Articles / Zingerman's Leadership Training: A Revolutionary Approach to Business Excellence
Development, Training & CoachingDiscover Zingerman's leadership training through ZingTrain. Learn servant leadership, open-book management, and business principles from this iconic company.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Sun 11th January 2026
Zingerman's leadership training represents one of the most distinctive approaches to business development in modern commerce. What began as a small delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has evolved into a globally recognised model for organisational excellence, with their training arm ZingTrain teaching thousands of business leaders worldwide. Their methodology combines servant leadership, open-book management, and a commitment to employee empowerment that has earned them recognition from Inc. Magazine as "the coolest small company in America."
In March 1982, Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw opened Zingerman's Delicatessen with a £20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, and four years of restaurant experience. The founding partners had no grand ambitions of building a business empire—they simply wanted to create an exceptional delicatessen serving traditional Jewish foods with unwavering quality.
What distinguished Zingerman's from the outset was an obsessive commitment to excellence in every aspect of the operation. Rather than pursuing growth through franchising or expansion to new markets, the founders developed a philosophy centred on depth rather than breadth. When requests to franchise began flooding in during the 1990s, they made the counterintuitive decision to decline every opportunity.
The Zingerman's Community of Businesses now comprises eleven distinct enterprises, including the original delicatessen, a bakehouse, creamery, coffee company, candy manufacturer, Korean restaurant, event space, mail-order operation, catering service, and ZingTrain—their training and consulting division. Together, these businesses employ over 800 staff members and generate more than £80 million in annual revenue, all whilst remaining anchored in Ann Arbor.
The Zingerman's model represents a deliberate alternative to conventional growth strategies. As Weinzweig articulates: "There's nothing wrong with franchising. It's just not what we want to do. We only do one, once. So no replicating, no franchising, no duplication."
Instead of pursuing horizontal expansion, the founders chose to create complementary businesses locally, each with its own managing partner or partners bringing daily passion and persistence to their specific domain. This approach preserves the authenticity and quality that franchising often dilutes whilst creating meaningful advancement opportunities for talented employees.
ZingTrain emerged in 1994 when Maggie Bayless, reading Zingerman's first long-term vision document—"Zingerman's 2009: A Food Odyssey"—recognised that robust training systems would be essential to realising the founders' ambitious plans. She stayed awake through the night writing a vision for what would become ZingTrain, and the three partners launched the venture with a modest £1,000 investment, a desk in Bayless's attic, and a fax modem.
Today, ZingTrain operates from a purpose-built training facility in Ann Arbor, led by managing partners Katie Frank and Joanie Hales. The division delivers training through multiple channels: immersive two-day seminars, virtual workshops ranging from 2.5 to 3.5 hours, customised programmes delivered at client locations, and comprehensive e-learning offerings.
ZingTrain's curriculum addresses the most sought-after business development topics, all tested and refined through implementation across the ten Zingerman's businesses. Core offerings include:
Leadership and Management Development
Financial Transparency and Engagement
Operational Excellence
Organisational Culture
Servant leadership forms the philosophical bedrock upon which all Zingerman's leadership practices rest. Based on Robert Greenleaf's seminal 1970 essay "The Servant as Leader," this approach inverts traditional hierarchical thinking. At Zingerman's, leaders exist first and foremost to serve their organisations and the people within them—not the reverse.
This philosophy manifests in concrete behaviours and systems throughout the organisation. Leaders are expected to remove obstacles, provide resources, develop capabilities, and create conditions in which their teams can excel. The service that staff members provide to customers can never sustainably exceed the service they receive from leadership—making internal service quality a leading indicator of external service excellence.
The non-hierarchical ethos permeates every level of Zingerman's operations. Weinzweig describes it succinctly: "Nobody's better than anybody else. My job is to treat everybody with dignity. It doesn't matter if you're about to get fired or you're a partner. Everybody can be treated with dignity."
