I’m continually reading books on leadership and communica­tion. Every month I try to read one excellent book in its entirety and skim a second one that may not have as much content. In 2001, one of the outstanding books I read was Good to Great by business expert Jim Collins. It contains an interesting story about the A&P grocery company that is a superb example of what can happen when people fail to make the decision to practice and de­velop their good thinking daily.

The company certainly started out well. In 1859, George Huntington Hartford convinced his employer, George P. Gilman, the owner of a hide and leather company in New York City, to go into the tea business. The Great American Tea Company was born. The idea was to buy tea in bulk—a whole clippership load at a time—and sell it directly to the public, thus cutting out the middleman. It was good thinking. Their product was priced at a third of their competitors’, and they were well on their way. Four years later, they had expanded from one shop to six, and they began sell­ing groceries as well as tea.

Innovation and Expansion

In 1869, Gilman sold his shares to Hartford and retired. That same year, Hartford changed the name of the company in order to cap­italize on the opening of the transcontinental railway. From then on, it was known as the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company— A&P for short. Hartford also decided to create his own brand of coffee, which he called Eight O’Clock Breakfast Coffee. It was very popular and profits soared. Hartford’s good thinking and strong business sense were making the company succeed. By 1880, the company had more than ninety- five stores, as far east as Boston and as far west as Milwaukee.

As good a thinker as George Huntington Hartford was, his sons George and John were even better. The younger George fig­ured out that the company could keep costs down and increase profits by manufacturing its own products. Meanwhile, John looked more closely at the needs of customers. At the time, most grocers delivered their wares to customers and allowed people to buy on account. John wanted to try something new and innova­tive. He convinced his father and brother to open a cash-and-carry “economy” store. It opened in 1912, and in only six months, it drove a nearby traditional A&P out of business. In two years, the company opened 1,600 of the new kind of stores. In 1916, the elder Hartford handed the business over to his sons. By then their sales had doubled from $31 million to $76 million. Nine years later, the Company owned 13,961 stores that produced annual sales of $437 million.  Plus, by 1929, A&P was the world’s largest cof­fee retailer?

In the early 1930s, the grocery industry was on the verge of another major change. Competitors were introducing “super” markets. The Hartford brothers changed their thinking and met the challenge. They began closing their economy stores and opening supermarkets. Even though they closed nearly six old stores for every new one they opened, they prospered. Sales vol­ume was high—and so were profits. By 1950, A&P’s annual sales topped $3.2 billion. It was the largest privately owned company and the largest retail organization in the world. The only com­pany in the world with a greater sales volume was General Mo­tors.

Another Change in the Wind

 

In the 1960s and 1970s, the customers’ wants changed rapidly once again. Value was no longer as important as choices. People no longer wanted supermarkets; they wanted superstores. They were looking for large clean stores with more choices, not only of prod­ucts but also of brands. And they wanted to make fewer stops for their shopping needs. Instead of visiting a drugstore for medicine, a bakery for fresh-baked goods, a health-food store for vitamins, a photo shop to drop off film, a florist for flowers, and a bank to cash a check, they wanted to do it all right there in the grocery store. It was a shift no larger than the one the younger John Hartford saw and took the company through in the 1930s. The only problem was that Hartford no longer ran A&P. His successor was Ralph Burger, who became president of A&P in 1950 and was named chairman of the board in 1958.

According to Collins, Burger was not up to the challenge. Where Hartford had used his thinking to create an advantage in the industry, Burger “sought to preserve two things: cash dividends for the [Hartford] family foundation and the past glory of the Hart­ford brothers.” Collins quotes an A&P director who said that Burger “tried to carry out, against all opposition, what he thought Mr. John [Hartford] would have liked.” Collins goes on to say, “Burger instilled a ‘what would Mr. Hartford do?’ approach to de­cisions, living by the motto ‘You can’t argue with a hundred years of success.’”

You may not be able to argue with it, but you sure can run it into the ground. No one knows what a great leader would have done given a new set of circumstances. There is no tried-and-true formula for success that can be handed down through the genera­tions. To succeed, we must do our own thinking. Burger worked to repeat Hartford’s past actions rather than trying to approach problems using Hartford’s innovative style of thinking.

