Organizational culture is a living and breathing thing that is shaped by the beliefs and actions of everyone within an organization. And nearly all our cultures have shifted in some way or another over the last three years. We are intentionally or unintentionally defining culture every day – by the way we treat our customers, our products, our community, each […]
Whether you call them metrics, measures or KPI’s, the numbers you choose to pay attention to in your business, are the numbers that are going to change. Zingerman’s is an Open Book business. Besides the transparency that Open Book brings, this means that we essentially run our business off a “scoreboard” that we then review […]
Ari’s latest book in the Guide to Good Leading Series is about The Power of Beliefs in Business – a 600 page culmination of 3 years of research and reflection. Here is the core idea behind the book – whether we realize it or not, our beliefs have a major impact on how things go […]
First adopted at Zingerman’s via the brilliant writings of Peter Block, Stewardship is an approach that is rarely spoken of in the business world. It is, however, at the very foundation of how we approach leadership at Zingerman’s and a perfect companion to Servant Leadership, which we also practice and was the subject of a […]
People often think that here at Zingerman’s, we’re as successful as we are and our employees are as engaged as they are because we hire the right people. We think there’s more to it than that but we also agree that the hiring bit is pretty darn important. In almost 35 years of being in […]
You may not know what it’s called or where it came from, but you’ve answered it a million times! On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this business/service/experience to a friend or co-worker? It’s called The Ultimate Question, the score that comes out of it is called the Net […]
Most people have their own idea about what going Open Book means and what it takes to be an Open Book business. Willingness to share financial information. The distribution of decision making power. Better financial results. A lot of teaching. A lot of talking. Radically different notions of what it means to be a business […]
WITH SPECIAL GUEST : Tracie Wolfe, Recruiting Specialist, Zingerman’s Department for People At Zingerman’s, we have a radically simple framework for thinking about our employee experience. We call it the 3 Stages of the Employment Lifecycle : Stage One: Hiring the right people Stage Two: Helping staff succeed Stage Three: Assisting departing staff In this […]
There’s that old saying – The only constant is change. It’s true for our personal lives and it’s resoundingly true for our professional lives. Doesn’t it behoove us then, to get really good at change? Here at Zingerman’s, we think so. And we’ve worked at it, culturally and systemically, for more than a couple of […]
We have a “recipe” for creating an organizational culture. In our 2-day seminar, The Art of Giving Great Service, we apply that recipe to Customer Service and go into great depth on how to create a culture of great customer service in your organization. But we know that sometimes you just need and want quick […]
We’ve been practicing Open Book Management at Zingerman’s for about 15 years. Open Book Management means many things [and we discuss them all in our 2-day seminar] but anyone who practices it knows that the heart of being Open Book is the weekly huddle. The huddle is the all-staff meeting where we discuss our Key […]
On March 15, 2017, Zingerman’s Delicatessen celebrated its 35th anniversary and throughout the year the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has been taking opportunities to look back, reflect and celebrate with a variety of special events. A guaranteed crowd pleaser is a tasting of Ari’s favorite foods and since here at ZingTrain our “food” is training, […]
