiful.  Anything anybody wants to say at this moment?  

I heard a saying, beliefs are limiting.  Say it to that. 

what's your name? 

Believe, Paul. 

Paul, Paul said, somebody said to you, beliefs are limiting.  What do I say to that? I know what to say. Ari? Go ahead. No, you say it.  

Well, I've heard it the other way, which is to be mindful of limiting beliefs. If I have a belief that I I'm not a good public speaker. And by the way, I'm a total awkward introvert who's super anxious in groups larger than three. So if I hold a belief, I can't speak in public. It's not brain surgery, what's going to happen? if you speak in public, you get nervous, like I'm nervous, so then I go, see, I couldn't do it.  But the problem is that if our vision was to grow the organization, it became increasingly difficult to lead without talking to anybody. And I really wanted them to read my mind, but it didn't work. So then it was either, in hindsight, change the vision. Legit. There's plenty of people in our industry that have 20 seats and they work every day and they don't have those issues or learn the skill. So I did. 

And it took courage to, I think if people want a simple path, they want to save path. That's why dictators are so appealing because they, they, uh, offer certain delusion of certainty. I also think beliefs are limited. why that's useful, it means I can adopt new ones anytime I want. And I have a choice about that. Most of us have theory about what caused us. Maybe it was all fiction. 

So there's a recipe in the book for changing your beliefs It's because it's not that easy. Beliefs are the root system and you learned it from your parents when you were two and you're 40, 38 years of weed growth. I'm not exaggerating. It doesn't just come out like it's in there. And then do roots grow straight up and down?  No. How do they grow? They're all inter so one belief is intertwined with the next belief. So it's very difficult to change your beliefs about power and authority without changing your beliefs about your parents. so it's difficult, but it can be done. And then it's a choice, like Peter said, which one's more important. But like, everybody knows what Putin needs to do. Even Putin knows what Putin needs to do. He just needs to go, I'm sorry. But he can't do that because he comes from a culture where leaders don't say they're sorry. Everyone else has to be wrong so the leader never has to say they're sorry. So, if he says he's sorry, They'll stop supporting him,  and he'll kill millions of people just to stay away from having to say sorry. So his beliefs about power are keeping him from doing what anybody knows is better.  I tell the story of my grandmother called Like a year, like a year or two after we had opened. This is when phones were still on walls. So when some, when you answered, they knew where you were. Not like now. And I answered the phone at home and she goes, well, wait, if you're at home, who's watching the cash register? What's the belief?  Yeah, somebody's gonna steal from you. Okay. You know, so at first, like at the time, it was like, come on, that's an old, you know, it's a bad, but then like when I was doing this work, I'm like, well, where did they get these beliefs? Right? So they came from Eastern Europe where being Jewish was not the easiest thing when stuff went wrong. That was the first place they went, like happened a lot in the American South, et cetera. Then they got out of that. I remember my grandfather telling us stories when we were kids that came during World War I  and they'd tell about the bombs in the sky and it was orange, and then they lived through the depression. Then they made it through the depression. Then they read about the Holocaust.  Anybody that was still their relative was now dead. Like, hmm, wonder where they learned not to trust people. So that belief might've helped them to survive. But for me, Now, it's incredibly unhelpful, so I can honor who they were and why they needed it and also know that I could change it.