A draft vision for a small Thursday evening Farmer’s Market we host out in the parking lot of Zingerman’s Roadhouse. It’s the longest day of the year; the sun is at its pinnacle of warmth and light. Throngs of people are milling around the Roadhouse parking lot on this Thursday afternoon, amazed and excited at […]
One day, as Becky Winkler was teaching the section of our ZingTrain MerchandiZing seminar that covers “Contrast, Composition, and Content, it suddenly struck me. Although the approach was created to address graphic design issues, it’s applicable to all the other “design work we do,” whether that’s designing a business, a product or anything else of […]
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 […]
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 […]
In a previous article, Why and How Visioning Works, I wrote about how the process of visioning which, as we define it at Zingerman’s, is a picture of the success of a project at a particular time in the future. I noted that a vision isn’t a strategic plan—which is the map to where we […]
When we start any project, we use the process of visioning—figuring out what we want success to look like—to get it going. I’m selling visioning because it tangibly improves the quality of the organization and the personal lives of those who use it. Without visioning, it’s easy to be dragged down by pressures and problems, […]
In 1992, we called together a group of managers, staff, and owners and set out to put on paper a statement of what Zingerman’s is all about, to write what’s referred to in business books as a Mission Statement. I was skeptical. I’m not sure why I agreed to it; probably because my partner Paul […]
Regardless of your actual title in an organization, your job involves making decisions. New staff members start making decisions the day they are hired, and beginning with their decision to accept the job, we hope their decisions will be good ones. One of the basic tenets of Bottom-Line Training — clear, documented expectations — is […]
“This isn’t a vision, it’s an illustrated to-do list… let’s try a second draft.”
It’s January 1, 2025 and your business has been quite successful. What do you see, hear, smell and feel going on around you that is evidence of that success? If you can describe that scene, you’ll have a vision of greatness for your organization – an incredibly powerful tool to get everyone working together and […]
We are often asked, “How did Zingerman’s build this great group of people? How do you get people to care and have such a good time at work?”
Ian Gurfield, Co-Founder of Ian’s Pizza, is a long-time client and dear friend of ZingTrain. Below, he shares how he came to learn about Visioning, what the process of writing his first Vision was like and the impact it’s had on his business. And be sure to scroll down to to the end of this […]
MAY 6-7, 2024
Job descriptions. Hiring. Performance reviews. The works.
This seminar is perfect for anyone who manages people and loves tools to help them succeed!
