There are two specific areas where the one-customer-at-a-time approach can make a significant impact on organizational success. At Zingerman’s, we focus on both of them because either has the potential to take a customer experience from poor to great by simple, though often not intuitive, action by an owner, manager or associate. Breaking the Rules […]
If bad profits are akin to strip mining, then good profits are like sustainable agriculture; they’re solid, rooted in shared values and win-win outcomes that have long-term gains for all involved. The customer has a great experience, the staff member enjoys serving them and feels good about what they’re selling, and the organization is building […]
Learning never stops. Sometimes it’s painful—learning that comes from working through difficult circumstances, making mistakes, exercising poor judgment, confronting bad luck or facing up to things we didn’t want to know about. At Zingerman’s, we’ve been learning a lot through what we have taken to calling the ZXI, or Zingerman’s Experience Indicator. (See sidebar on […]
At Zingerman’s, we first adopted the Open Book approach to finance in the mid-1990s. We learned about it from reading the now classic book, The Great Game of Business, by Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham, as well as John Case’s Open-Book Management. The concept basically states that everyone in the organization—from hourly staff through to […]
Everyone at Zingerman’s is currently engaged in what we’ve affectionately come to call ZAP, a simple acronym for Zingerman’s Annual Planning. Like any skill one is attempting to perfect, it takes time, practice and dedication to become a master planner. Planning—and even more importantly following the plan—has become such a normal part of what we […]
The first of this two-part series, Meaningful Games at Work, addressed why and how games can help grow your business. Part Two provides pointers on developing games appropriate for your business. While there’s no perfect formula for designing group games, here is a ten-step recipe that we use at Zingerman’s to get better results. The […]
In this first of a two-part series, we address how playing games can help achieve business goals. The next article, Ten Steps to Designing a Great Game, will tell you how to design an effective game for your business. People always give me a funny look when I tell them that we like to play […]
How can you apply the principles of good work at the stove to the work you do with staff? It’s a challenge. People drawn to the lively, loveable chaos of the food business have an aversion to too much structure. It’s natural; we like the freedom of the food world because we don’t have to […]
This essay is about effective leadership. But not the out-front, high-energy, heroic, final-step type of work that wins recognition in magazines about management. Instead it’s about an element of effectiveness that comes from the unglamorous, behind the scenes, stick to the systems stuff that’s just as important, but rarely gets headlines. It’s not about the […]
The guiding model for effective management at Zingerman’s is what we call Servant Leadership, which details that leaders are obligated to provide great service to the organization and, more specifically, to the staff. Stewardship is one of two important approaches to making Servant Leadership effective. (The other is our Entrepreneurial Approach.) The concept for Stewardship […]
There is no single, “right” way to be a leader. Finding the style and routine that’s suited to you, and to the particulars of your environment, is not easy. Even when you find one that works in one phase of your business, it may be less effective as your company grows. What follows is one […]
I first met Geri Larkin in the early ’80s, not long after we opened the Deli. She was a consultant with Deloite & Touche, and has since left the world of high-powered consulting to become a Buddhist monk. Fortunately, she contributed a number of exceptional books on business and, speaking personally, left me with a […]
This new 4-part workshop series combines one of ZingTrain’s longest-running workshops, Living Servant Leadership, with three newer offerings, all geared towards providing practical, immediately-applicable tools, techniques, and perspectives to support leaders in developing and evolving their skills.
This series will be offered both virtually and in-person at our training space in Ann Arbor, MI! Choose what will work best for you.
