In the spirit of picking up the phone that I wrote about in “Working Through Hard Times,” I dialed the number of a friend the other evening. She’s an amazing leader who lives halfway across the country. Someone who is humble, focused, and persistently positive in her leadership. She has vision, she’s grounded, and determined […]
In the four months since the release of “Humility: A Humble, Anarchistic Inquiry,” I’ve had a couple of good questions about its contents come my way that—initially—I had no answer for. I’m happy to share that the reflections that followed have helped me to further understand the importance of humility in our organizational ecosystems and to see […]
Many thanks to all of you who reached out with such positive thoughts after to my recent piece about our 2032 Vision. I appreciate everyone who asked for a copy. I’m happy to share—inspiring visions and interesting ideas, ever imperfect, can only lead to more creative thinking across our ecosystem when shared widely. Speaking of […]
Thursday, January 28, is a morning that I will remember, in the best possible ways, for a long time. Probably, for the rest of my life. Unlike so many other days lately, nothing particularly noteworthy that I know of happened on a national scale that day. And yet, here at Zingerman’s, it was a day […]
Remember March 2020? What were you doing a year ago–in the “before” time? Personally, I was spending a lot of time on the phone. We were interviewing prospects for a newly available position as a ZingTrain Trainer. Someone who could help pick up the load at the end of July when I would be stepping […]
I don’t have that many regrets in life, but one of mine is that I never managed to meet Grace Lee Boggs. She lived relatively close by in Detroit and passed away, just six years ago, at the age of 105. I have read a lot of what this amazing woman put into print. Her […]
Over the last couple weeks, I’ve written a lot about the importance of bringing love into our leadership lives and daily work. As I continue to do more with the organizational ecosystem model (email me at [email protected] if you want the drawing), I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose. In the metaphorical model that I wrote about […]
Way back in 1990—in the same year that the two Germanies were reunited, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and eight years after Paul and I had opened the Deli—my friend Lex Alexander from North Carolina told me about a new book he was reading. And loving. It was written by a guy from Iowa […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
There’s a musician whose work I like who records under the moniker “honey the witch.” In her piece “when the world ends,” she sings the line, “what a strange time it is to be alive.” That’s an understatement if I ever heard one. But if strengths lead to weaknesses—and weaknesses, in turn, can later courteously […]