A Key Unused

 The worst example of poor thinking that Collins offers about A&P was their experiment with a new store called the Golden Key to find out why they were quickly losing market share. It was to be run independently and given the freedom to try out new and innovative departments. Customers liked it, and it started to evolve into a modem superstore. All the data indicated that A&P needed to shut down their traditional stores and create new superstores. What was their response? Because they didn’t like the answers they were getting from the Golden Key, they closed it.

Instead, they kept thinking old strategies would solve their problems. They pursued the latest fads. They fired CEOs. They even tried a radical price-cutting strategy, but that led to cost cutting, and the stores they had became more run down and the service became poorer. As A&P shrank, they went into acquisi­tions mode. They acquired numerous regional food store chains, but that failed to return them to their past glory. (Collins did an acquisitions analysis of the great companies and the companies he compared them to in his book. The highest possible score was +3 and the lowest -3, based on financial and qualitative analysis. A&P tied with three other companies with the lowest score of-3.)

Today, A&P operates 667 stores in 12 states, the District of Columbia, and Ontario, Canada, under the following trade names: A&P, Waldbaum’s, Food Emporium, Super Foodmart, Super Fresh, Farmer Jack, Kohl’s, Say-A-Center, Dominion, Barn Mar­kets, Food Basics, and Ultra Food & Drug. Financial analysts aren’t enthusiastic about the company, and Standard & Poor’s Rat­ing Services announced on August 1, 2003, that the company was being downgraded from “B+” to “B.” It seems unlikely that the company will ever regain the status or profitability it once pos­sessed.

Why Thinking Matters Today

Claude M. Bristol, author of The Magic of Believing, said “Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inven­tions, and all achieve­ment.” That’s a bold statement! What kind of value do you put on good thinking? Has it been a priority in your life? I’m guessing that you do think it’s important, or you wouldn’t be reading a book to improve your mind right now. But have you considered thinking to he a decision and discipline to be practiced daily? Here are some reasons to make thinking a priority in your Life every day:

GOOD THINKING PRECEDES GOOD RESULTS

A friend sent me some interesting questions that show the funny way people sometimes think. Here are a few of them:

• Should a person engage a plastic surgeon if his office is filled with Picasso portraits?

• How much deeper would the oceans be if sponges didn’t live in them?

• If FedEx and UPS were to merge, would the company be called Fed UP?

• When elderly people spend more time reading the Bible, is it because they’re cramming for their finals?

• If a bus station is where the bus stops and a train station is where the train stops, what should happen at my workstation?

Obviously the questions aren’t serious, but they do show a thinking mind at work. It doesn’t matter what profession a per­son pursues, thinking precedes achievement. Success doesn’t come by accident. People don’t repeatedly stumble into achieve­ment and then figure it out afterward. Whether you’re a doctor, a businessperson, a carpenter, a teacher, or a parent, your level of success will increase dramatically if you place high value on think­ing. The greater your thinking, the greater your potential. As playwright Victor Hugo said, “A small man is made tip of small thoughts.”

GOOD THINKING INCREASES YOUR VALUE

Who has the greatest value in any organization? The answer is: the per­son with the ideas. Industrialist Harvey Firestone said, “Capital isn’t so important in business. Experience isn’t so impor­tant. You can get both these things. What is im­portant is ideas. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn’t any limit to what you can do with your business and your Life.”

Ideas are what our country was founded on. Ideas have helped to create great companies and to drive our economy, the largest in the world. Ideas are the foundation for everything we build, every advance we make. When a person is a good thinker and has lots of ideas, he or she becomes very valuable. If you’re a good thinker, you have a great advantage. Gerald Nadler, author of Breakthrough Thinking, says, “Only 10 percent to 12 percent of all managers are effective enough to make and stay on the fast track.” The reason? Most don’t stay in the game mentally.

POOR THINKERS ARE SLAVES TO THEIR SURROUNDINGS

People who do not develop and practice good thinking often find themselves at the mercy of their circumstances. They are unable to solve problems, and they find themselves facing the same obstacles over and over again. And because they don’t think ahead, they are habitually in reaction mode. An old German proverb says, “Better an empty purse than an empty head.” Good thinkers can always overcome difficulties, including lack of resources. And poor thinkers are also frequently at the mercy of good thinkers.