Whilst Saginaw and Weinzweig hold ultimate authority as majority partners, their commitment is to work with managing partners through consensus rather than command. This creates an environment where decision-making authority is distributed, ideas can emerge from any level, and accountability is shared rather than imposed from above.
| Traditional Leadership | Servant Leadership at Zingerman's |
|---|---|
| Leaders direct and control | Leaders serve and support |
| Information flows downward | Information flows freely |
| Authority derives from position | Authority derives from service |
| Employees execute decisions | Employees participate in decisions |
| Success measured by results alone | Success measured by results and relationships |
Open-book management represents a radical approach to running a business that empowers everyone in an organisation to actively participate in tracking metrics that directly contribute to business success. At Zingerman's, this means sharing financial and key performance metrics so that all staff members take responsibility for the effective operation of the business.
Zingerman's adopted open-book management in 2002, recognising that financial transparency was essential to their commitment to employee empowerment. The approach works across all industries—it was first developed in heavy manufacturing—and ZingTrain encourages organisations to adapt rather than adopt, making the principles work for their specific contexts.
When employees understand the financial realities of their business, their decisions become more thoughtful and aligned with organisational success. Staff members who can read a profit and loss statement, understand cash flow dynamics, and see how their daily actions affect key metrics become partners in business success rather than mere executors of tasks.
The transformation extends beyond financial literacy. Open-book management creates:
Implementing open-book management requires more than simply sharing financial statements. Zingerman's approach includes several integrated elements:
Somewhere during Zingerman's four-decade journey, the founders recognised that certain fundamental principles consistently governed their success. Like gravity, these laws had been operating long before anyone articulated them—but naming and documenting them made them teachable and replicable.
The 12 Natural Laws represent organisational principles that work regardless of industry, size, or product offering. They are introduced in Weinzweig's book "Zingerman's Guide to Good Leading: Part 1, A Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to Building a Great Business."
Selected Natural Laws Include:
Law 1: Vision - An inspiring, strategically sound vision leads the way to greatness, especially when committed to writing.
Law 3: Compelling Reasons - You must give customers genuinely compelling reasons to buy from you, not merely adequate ones.
Law 7: Doing What Others Won't - Successful businesses do the things that others know they should do but generally don't.
Law 8: Continuous Improvement - To achieve greatness, you must keep getting better continuously. There is no standing still—you are either advancing or falling back.
Law 12: Appreciation and Fun - Great organisations are appreciative, and the people within them have more fun. Fun leads to success, and success leads to fun.
The Natural Laws function as a diagnostic framework and operating system simultaneously. Leaders can assess their organisations against each law to identify areas requiring attention, whilst also using the laws as design principles when building new systems or addressing challenges.
Zingerman's emphasises that these are descriptive rather than prescriptive—they describe what consistently works in successful organisations rather than mandating specific tactics. This distinction allows leaders to apply the principles creatively within their own contexts whilst respecting the underlying dynamics.
Bottom-Line Change represents Zingerman's systematic approach to leading and managing organisational change—large or small. Developed in the early 2000s with guidance from consultant Stas' Kazmierski, the methodology provides a repeatable process for introducing any change, from relocating office equipment to launching new business ventures.
The approach incorporates the formula "D × V × F > R"—Dissatisfaction times Vision times First steps must be greater than Resistance. This mathematical framing reminds leaders that successful change requires addressing multiple factors simultaneously.
The Five Ingredients for Bottom-Line Change:
Zingerman's has codified customer service excellence into teachable "recipes" that any organisation can adapt:
The 3 Steps to Giving Great Service:
The 5 Steps to Handling Complaints:
The 10/4 Rule: When within ten feet of a customer or colleague, make eye contact and smile. Within four feet, exchange a positive verbal greeting. This simple protocol ensures consistent warmth throughout the customer journey.
At Zingerman's, visioning is the act of describing a picture of what success looks like at a particular point in the future, with sufficient richness of detail that everyone will recognise when they have arrived. Critically, a vision is not a strategic plan—which serves as the map—but rather the destination itself.
The visioning process originated with the founders' "Zingerman's 2009: A Food Odyssey" document, which articulated a fifteen-year vision for the organisation. That document guided the creation of ZingTrain and the broader Community of Businesses structure that exists today.
