Happy New Year! It seems like just yesterday that we were worrying about whether our computers – and the world – would be brought to their knees by the “Y2K” problem, and now – suddenly – it’s 8 years later. Wow! Back in December of 1999, ZingTrain was a pretty different looking business than we are now. Stas’ hadn’t yet joined me as a managing partner, so there were just two of us on the ZingTrain staff. And Carole Woods and I were still working out of the basement office that was once Zingerman’s Mail Order and is now the home (after much needed sprucing up) of Zingerman’s IT department.

Now ZingTrain – in addition to being housed in more spacious office space at ground level – has 8 people attending our weekly huddles. Sometimes we’re all here in person, but often someone is attending via conference call. So, although the work that ZingTrain is doing hasn’t changed much, the number of people involved in getting it done has changed pretty dramatically. And one of the most striking results of our growth is the fact that the communication systems that worked fine in the past are no longer up to the task.

Actually, our first big A-ha! happened back in 2003 when we realized that just because there were only 3 of us working in pretty close quarters didn’t mean that we automatically knew what each other was doing. I guess you could call this the BGO (belated glimpse of the obvious) that we did not have the capacity for telepathy. Up to that point we’d scheduled staff meetings pretty haphazardly, believing that we didn’t need something so structured as a set weekly meeting schedule. But in 2003, in support of our commitment to open book finance, the ZCoB embraced the idea of weekly huddles and ZingTrain got on board. We continued to waste a little time trying to work around people’s travel schedules, but finally realized that we needed to just decide on a time for the huddle and that who ever is in town meets then. People who can’t make it in person either call in or send a proxy. (BTW- if you’re in Ann Arbor on a Wednesday from 11:30-12:30, you’re welcome to join us!)

Getting a regular huddle going was a huge improvement in communication and helped us grow from 3 people to the 8 full and part-time staff we are today. But lately we’ve been discovering the need for additional systems to make sure anyone – even if not regularly involved in a specific project or aspect of the business – can access the information to answer a customer or co-worker’s question in a pinch.

The challenges of a retail environment are different than those of an office environment, but the need for effective communication among staff is equally important. Priscilla Atwater, of Atwater’s Market in Baltimore, emailed recently about her frustration with trying to find a way to pass information along to their staff – who work in an indoor market setting, spread out among several retail and restaurant venues. In this issue’s ZingTools, we’re sharing some of the communication options in use around the ZCoB, but I’m sure this is a challenge that everyone reading this has faced, is struggling with currently or will be dealing with in the not-so-distant future. So please let us know how YOU communicate effectively with the others in your organization – especially those techniques that are more creative than just sending a memo. Oh, and things you’ve tried that DIDN’T work are of interest as well. We’ll gather your input and share it with everyone else. And we’ve got some cool new ZingTrain t-shirts for the first ten readers who contribute suggestions. Please write to us at zingtrainzingermanscom.

Speaking of communications, how do you like OnTrack in this email format? Are you more or less likely to read it than you were when it came via US mail? Any suggestions for features or future topics? Please let us know at zingtrainzingermanscom.

Best wishes to all of you for a happy, healthy and fun 2008!