For some of us, the upcoming holidays are a time when our teams will be tested. More customers. More product. More sales. More stress. For others, the holidays mean doldrums and slowing down. And then there is the challenge of that post-holiday re-entry, which can be a testy time for all of us as we […]
If we go by Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hour Rule, Ari is an expert on Visioning. He’s studied visioning for countless hours. He’s written (and executed) scores of visions. He’s written about Visioning in his book Guide to Good Leading Series, Part 1 : A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business. He’s taught visioning […]
Here at Zingerman’s, we think that being Open Book is a huge part of why we have the employee engagement and finanical success that we do. Jennifer Conlin, the New York Times reporter that “embedded” at Zingerman’s agrees. At ZingTrain, having taught Open Book Management to countless clients over the years, we also know that […]
Here at Zingerman’s, we practice Servant Leadership from Robert Greenleaf. In one summary of the philosophy, Greenleaf defines it as : “A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top […]
Business books and blogs are full of tips from really successful people on how to manage your time more effectively. As you probably know from reading a good number of them, each one has some nugget of wisdom that you can apply to your own life. In fact, Ari Weinzweig lists 15 of his own […]
We don’t know too many people who love to handle customer complaints. When we meet those people, we try to hire them! For the rest of us, who find handling customer complaints stressful, a little help goes a long way. At Zingerman’s, that help comes in the form of a “recipe” for effectively handling customer […]
Organizational culture is a living and breathing thing that is shaped by the beliefs and actions of everyone within an organization. And nearly all our cultures have shifted in some way or another over the last three years. We are intentionally or unintentionally defining culture every day – by the way we treat our customers, our products, our community, each […]
Whether you call them metrics, measures or KPI’s, the numbers you choose to pay attention to in your business, are the numbers that are going to change. Zingerman’s is an Open Book business. Besides the transparency that Open Book brings, this means that we essentially run our business off a “scoreboard” that we then review […]
Ari’s latest book in the Guide to Good Leading Series is about The Power of Beliefs in Business – a 600 page culmination of 3 years of research and reflection. Here is the core idea behind the book – whether we realize it or not, our beliefs have a major impact on how things go […]
First adopted at Zingerman’s via the brilliant writings of Peter Block, Stewardship is an approach that is rarely spoken of in the business world. It is, however, at the very foundation of how we approach leadership at Zingerman’s and a perfect companion to Servant Leadership, which we also practice and was the subject of a […]
People often think that here at Zingerman’s, we’re as successful as we are and our employees are as engaged as they are because we hire the right people. We think there’s more to it than that but we also agree that the hiring bit is pretty darn important. In almost 35 years of being in […]
You may not know what it’s called or where it came from, but you’ve answered it a million times! On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this business/service/experience to a friend or co-worker? It’s called The Ultimate Question, the score that comes out of it is called the Net […]
