Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements isn’t the first book most anyone thinks of when they think of a business development book in the same vein as Traction or Extreme Ownership. When I first heard the title in a list of business and financial development books including the other titles, I did a double-take.
The Four Agreements (with subtext of A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom) is part of the A Toltec Wisdom series. It’s also probably located in the New Age or Spirituality section of your local bookstore. I’m definitely not selling the “business” part of this yet am I?
Some of the best advice is some of the most general. The Four Agreements isn’t going to tell you anything you shouldn’t already know, but it will tell you in a way which serves as a kick in the butt to be more mindful of what you’re doing and to be accountable for it. The spiritual fiber which makes the four agreements the basis of this series can easily be translated to apply to business. Let’s take apart the book then really dig into how it works in the context of business.
The Four Agreements and the System Behind Them
The four agreements are: Be impeccable with your word, Don’t take anything personally, Don’t make assumptions, and Always do your best. They may sound like generic advice, but the whole point is the system behind the four agreements and its implications. This spiritual system can be taken less spiritually and create a great set of rules for business (which we’ll get to soon).
This book is a spirituality book through and through, with references to God and the Toltec religion. This is going to be a gross simplification and painting with a very, very wide brush, but the system reads as something like an animistic Buddhism with elements of Christianity. The other premise is that suffering in life stems from agreements between the souls (or individuals) which make up the world via the dream of the planet.
It’s a fascinating read if you’re into spirituality, metaphysics, or comparative religions. The system is introduced in a very simple fashion without going too into detail. There’s a lot more to the idea but the book gets the point across while staying accessible. Even though this article isn’t about spirituality, we do need to understand the overall principles introduced to really apply them.
The Four Agreements for Business
Businesses are human-centered affairs. A business is more than just a client and a clerk, or a transaction and sale. People interact, they talk and they laugh, they have good days and they have bad days. Relationships and bonds are born and broken regularly due to many factors.
The Four Agreements is about making sure your agreements aren’t broken because of you and that you remain mindful of what you’re saying and doing. This applies to business since word of mouth can either be positive or poisonous. The right decision for the wrong reason can cause more damage than the wrong decision for the wrong reasons. One can delude you that it is right in its entirety, the other is (usually) obviously wrong. Each agreement applies to business in different ways and at different levels.
Be Impeccable With Your Word
This is the first and the hardest of the agreements. All of the other agreements are predicated on this agreement being upheld. Your word is your bond and a reflection of who you are. The other side of this is that your employee becomes a representative of your word. Does your client care whether a bad employee or a good employee was rude? They don’t, they just know it happened because of your business. Be impeccable with your word; be truthful and do everything with integrity.
This same concept applies to making promises and your overall marketing. You should aim to under promise and over deliver. The same work can get done, but the difference client satisfaction is going to come down to expectations. If you set the expectations too high and fail to deliver, you’ve undermined the best of your work. Keep your promises and set expectations with your word.
When the reviews almost all say a business is great and one person says it’s horrible, who do clients trust? When the reviews have plenty which say the business is horrible and lies, and a few give it rave reviews, how much faith do clients have in those reviews? Live up to what you say even if it costs you and you’ll grow repeat business. It’s also much harder to sue a business that doesn’t lie.
When you advertise, do you compare yourself to others or showcase what you’re good at? A jab can be a funny marketing concept, but too much and it just becomes toxic. No one wants to deal with crabs in a bucket. Push yourself up with others wanting to push you up rather than trying to pull everyone around you down. Market based on your strengths rather than others’ weaknesses.
Don’t Take Anything Personally
Assuming you continue to be impeccable with your word, you shouldn’t take things personally. What exactly does this mean in the context of business though? Every business has their Karen or Kyle which complain about everything and anything. If you’re doing what you’re supposed to be, don’t take it personally. They’re the same people who order a steak blue rare and complain “it’s basically raw.”
Don’t take internal conflict personally either. Did someone not finish a report out of laziness or was their kid sick over the weekend? Did someone forget to say hi while walking down the hall when you bumped into them? Are they avoiding you or are they just having a bad day? It’s easy to assume each issue is personal, but the truth is, most people live in their own worlds. This is going to be as true for your clients as your own employees.
Don’t Make Assumptions
The root of the issue in our previous example was that we tend to make assumptions about the cause of our conflict. Where in the process did everything breakdown? You can guess, but then you assume. Are you basing your decisions on data and metrics?
You can’t truly figure out what works and what doesn’t in a business relying on assumptions. You can make the right decision for the wrong reason and have it work out due to luck or unexpected circumstances. This constitutes one of the general principles behind “beginner’s luck” (the other being that more skilled people don’t know how to handle the randomness of a new player).
Where exactly does a sale fall through? What fell through and why? What can be done to fix it? When you look at the real data, you see the real problem instead of assumed problems. Certain things can’t be measured, but know that they can’t be actually measured instead of just guessing.
Always Do Your Best
Following the previous three agreements will lead to you doing your best. Strive to always do your best and make sure that you continue to do what everything necessary to succeed. It’s easy to take shortcuts, but most shortcuts which aren’t thought through end up costing more than they save.
If you have the choice between cutting quality or raising costs to increase margins, which should you do? You have to know why your clients pick you in order to know which choice makes more sense. If you’re managing a brand known for quality, cutting quality means you’re not doing your best. If your brand is known for value, you might have to cut quality via shrinkflation or reducing the cost of the ingredients.
The second you make the wrong choice to do your best, you undermine your previous records. What happens to a luxury brand when everyone owns something from it? The price plummets and it stops being marketable as a luxury at pretty much any level. Sometimes it drags the other offerings in the line down with it to where nothing is profitable.
Better Business With The Four Agreements
Shape your business to use these principles and it is easy to build a brand out of it. If you run your own business, build your own brand based on these tenants. If you are part of a larger business, build the brand as one which is reliable and one which is customer centered.
Uphold your word, make the policy clear and understandable for clients and employees. When people know what to expect, they take it better than when they have the wrong expectations. Make sure you don’t take things personally in your process. Allow slack in expectations and in understanding for personal issues with your employees and with clients. The right approach at the wrong time gets the same result as the wrong one.
Use data to avoid making assumptions. Find the root cause of process breakdowns and failures in order to learn from them. See if you’re doing the right thing for the wrong reason and not just getting lucky.
When you do this, you almost can’t help but to do your best. Make the promise that you will do your best as a business. This goes deeper than: “The customer is always right.” When you have to make bad decisions, make the best one possible which make you live up to your word and are rooted in truth.
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Or the set here.