Two weeks ago, I attended a two-day seminar called, Managing Ourselves, hosted by a business known well here in Ann Arbor, Michigan called Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (or, ZCOB, as they are fond to say). I had a great time at this seminar, and am excited to share few highlights and takeaways with you!
The Backstory
If you’ve ever visited or lived in Ann Arbor, then perhaps you have heard of Zingerman’s and their legendary Zingerman’s Deli (where it all began in 1982), and perhaps also their Next Door Cafe, Bakehouse, Roadhouse restaurant, Coffee Company, Creamery, Candy Manufactory, etc. To date, ZCOB is made up of over a dozen businesses in the Ann Arbor area, each with their own food specialty.
Although Zingerman’s could have long ago chosen to franchise, they’ve intentionally decided to stay local to Ann Arbor — even though they have a reputation both nationally and internationally for their unique, top-quality food items and ingredients sourced from all over the world. Zingerman’s wouldn’t be Zingerman’s anywhere else, and they are committed to supporting and impacting the community here in the Ann Arbor area.
Zingerman’s is known not only for their food, but also for their unique take on business and customer service. ZingTrain (Zingerman’s Training Incorporated), as I mentioned earlier, is the part of ZCOB dedicated to offering training, workshops, and webinars to both their own employees and the general public.
It’s been on my bucket list to take one of the ZingTrain’s seminars, especially since I’m fortunate to live only 10 minutes away from the ZingTrain headquarters. So, earlier this year, I applied for and received a Teacher Enrichment Grant from MTNA to cover the cost of a ZingTrain seminar. (As an aside: I strongly recommend ANY teacher with a professional development project apply for one of these grants from MTNA!)
ZingTrain has a variety of seminar topics to choose from. I settled on “Managing Ourselves” because I thought the topic would be very relevant to my current phase of life as a self-employed music professional raising two young children. I appreciate all the help I can get learning how to manage my time and energy well!
Seminar Day 1
ZingTrain is located in an unassuming industrial park where you can also find the Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Creamery, and Coffee Company. The lobby area is spacious and welcoming, with a kitchen area and tables.
Most of our sessions were held in the Seminar Room. The walls are painted in welcoming colors and adorned with the words of some of Zingerman’s core beliefs.
I was greeted almost immediately upon entering and given instructions to find my seat and some breakfast. My table setting, clearly marked with my name, was ready with a binder of handouts, Zingerman’s literature and swag, a tin of chocolates, and more.
Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, sausage, fresh fruit, and incredible biscuits from Zingerman’s Roadhouse. To drink, we enjoyed freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, and tea. There was also a drawer of chilled pop cans, sparkling water, and cold brew coffee.
Zingerman’s is known for their hospitality and customer service. It certainly seemed to me that they had thought of everything! At the center of the table, there was a caddy with pens, pencils, sticky notes, and fidget toys. We were given instructions on how to adjust the office chairs we were sitting in. A standing desk was available at the back of the room. There were lap blankets available for anyone who felt chilly. During the workshop, we were introduced to a variety of the staff at ZingTrain and encouraged to let them know if there was anything we needed or would appreciate having to make us more comfortable while at the seminar.
The seminar was led by two esteemed members of the ZingTrain team. They led us through lecture time, guided journaling, and small group discussion. There were also two team-building-style group activities.
For lunch on the first day, we enjoyed an incredible meal catered by Miss Kim, a Korean restaurant that is also part of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses.
We ate chicken and tofu with rice, smashed potatoes with chili flakes, broccolini, and an arugula market salad. It was incredibly delicious.
Dessert was macaroons and a pastry called rugelach in four varieties. During the lunch hour, we also had the option to sign up for 5-minute massages.
During our afternoon sessions, we had the opportunity to eat once again, thanks to a food tasting framed as an exercise in mindfulness. We learned about each item and explored how it looked, smelled, and tasted. We sampled baguette, pimento cheese, a chocolate bar, and espresso made with Brazilian peaberry coffee.
The topics explored on the first day included why managing ourselves matters; what mindfulness in management is; stages of learning a skill; and tips for managing ourselves (including knowing yourself, honoring your emotions, and noticing your self-talk).