Making the Decision to Practice and Develop Good Thinking Daily

 I was very fortunate. I learned about the power of good thinking very early in life. My father required all three of his children to read for thirty minutes every day. Sometimes we chose what we read, but often he selected the reading material for us. Two of the books he asked me to read made a profound impression on me. The first was The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, which I read in the seventh grade. That year, my father also took me to Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Columbus, Ohio, to hear and meet Dr. Peale. It shaped my life.

Even more impacting than meeting Dr. Peale was reading As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. I read the book in 1961 when I was fourteen years old, and it made such an impression on me that I was prompted to make one of my Daily Dozen decisions. I still have the book. On page 49, Allen wrote, “All that a man achieves or fails to achieve is the direct result of his thoughts.” The entire book made an impression on me, but that statement made me re­alize that my thinking would make or break me. So I decided, I will think on things that will add value to myself and others.

If you desire to make good thinking a daily part of your life, consider this:

UNDERSTAND THAT GREAT THINKING COMES FROM GOOD THINKING

One night at dinner, a friend of John Kilcullen’s described some­thing he overheard in a bookstore. A customer asked the clerk, “Do you have any simple books on Microsoft DOS—something like DOS for dummies?” It was only a passing comment, meant as a joke. But it stuck with Kilcullen. And he did something with it. He launched the “Dummies” books.

Some unknown consumer had a good idea, and it went nowhere. In net, he probably didn’t even know his idea was a good one. But in the hands of a thinker, that good idea became a great idea. Then it became a bunch of great ideas. The “Dummies” books now encompass a product line of 370 titles in 31 languages with sales of more than 60 million copies.

If you want to become a great thinker, you first need to become a good thinker. Before becoming a good thinker, you need to become a thinker. In order to become a thinker, you need to he willing to first produce a bunch of mediocre and downright bad ideas. Only by practicing and developing your thinking daily will your ideas get better. Your thinking ability is determined not by your desire to think, but by your past think­ing. To become a good thinker, do more thinking. Once the ideas start flowing, they get better. Once they get better, they keep im­proving.

RECOGNIZE THERE ARE MANY KINDS OF THINKING

Up to now I’ve referred to thinking as if it were a single skill. But the truth is that it’s really a collection of skills. It’s like a mental de­cathlon, the track-and-field contest where athletes compete in ten events: 100-meter dash, 400-meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, 110-meter hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1500-meter run. Thinking is multifaceted.

I believe eleven different thinking skills come into play when it comes to good thinking. I wrote about them in detail in Thinking for a Change. Here is an overview of the skills:

1. Big Picture Thinking: the ability to think beyond yourself and your world in order to process ideas with a holistic per­spective.

2. Focused Thinking: the ability to think with clarity on issues by removing distractions and mental clutter from your mind.

3. Creative Thinking: the ability to break out of your “box” of limitations and explore ideas and options to experience a breakthrough.

4. Realistic Thinking: the ability to build a solid foundation on facts to think with certainty.

5. Strategic Thinking: the ability to implement plans that give direction for today and increase your potential for tomorrow.

6. Possibility Thinking: the ability to unleash your enthusiasm and hope to find solutions for even seemingly impossible situ­ations.

7. Reflective Thinking: the ability to revisit the past in order to gain a true perspective and think with understanding.

8. Questioning Popular Thinking: the ability to reject the lim­itations of common thinking and accomplish uncommon re­sults.

9. Shared Thinking: the ability to include the heads of others to help you think “over your head” and achieve compounding results.

10. Unselfish Thinking: the ability to consider others and their journey to think with collaboration.

11. Bottom-Line Thinking: the ability to focus on results and maximum return to reap the full potential of your thinking.

 

It’s a real mistake to believe there is only one kind of think­ing. That’s a very narrow view. It can cause a person to value only the kind of thinking in which he excels and to dismiss all other types of thinking. I’m sorry to say that some academicians fall into this trap.

