Can you think of the last time you received an order, either one that was delivered or something you picked up yourself, only to get home and realize the order isn’t right? Something is missing, the quantity isn’t correct, a dietary restriction wasn’t adhered to, the list goes on… It’s frustrating, for sure. It ends […]
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 gives 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 […]
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 […]
One of the most common themes of the last six months is how different things are going to be after the pandemic. I keep hearing how we need new thinking to get out of the current situation. But the interesting thing to me is that there’s more than enough insightful old thinking already out there to help […]
Back when I began the work on this project a couple years ago, I can honestly say that I knew next to nothing about humility. Beyond a general understanding of what the word meant, and that it was probably a good thing to have, I wouldn’t have had much to say about why it would […]
As I write, we’re in the process of putting the final touches on the first-ever “Zingerman’s Statement of Beliefs.” We’re working on getting them printed so we can give copies to our staff, and so those of you who want to can buy one as well. I’ll write more about why I believe the “Statement […]
In Part II of our Guide to Open Book Management (you can read Part I to explore what Open Book is and where it came from here!), we invite you to consider why your business might want to consider Open Book Management (OBM) as a way to run the business. You’ll soon see that there’s […]
Malcolm Gladwell said, “Once you don’t start at the beginning, your life just gets so much easier.” Why not, then, use the end as the beginning? It’s an oft-used tactic for writers and filmmakers, so why not try it in our lives? When we know how the story winds up, we will most likely alter […]
The security of the familiar in our lives has quickly been overpowered by uncertainty and concerns around safety, rendering many of the ways we regularly do business either much more difficult or, sometimes, even prohibited altogether. Perhaps you experienced a few, if not all of these shifts: adapting work schedules to accommodate new needs at […]
Breathe.That’s most certainly a suggestion, not an order. If you’re game, go for it again. Breathe. Many mornings, I write that word when I’m journaling. Sometimes I might write it every few lines as I’m getting going. Each time I write it, I take a deep, slow breath (as I did just now). Mindful breathing won’t fix […]
There have been a lot of mentions in the news of late about badly behaved anarchists, sinisterly dressed in black, throwing rocks and causing riots. I usually just ignore stuff like this in the news—it’s just old biases continuing to be bandied about as they have since Emma Goldman started public speaking. The other day […]