One of my favorite segments of the day was about the self-fulfilling belief cycle. Every action we take is based on our beliefs. Our beliefs aren’t genetic; rather, they come from our upbringing, schools, religion, society, painful experiences, and ourselves. We can break the self-fulfilling belief cycle at the “my action” point, by choosing to change one of our beliefs and take a different action. For example, you might believe you are not a good artist, and the self-fulfilling cycle will only confirm this belief. However, with self-examination, you can adopt a new belief and begin a new story for yourself. (Read more about the belief cycle here.)
Seminar Day 2
On the second day, I arrived early to take advantage of an optional tour of Zingerman’s Bakehouse, located across from ZingTrain in the industrial park.
Our tour guide shared the story of how the Bakehouse began. Before the Bakehouse existed, Zingerman’s Deli sourced bread for their sandwiches from a bakery in Detroit. When Zingerman’s became interested in bread made with certain techniques to make it better, they realized they needed to make it themselves.
Soon, Zingerman’s began receiving requests to buy their bread. So, they set up a simple table and cash box in the bakery. Eventually, this grew into a formal retail space. They added pastry items, cakes, and more to their lineup. Today, the Bakehouse is a very successful operation featuring dozens of delicious treats, including special seasonal items from traditions around the world.
Our tour guide showed us the various areas behind-the-scenes where dough is made, shaped and scored, placed in large ovens, cooled, packaged, and more.
Back at ZingTrain after the tour, we enjoyed a breakfast of corned beef hash, veggie hash, hard boiled eggs, and yogurt with granola and fruit.
Our Day 2 seminar topics included: Stages of Organizational Growth; time management; managing our energy; Zingerman’s history and current state; and creating a vision of your greatness.
The highlight of the day was when Ari Weinzweig, one of the co-founding partners of Zingerman’s, came in to teach a 45-minute segment. He talked about the “positive psychology” movement — where instead of a model based on figuring out wrongs and fixing them, we think about what’s going right and building in those healthy systems and culture — that is, wellness. Ari then led us through an exercise called “3 Great Things” or “3 Blessings” — a mindfulness/gratitude exercise. He also suggested that the world is suffering from a crisis of ugliness, which is a zero-sum game. Instead of tolerating and enduring ugliness, Ari suggests we need to train ourselves to see beauty, and to view the world and our work as artists.
Ari is a prolific writer and speaker on not only food, but on business, service, leadership, and more. He’s written quite a few books on these topics and also publishes a weekly email newsletter I enjoy following. During the lunch hour, I was able to meet Ari to ask for a photo and an autograph.
To close the seminar, we were given time to reflect on a few questions about what we most learned and what action we plan to take after the seminar. We then went around the room and shared our reflections aloud.
On our way out the door, we were sent with a goodie bag of Zingerman’s bread, a chocolate bar, and certificate of completion for the seminar. It was so great having the opportunity to learn about “managing ourselves” from Zingerman’s, and to experience Zingerman’s hospitality to boot!
There’s much more I could say about this fabulous seminar. But I’ll stop there!
If you’ve been following my blog for awhile now, you probably know that I love conferences and I love professional development. Most often, I attend conferences and workshops featuring and hosted by music teachers. However, I find it really helpful and inspiring to hear ideas from other fields and disciplines, because it gives me a new perspective to take into my world as a piano teacher. This was certainly true with this Zingerman’s seminar. Here’s hoping I can take another of their seminars soon!
If you are interested in learning more about Zingerman’s, you might enjoy the book Satisfaction Guaranteed: How Zingerman’s Build a Corner Deli into a Global Food Community, a journalistic-style book written by Micheline Maynard. I read it earlier this year, and really enjoyed it. It contains a nice mix of storytelling, business ideas, and food inspiration.
I’d also suggest checking out Zingerman’s Mail Order (an online shop for food and gifts), their virtual bake classes, ZingTrain’s webinars and articles, Ari’s Top 5 email newsletter, Ari’s books, and Zingerman’s cookbooks (my husband and I highly recommend this one and especially this one!).
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