Zingerman's teaches that effective visions share several characteristics:
| Component | Traditional Goal | Zingerman's Vision |
|---|---|---|
| Timeframe | Often annual | 5-15 years |
| Detail level | Metrics and targets | Rich narrative description |
| Emotional content | Minimal | Central |
| Development process | Top-down | Collaborative |
| Format | Bullet points | Prose narrative |
The transformative potential of Zingerman's methodologies is evident in client outcomes across diverse industries:
Whiskers Resort and Pet Spa grew from approximately £655,000 in annual gross sales when they began training in 2011 to nearly £2.25 million, with virtually no advertising expenditure. Their growth was fuelled entirely by stellar customer service from a team trained in Zingerman's principles.
Room 214, a digital agency, described ZingTrain seminars as "true game changers for our agency, unlike anything we've experienced in eight years of business." Following their training, they implemented comprehensive open-book management with a five-week internal training programme and created long-term visions for each business unit.
K9 Club developed their first mission statement following ZingTrain seminars, recognising its importance after seeing Zingerman's mission displayed throughout their training materials and businesses. One attendee described the experience as "not just a class but an experience—emotional and totally immersive."
Over four decades, Zingerman's has accumulated significant recognition:
Weinzweig has authored a comprehensive series documenting Zingerman's approach to business and leadership. The "Lapsed Anarchist" series includes four volumes:
Part 1: A Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to Building a Great Business examines the foundational building blocks of Zingerman's culture and structure, applicable to any organisation regardless of industry.
Part 2: A Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to Being a Better Leader explores the leadership style that has made Zingerman's distinctive, including essays on servant leadership, stewardship, and why everyone is a leader.
Part 3: A Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to Managing Ourselves focuses on self-management and personal effectiveness.
Part 4: A Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business examines how beliefs shape organisational outcomes and provides frameworks for identifying and changing limiting beliefs.
Additionally, "Zingerman's Guide to Giving Great Service" codifies the customer service principles that have become central to their training offerings.
ZingTrain is Zingerman's training and consulting division, established in 1994 to share their business methodologies with external organisations. It serves owners, managers, and aspiring leaders from any industry seeking to enhance their organisational culture, improve operational systems, and achieve meaningful business results. The programmes are equally relevant for small businesses, large corporations, and non-profit organisations.
Traditional financial reporting typically involves leadership reviewing financial statements and communicating selected information to staff. Zingerman's open-book management shares comprehensive financial information with all employees, provides education to ensure everyone can interpret the data, involves staff in forecasting and goal-setting, and connects individual actions to financial outcomes through regular huddles and visual scorekeeping.
Absolutely. Servant leadership does not mean soft leadership or lack of accountability. Rather, it means leaders focus on creating conditions for others to succeed, removing obstacles, and developing capabilities. Zingerman's demonstrates that this approach produces exceptional results—their community of businesses generates over £80 million annually with industry-leading customer satisfaction and employee retention.
ZingTrain offers various programme formats at different investment levels. Virtual workshops typically run 2.5 to 3.5 hours and provide accessible entry points. Immersive two-day seminars in Ann Arbor offer comprehensive training with the opportunity to observe principles in action across Zingerman's businesses. Customised programmes are tailored to specific organisational needs and priced accordingly.
Implementation timelines vary based on organisational size, existing culture, and which methodologies are adopted. Some elements, such as the customer service recipes, can be implemented immediately. Others, like comprehensive open-book management, typically require several months to a year for full implementation, including financial education programmes and establishing new communication rhythms.
The founders believed their concept could not be made portable without losing something essential. Franchising typically requires standardisation that can dilute quality and authenticity. Instead, they chose to create complementary local businesses, each with passionate managing partners, maintaining quality whilst providing advancement opportunities for talented employees.
Whilst Zingerman's originates in food service, their methodologies have been successfully applied across virtually every industry. The principles of servant leadership, financial transparency, compelling visioning, and systematic approaches to service and change management are universal. ZingTrain has worked with healthcare organisations, professional services firms, manufacturers, technology companies, and educational institutions with equal effectiveness.
The Zingerman's approach to leadership development offers a compelling alternative to conventional business thinking. By prioritising service over command, transparency over control, and vision over mere planning, they have created a sustainable model for organisational excellence that continues to influence business leaders worldwide. Their willingness to codify and share their methodologies through ZingTrain ensures that these principles remain accessible to any organisation committed to building something genuinely great.