MAXIMIZE YOUR STRENGTHS AND STAFF YOUR WEAKNESSES

Most people are naturally good at a few thinking skills and weak at others. Just as it’s rare to find an athlete who is good enough in all ten events to compete in the decathlon, it’s a rare thinker who has skill in all eleven thinking areas. So if you recognize that there are many different kinds of thinking, what should you do? Should you try to master all of them? No, I believe that’s a mistake.

Let’s say, for example, that you are a very good creative thinker, but you’re weak in bottom-line thinking, yet you want to master both kinds of thinking. How would you get started? Where would you focus your attention? You could probably work on bottom-line thinking to get it up to average, but that would require a tremen­dous amount of time, energy, and resources. And what would it take to advance to merely good? It would take even more effort. The higher you try to climb, the more energy it takes to make less progress. No matter how hard you try, you might not ever make bottom-line thinking a strength.

What if you gave that time to improving your creative thinking instead? Since you are already good, a moderate amount of time and energy could make you excellent. If you really gave it your all, perhaps you could become a world-class creative thinker. That would enable you to generate ideas and make contributions few others could. That would make you much more valuable and give you a real advantage in your life and career.

So what do you do about your weaknesses? Gather people around you who are strong in those areas. That’s what I’ve done for years. In my current season of life, I can hire staff who pos­sess strengths in my areas of weakness. But even before I was “the boss,” I practiced this principle. For thirty-five years my wife, Margaret, and I have worked as a team to compensate for one an­other’s weaknesses. I’ve often relied on my brother, Larry, to help me in the area of realistic thinking. And I’ve made it a practice to partner with friends who think better than I do in a particular area while I do the same for them. Not having to rely entirely on myself when it comes to thinking has been a real advantage for me.

Managing the Discipline of Thinking

 It’s easy to allow situations and other people to influence your thinking negatively as well as positively. One of the tricky things about seeking ideas and perspective from others is that some peo­ple have an agenda other than helping you. That’s why it’s impor­tant to take responsibility for your own thinking. When I was in my twenties, I began to practice this discipline: Every day I will set aside a time to think, and I will determine to think on the right things. If you desire to do the same thing, then do this:

FIND A PLACE TO THINK

Beginning with my first job in 1969, I’ve always found a place to be my daily thinking spot. During those early years in Hillham, In­diana, it was beside a spring outside our home. In Lancaster, Ohio, I used to sit on a big rock. In San Diego, it was an isolated room upstairs at the church. In Atlanta, it’s a particular chair in my of­fice. The only time I sit in it is when I need thinking time.

Those certainly haven’t been the only places I’ve done my thinking, but they are the ones I’ve designated for the task. But I can make almost any place a good thinking place as long as I don’t have to deal with interruptions. Right now as I write this, I’m sit­ting in a chair on the balcony of a cruise ship. My family is scattered all over the ship doing different things, and I sneaked away for a few minutes by myself to think about this book and write down some ideas.

I want to encourage you to find a thinking place. When it comes to what works, everybody’s different. Some people like to be connected to nature. Others want to be in the midst of—but re­moved from—activity. My friend Andy Stanley likes to sit alone in a restaurant to think—he says he needs a little distraction. J. K. Rowling, author of the “Harry Potter” books, wrote her early books while sitting in a café. Where you go doesn’t matter as long as it stimulates your thinking.

SET ASIDE THINK TIME EVERY DAY

As important as finding the right place to think is carving out the time. I do nearly all my best thinking early in the morning—except for reflective thinking. I usually do that in the evenings before I go to bed. That’s when I review my day and try to measure how I did with my Daily Dozen. But all the other kinds of thinking come best to me in the morning. I often wake up in the wee hours and spend time just jotting ideas on a legal pad while sitting in my thinking chair. I recommend that you try to discover the time of day when your thinking is the sharpest. Then set aside a block of time every day just to think. I believe you’ll find that you’re much more pro­ductive and focused as a result.

