One of the most common themes of the last six months is how different things are going to be after the pandemic. I keep hearing how we need new thinking to get out of the current situation. But the interesting thing to me is that there’s more than enough insightful old thinking already out there to help […]
Back when I began the work on this project a couple years ago, I can honestly say that I knew next to nothing about humility. Beyond a general understanding of what the word meant, and that it was probably a good thing to have, I wouldn’t have had much to say about why it would […]
As I write, we’re in the process of putting the final touches on the first-ever “Zingerman’s Statement of Beliefs.” We’re working on getting them printed so we can give copies to our staff, and so those of you who want to can buy one as well. I’ll write more about why I believe the “Statement […]
In Part II of our Guide to Open Book Management (you can read Part I to explore what Open Book is and where it came from here!), we invite you to consider why your business might want to consider Open Book Management (OBM) as a way to run the business. You’ll soon see that there’s […]
Malcolm Gladwell said, “Once you don’t start at the beginning, your life just gets so much easier.” Why not, then, use the end as the beginning? It’s an oft-used tactic for writers and filmmakers, so why not try it in our lives? When we know how the story winds up, we will most likely alter […]
The security of the familiar in our lives has quickly been overpowered by uncertainty and concerns around safety, rendering many of the ways we regularly do business either much more difficult or, sometimes, even prohibited altogether. Perhaps you experienced a few, if not all of these shifts: adapting work schedules to accommodate new needs at […]
Breathe.That’s most certainly a suggestion, not an order. If you’re game, go for it again. Breathe. Many mornings, I write that word when I’m journaling. Sometimes I might write it every few lines as I’m getting going. Each time I write it, I take a deep, slow breath (as I did just now). Mindful breathing won’t fix […]
There have been a lot of mentions in the news of late about badly behaved anarchists, sinisterly dressed in black, throwing rocks and causing riots. I usually just ignore stuff like this in the news—it’s just old biases continuing to be bandied about as they have since Emma Goldman started public speaking. The other day […]
In Part I of this post, I wrote a bunch about how I got going on the idea of Leaders as Weeders. This morning, just to get myself in the mood, I did ten minutes of weeding while I was on the phone with my friend Aisling from Fumbally Café in Dublin, just before I started my morning […]
World class business coach, writer, speaker, and all around good guy Verne Harnish regularly reminds anyone who will listen that, “Leaders are Readers.” I agree. My life, as you likely know, revolves around books. Today, though, I want to expand on Verne’s wise statement with a bit of wordplay and some real life lessons that have […]
Many organizations see training as something that happens at the beginning of employment. However, really great organizations recognize training is important at every stage of an employee’s tenure with their company. Perhaps the thought of continuously training your employees leaves you feeling overwhelmed and thinking, how do I find the time to train? This is […]
Eugene Ionesco once said, “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” So here’s a question: What if we didn’t think hierarchically? What if we stopped insisting on ranking almost everything from best to worst? What if we weren’t worried about “who was the greatest”? Buried near the back of Part 3 of the Guide to Good Leading […]
