Keynote speakers draw people to events and have a massive impact on the overall energy and experience of attendees. Keynote speakers are also an investment, and there are ways to maximize the impact of your speakers at an event. Through managing Zingerman’s keynotes at hundreds of events over the last decade, I have seen my […]
Do you like handling customer complaints? Why or why not?
As I’m writing this in 2020, a LOT of what we do and how we do it has suddenly changed and will continue to change. How will we keep our high-quality products and great service consistent as we adapt to virtual environments, new safety policies, new expectations from our customers, and everything else? Really, how […]
This is Part 1 of a multi-part series on the basics of our Bottom-Line Training method. Creating the Training Method When ZingTrain was founded in 1994, Maggie Bayless, ZingTrain’s Founding Partner, joined the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses as the third Zingerman’s business along with the Delicatessen and the Bakehouse. Her expertise in training method and instructional […]
Last week I wrote a lot about grief—a feeling that, for nearly all of us, can be gut-wrenching. This week I want to turn my attention to a less intense element of the “ecosystem,” one that plays an important, if at times almost invisible, part in our organizational health. It’s essentially about taking the advice […]
I hadn’t really planned to write about grief this week. Somehow, though I wasn’t expecting it, grief and grieving seemed to keep showing up over, and over, again. Which is very much what my experience of grieving has been like. Even when I think I’ve got a handle on it, it creeps up on me […]
To build a culture of great service, taking time to define and teach your expectations to staff will give you more consistent results. Explore five essential components of developing and maintaining a culture of great service in your organization. Contact ZingTrain to learn about customer service seminars and workshops that share tools to enhance your […]
As I write, world leaders are gathered in Glasgow, attempting to come to consensus on a way to address the increasingly urgent world crisis of climate change. Despite what seems to be general agreement on the gravity of the situation, the visitors to Glasgow appear unable (at least so far) to coalesce around a comprehensive […]
In the spirit of last week’s discussion of compassion and compost, I thought I could begin this piece by pulling from the place I left off by returning to the work of writer Janisse Ray. I met Ms. Ray for the first time a few weeks ago at the annual Southern Foodways Alliance symposium in Oxford, Mississippi where […]
We’ve all been in the bad meeting… You’re left wondering why the meeting was called in the first place and why the same four people are dominating the conversation. In any meeting, in-person or virtual, it’s important to kick things off by letting everyone get their voice in the “room” in order to have a […]
This past spring, Joy Harjo—poet, artist, musician, and member of the Muscogee Creek Nation—celebrated her 70th birthday. Born in Oklahoma in the spring of 1951, Harjo has seen and experienced a good deal of suffering in the world; harm inflicted on the planet, on her people, and on herself as well. In March of this […]
Back in 1991, right around the right time I began the intentional explorations of my own emotions, Sam Keen published a book called Fire in the Belly. I read it shortly after it came out, and all these years later, I’m still benefiting from what I learned. Three decades down the road, I’ve gone on to […]