FIND A PROCESS THAT WORKS FOR YOU

Everybody has a different way of approaching the process of think­ing. Poet Rudyard Kipling had to have pure black ink for his pen before he could write. Philosopher Immanuel Kant used to stare out his window at a stone tower to think; when trees grew up threatening to block his view, he chopped them down. Composer Ludwig van Beethoven poured cold water over his head to refresh himself and stimulate his thinking. Poet Friedrich you Schiller’s thinking was stimulated by the smell of rotting apples, which he kept on his desk. Critic and lexicographer Samuel Johnson said that he needed a purring cat, an orange peel, and a cup of tea in order to write. Composer Gioacchino Rossini felt that he worked best in bed under the covers.

I don’t need anything specific to trigger my thinking. Some people need music. Some think best while at a computer. Some must write in longhand. Do whatever works for you.

CAPTURE YOUR THOUGHTS

If you don’t write down your ideas, there is a great danger you will lose them. In Bird by Bird; Anne Lamott explains how she keeps from losing her best ideas:

I have index cards and pens all over the house—by the bed, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, by the phones, and I have them in the glove compartment of my car. I carry one with me in my back pocket when I take my dog for a walk…. I used to think that if something was important enough, I’d remember it until I got home, where I could simply write it down in my notebook…. But then I wouldn’t … [Writing down your ideas right away is] not cheating. It doesn’t say anything about your character.

I always write down my ideas. When I’m in my thinking spot, I use a legal pad. The rest of the day, I keep a small leather-bound notebook with me. I even have something to write with next to my bed at night: a small — with a light attached that illuminates when you remove the pen. That way, I can write a note while still in bed without disturbing Margaret by turning on a light. Have a system and use it.

PUT YOUR THOUGHTS INTO ACTION QUICKLY

When you have a great idea but don’t do anything with it, then you don’t reap the advantage it brings. Dave Goetz, founder of Cus­tomZines.com, says, “For me, when an idea hits me, it strikes fire, almost like God speaking. I know that sounds heretical, but there it is. The more time that passes after the idea strikes, the less heat it gives off. I forget parts of it, it doesn’t seem as great. Ideas have a short half-life.”

Have you ever had an idea for a product or service and a few months or years later seen someone else with the same idea take it to market? Author Alfred Mon­tapert said, “Every time a person puts an idea across, he finds ten peo­ple who thought about it before he did—but they only thought about it.” Ideas, put into action, give an advantage.

TRY TO IMPROVE YOUR THINKING EVERY DAY

It’s true that the more thinking you do, the better you become at it. But you can quickly improve your thinking if you do the fol­lowing on a daily basis:

• Focus on the Positive: Thinking alone won’t guarantee success. You need to think about the right things. Negative thinking and worry actually hinder the thinking process rather than improve it. I believe in this so wholeheartedly that the first book I wrote was a collection of short uplifting and instructive chapters. I called it Think on These Things, based on a Bible passage that always inspired me: Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Focus on the positive, and your thinking will move in a positive direction.

• Gather Good Input: I’ve always been a collector of ideas. I do a lot of reading, and I continually file the ideas and quotes I find. (I’ll tell you more about that in the chapter on growth.) I’ve found that the more good ideas I’m exposed to, the more my thinking improves.

• Spend Time with Good Thinkers: If you were to interview a group of top executives in any profession, you would find that well over half had the benefit of being mentored at some time in their careers. And I believe that the greatest benefit anyone receives in that kind of relationship is learning how the mentor thinks. If you spend time with good thinkers, you will find that the exposure sharpens your thinking.

I believe that many people take thinking for granted. They see it as a natural function of life. But the truth is that intentional thinking isn’t commonplace. What you do every day in the area of thinking really matters because it sets the stage for all your actions, and it will bring you either adversity or advantage.

Reflecting on Thinking

When I was young and highly energetic, I was all for action. But the longer I live, the more I cherish my thinking time. Perhaps that’s because I have begun to realize the value it has brought to me:

In my teens…  My thinking began to be focused on that which was positive.

In my 20s…    My thinking separated me from many of my peers.

In my 30s…    My thinking gave me an audience and a following.

In my 40s…    My thinking took my work to a much higher level.

In my 50s…    My thinking has taken me to a much higher level

And the best part is that I’m not done yet. I’m fifty-seven years old, and I believe my best thinking is still ahead of me. I’m always trying to increase the quantity and quality of my thinking, be­cause few things give as great a return as good ideas. When a per­son’s thinking is good, a lot of other things in life take care of themselves.

