Hardly a day passes without someone asking me for business advice. It might be a student or a struggling entrepreneur or an up-and-comer at a larger company. I'm sure most successful entrepreneurs experience the same thing. As often as not, people want that "one top tip," that single piece of advice that can put a person on the path to success. Lo, if only things were so simple. On the other hand, there is one thing I wish I had understood more clearly from the get-go: the power of visioning.
When we opened Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1982, I had never even heard the term visioning. Thirty years later, that deli has expanded into Zingerman's Community of Businesses—eight different businesses (including a mail order company and a business consultancy), with 17 managing partners, 500 employees, and revenue of $37 million a year. It's safe to say that we wouldn't be where we are without visioning.
What is a vision? It's not as mystical or out there as it sounds. A vision, quite simply, is a picture of what success will be at a particular time in the future. It encompasses answers to an array of questions: What does our organization look like? How big is it? What are we famous for? Why does anyone care about what we do? How do people who work here feel about their jobs? How do I, as the founder, feel about the business? What's my role in it? Complete the visioning process, and you'll have a clearly articulated end for your organization—something that won't change every time the market or your mood shifts.
A great vision is inspiring. It gets you and everyone in the organization excited to come to work; it's the cathedral everyone is coming to work every day to construct. This is not mere wishful thinking. A vision must also be strategically sound. You have to have a reasonable shot at getting there.
At Zingerman's, we use visioning nearly every time we start a project. For the organization overall, we have our vision for 2020 (e-mail me at ari@zingermans.com, and I'll send you a copy). We also have visions for each of our business units—and for most of the projects those groups undertake, whether it's a $6 million renovation at the original deli or a new hot-chocolate recipe we're developing at Zingerman's Roadhouse, our sit-down restaurant. Visioning is so much a part of what we do that almost everyone who works here reads at least 20 visions in the first year on the job.