ZingTrain

Organizational Culture

No Drama Part II: Going Direct

Revisit our ‘No Drama’ content taught to all Roadhouse staff Understand the benefits of going direct – and the impact when you don’t Learn the 7 Steps to Having a Courageous Conversation Get coaching tips to help someone else successfully go direct Leave equipped with Bottom-Line Change®, a tool to help you implement ‘going direct’ […]

Organizational Culture

Trainer Roundtable: Ask Us Anything!

Meet and connect with ZingTrain trainers Get a glimpse behind-the-scenes of ZingTrain Be inspired to develop new training in your organization Download the webinar files Recording – Trainer Roundtable: Ask Us Anything!

Managing Ourselves

Creating A No Drama Work Culture

Restaurant culture is often stereotyped as fast-paced, high-stress, and ripe with interpersonal conflict. Long-time Zingerman’s Roadhouse restaurant manager, Lisa Schultz, took charge to foster a different culture for her staff. While conflict in the workplace is unavoidable, there are ways to dramatically minimize the drama it can create.  In 2017, Lisa designed a ‘No Drama’ training that is […]

Managing Ourselves

Growing Forward with Intention

Are you someone who avoids conflict? Short-term, it can feel much easier to internalize conflict and suppress feelings of discomfort. Long-term, a habit of avoidance can lead to built-up pressure and negative self-talk. However, there is hope! This month’s webinar shines light on techniques to help you embrace struggle in productive ways.  If we can pause […]

Customer Service

Satisfaction Guaranteed – A Virtual Interview with Micki Maynard

Listen to our conversation with locally-rooted-nationally-known author and journalist Micki Maynard talking about her newest book Satisfaction Guaranteed: How Zingerman’s Built A Corner Deli Into A Global Food Community. We dove into Micki’s expertise in business journalism, her perspective on what makes Zingerman’s noteworthy (256 pages-worth!), and the joys and takeaways from writing our story. In addition, we took questions from […]

Ari's Writing

Natural Law #16

As many of you know, I’ve been working for a while now on what is the next set of Natural Laws of Business (and also of life) that I hadn’t yet formulated when I wrote the initial essay back in 2009 in Part 1. Natural Laws, like gravity, are simply the way the world works. We don’t […]

Training & Business Systems

Taking a Look at Zingerman’s Training Compact—25 Years Later

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye says, “Questions are very helpful. Begin with a few you’re carrying right now.” So, in the spirit of Ms. Shihab Nye’s suggestion, here are a few questions with which to start this conversation: What if I told you I had a tool that you could put to work in your organization […]

Ari's Writing

Natural Law #23: Our World Works Better When We’re Owning Our Choices

Peter Koestenbaum could, on the surface, seem a surprising choice for an apostle of the revolutionary approach to putting freedom in place in the 21st century workplace. Even in the progressive part of the business world, few folks will likely have heard of him, and I doubt that his numerous books have made it to […]

Ari's Writing

Joy at Work (and Working at Joy)

What follows is a stepping stone; the start of my understanding of something that, on the one hand, I’ve lived with my whole life, and at the same time, I haven’t given nearly as much thought to as I could have. Fortunately, I get a lot of joy from learning, and maybe even more of […]

Ari's Writing

This I Believe…

Heather Richardson Cox closed her column about the meeting of the G7 leaders the other day with this simple line: “There are lots of moving pieces in the world right now.” Here’s a small bit about a piece that I believe is moving in a really positive direction. Over the last five weeks I’ve written […]

Ari's Writing

Additional Insights into the Importance of Organizational Culture

When I sat down to draft the piece about culture that ran here three weeks ago, my plan was, as it usually is, to move on to a different subject the following week. That shifted significantly. The more I explored the effect of cultural soil, the more I saw just how important it is. Actively […]

Organizational Culture

Another Deep Look at How We Can Continue to Enhance Our Cultural Soils

This is the third segment in what has become a four-part series on the subject of regenerating our organizational cultures. You can find the first part, as well as the second segment, in the resource library. Throughout this series, I’ve shared my metaphorical model where culture is the “soil” in which people, products, and processes are growing. All […]