A Boy in Bondage

I mentioned previously that people who don’t practice good think­ing become slaves to their surroundings. Recently I saw a movie that illustrated that truth—and also showed how when people change their thinking, they can be freed from that bondage and change their lives. The movie was called Antwone Fisher, and it was based on the life of the real Antwone Fisher, who was also the film’s screenwriter.

Unlike most movies based on a true story, Antwone Fisher very closely followed the life of its protagonist. Fisher was born in an Ohio correctional facility while his mother was incarcerated. By then his father had already been dead for two months. As a re­sult, he grew up a ward of the state in foster care. For over thir­teen years, he lived with a couple who abused him horribly. Daily he was beaten down—physically, verbally, and psychologically. He never received a Christmas gift or a dime of allowance from his foster parents. For years he was the victim of sexual abuse. And he was often tied to a post in the basement and beaten. His fos­ter mother used to brag that she had once beaten him until he was unconscious. When an interviewer asked him whether the movie portrayal of his foster parents had been accurate, Fisher an­swered, “I was kind to them in the movie and the …. .. They are worse.”

In the movie, Fisher’s lift doesn’t really change for the better until he’s been in the U.S. Navy for many years. That’s when a psychiatrist (portrayed by Denzel Washington) takes an interest in him and helps him work through the pain of his past. In real life, Fisher did encounter a navy psychiatrist who helped him, but long before that, another person sowed the seeds of hope in his life.

By the time Fisher entered the third grade, he had lost any nat­ural love for learning. In addition, the constant admonition from his foster mother that he was the worst child in the world had con­vinced him that he couldn’t learn and had no future. He failed fourth grade and was scheduled to repeat it. But then something wonderful happened. His foster family moved, which put him in a new school district. His new teacher was Mrs. Profit. “If there is such a thing as human beings who act as angels in our lives, Brenda Profit was that for me.”

Under Mrs. Profit’s care, Fisher began to change his thinking about himself He says, “If self esteem was what you used to fill up like a tank of gas, the Picketts [his foster family] had siphoned mine out to nothing. Mrs. Profit helped change all that.” Despite his gains, his academic progress was still meager by the end of the year. He was in danger of once again failing fourth grade. But then Fisher got another break. It was decided that Mrs. Profit would stay with her class of students and continue teaching them in fifth and sixth grades. Knowing that, she passed Fisher into the fifth grade. And it was then an event occurred that would change his thinking forever.

It happened one day during reading. Fisher, a terribly shy child who sometimes stuttered, was asked to read aloud, and in­stead of panicking, he read well, including successfully sounding out a difficult word. Then Mrs. Profit praised him, saving, “I’m proud of you. I want you to know that I really struggled over promoting you, and I’m so glad that I did. You are doing very well this year.” That’s when something clicked in Fisher’s head. He writes,

Her honest, careful words are the equivalent of lightning bolts and thunderclaps. Outside I shyly accept her praise, but inside I’m living with the birth of a revelation. It’s the first time I’ve ever realized that there is something I can do to make things dif­ferent for myself. Not just me, but anyone. That no matter how often someone says you can’t do something, by simply working harder and trying, you can prove them wrong and actually change your circumstance. This lesson is a piece of gold I’ll keep tucked in my back pocket for the rest of my life.

In that moment, Fisher changed his thinking—and it changed his life. He had plenty of ups and downs after that, but he knew that he wasn’t hopeless and a better future was possible for him. He didn’t follow the path of his older foster brother and friends into a life of drugs and crime.

Today, Antwone Fisher thinks for a living. He is a successful screenwriter in Hollywood. He learned his craft by writing forty-one drafts of the screenplay that tells his own story. And he has be­come the kind of responsible citizen and family man he always desired to be, with a wife and young daughter. When asked what message he wants his story to convey, his answer is, “That there is hope even when you have the hardest beginnings, and there are good people in the world.”

I don’t know what kind of background you have. I don’t know what type of circumstances you currently face. But I do know there’s hope. No matter what kind of goals you have or obstacles you need to overcome, thinking can give you an advantage. And that advantage has the potential to change your life for the better, just as it did for Antwone Fisher.