Poet Naomi Shihab Nye says, “Questions are very helpful. Begin with a few you’re carrying right now.” So, in the spirit of Ms. Shihab Nye’s suggestion, here are a few questions with which to start this conversation: What if I told you I had a tool that you could put to work in your organization […]
I don’t have that many regrets in life, but one of mine is that I never managed to meet Grace Lee Boggs. Remembering Grace Lee Boggs: A Life of Hope and Inclusion She lived relatively close by in Detroit and passed away, just six years ago, at the age of 105. I have read a […]
If you work with anyone, whether it’s you and a business partner, or you’re a part of a team of many, it’s inevitable that people will complain from time-to-time. This is a co-working reality! How you handle a complaint from a coworker says a lot about your organization, and it’s important to give these complaints […]
What if I told you we had an organizational tool that gets better, longer lasting results than the old command-and-control approach? That it helps develop effective leadership skills across all levels of the organization. Encourages humility in everyone. Actively and systemically engages diverse perspectives in meaningful conversation. Cuts down on unpleasant surprise changes that can […]
One of the common pieces of conversation prompted by the pandemic has been that “after this is over, everything is going to be different.” It sounds uplifting… though I’m not sure what people are imagining will have changed. While a crisis (personal or collective) can cause reflection, more often than not, when it’s over, things […]
Here in the middle of the rather mad year of 2020, taking time to talk about Mission Statements might feel a bit . . . frivolous. Why, one might reasonably wonder, spend time on something like that when there are so many other urgent issues at hand? When stress levels are high, why sit down […]
Maria Popova writes, “The history of the world is the history of telling others who and what we are—from tribal markings to national flags to family crests to pronoun-specifying email signatures.” How we choose to tell our stories—and what artifacts we choose to highlight—alters the way we hear our past, experience our present, and create […]
When it comes to the new work-from-home world many of us find ourselves in at the moment, let’s take a look at the numbers for a second: An amazing 42% of the U.S. workforce is now working remotely, which is nearly twice the number of folks (22%) still working on-site at their business locations! And this larger […]
The Business Perspective Chart, or the BPC, is one of our very favorite training tools at Zingerman’s. Why do we love it so much? It provides framing and context for how our business operates and why, and it gives us a common language to use when talking about the business. This is especially helpful when […]
Howard Erlich, from whose writings I’ve learned a lot over the years, once offered this insightful advice to organizational leaders: “I think we might issue a slip of paper to all collective members. On it I would write ‘diffuse power’ and ‘empower everyone.’” Last week I wrote about the latter. Here, I’d like to share […]
Think for a moment about your company’s mission statement, vision of success, and core values. Do you have a clear idea of each? If not, not to worry – many, if not most, successful businesses have been doing just fine without formally defining them. But there can be tremendous value in taking the time to […]
Like any living, breathing organism, your organization grows and evolves in stages. What once worked for the business as things were getting off the ground may become less effective or no longer work as it grows and matures. We’ve seen this first-hand at ZingTrain. We began as a one-woman startup in Founder Maggie Bayless’s attic and […]
