This past spring, Zingerman’s was named one of the WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces awardees. Founded in 1982 in Ann Arbor, Michigan by Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw with just two staff members and 24 seats, Zingerman’s has now grown from a small delicatessen into a community of businesses with revenues of over $32 million and 500 staff members (with an additional 250 staff members added each holiday season!). Zingerman’s works with traditionally-made, full-flavored foods, many of which they make on site, others of which they buy from artisan producers in the US or around the world.

Zingerman’s celebrated its 25th anniversary this year – which includes 25 years of operating democratically and 25 years of steady growth in a notoriously competitive and challenging industry. Ari’s written several books about Zingerman’s and his latest is entitled, “Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service.”

Below, Ari shares some of Zingerman’s best practices in organizational democracy and why, “having a more involved, engaged and open workplace is just a better way to live.”

Traci Fenton: Zingerman’s is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, which also means 25 years of being a democratically-run company. What was the inspiration behind building Zingerman’s using a democratic rather than command-and-control approach?

Ari Weinzweig: From the beginning we’ve just always believed that involving as many people as possible in the running of the business was a better way to work. The more we work at it the more we believe it in it, the better we get at it, the more we work at it. It’s been a very positive cycle of development. We’re far from perfect at it and are very committed to being more effective, to learning from our successes and our errors and continuing to improve in the years to come.

Traci: Looking back over the last 25 years Ari, are you glad you decided to run the company democratically?

Ari: I’m not really sure how to think of it any other way. I guess it would be akin to asking if we were happy we chose to sell really great-tasting traditional food instead of low-end fast food. While I guess there was a “choice” somewhere . . . It just seems very much what we do and not some short term strategic decision based on survey data or demographic studies. It’s in our mission, vision, guiding principles, and culture and we now have a wide range of systems that reinforce it and force us — constructively — to practice it.

Traci: Do you think there is a correlation between organizational democracy and the bottom-line?

Ari: We measure on three bottom-lines: finance, food quality and service, which includes staff, customers, and the community. I think that having a more involved, engaged and open workplace is just a better way to live. We’ve made it 25 years in a very difficult industry. Last year we had our best year ever in the midst of a very bad economy in Michigan. I guess one can extrapolate from that as one wishes – I don’t really have data to compare though since we’ve never run the organization any other way. I’m sure there are businesses that make more money and I’m sure there are many that make less. Being in business for 25 years in the food world is no small achievement on its own!

Traci: Can you please share with our readers a few of your best practices in organizational democracy?

Ari: We use a number of “recipes” or approaches that might be of help to others.

1. Bottom-Line Change – This is our approach to organizational change. It’s all about involving as many people as possible in deciding upon and then preparing for the change, rather than the more traditional model of the bosses going off and deciding on their own what will happen and then coming back and telling others what do to. In the bottom-line change process, the people who will do the work of the change are the ones who design the action plan for implementation.

2. Visioning – We start all our work – long term or short term – by coming to agreement on a vision for what success will look like at the point in time in the future that we’re looking at. A vision for us must be both inspiring and strategically sound. It also needs to be written down and then actively communicated to all impacted. We just have fulfilled the vision we wrote for our organization in 1994 which was called Zingerman’s 2009.

Last year we finished fifteen months of working to write our vision for the year 2020. The vision is not the same as strategic plan. The vision is what success will look like; the plan is done after the vision and determines the action steps we’ll take to get there.

3. Zingerman’s Training Compact –

The Organization:
Clear Performance Expectations
The resources to do the job
Recognizes performance
Rewards Performance

The Staff:
Take responsibility for the effectiveness of our own training

This has radically altered — for the better — the way we organize the responsibility for training—it means that the burden is shared and that the trainee is fully responsible for the effectiveness of their training, as is the trainer or manager.

4. Servant Leadership – This is adapted from Robert Greenleaf who developed and coined the term “servant leadership.” It says that as leaders our number one responsibility is to serve the organization, not the other way around. One element of this is providing service to our staff. We know that the service the staff gives the customers won’t be any better than the service we give to the staff.

5. Open-Book Finance – This means that all of the staff are involved in knowing and managing the financials and that we’re all responsible for the results we get. This has been a huge piece of our organizational culture and our systems and has helped us improve our financial performance significantly.

Traci: What do you feel has been the most challenging thing about being a democratic leader and what has also been the most rewarding?

Ari: I think it’s hard to do anything well and this work is no exception. We probably have all the same problems any other organization does — it’s really just the way we deal with them that’s different.

More specifically, I guess I’d say that the more open one is and the more participative then the more opinions one gets into the game . . . We now have 15 managing partners, and over 500 really great, very creative staff, all of whom are generally quick to share their views. Which is great and makes for a more diverse and more successful organization. But it can be stressful to help guide all those diverse views towards the same place sometimes. But it’s amazing to be part of all the good work, good food, and good service that gets delivered every day. I hope that we’ve successfully contributed positively to the lives of the folks who work here, our customers, and this community.

Traci: Is there anything else you’d like to share — any parting tips for business leaders who want to build a successful democratic company?

Ari: Well, I just wrote a whole article on the natural laws of business that lists twelve things I’d do. Individuals can email me at ari@zingermans.com if they’d like a copy and I’d be be happy to send it to them!

Traci: Thanks Ari!

Zingerman’s also teaches business leaders about how to build a sustainable democratic culture through ZingTrain, their training and consulting business in which they run a series of seminars in Ann Arbor on leadership, training, service, and more. Learn more at www.zingtrain.com.

You can also learn more about Zingerman’s in a recent New York Times article entitled, “A Corner Deli With International Appeal,” and in an Inc. magazine in an article entitled, “The Coolest Small Company in America.”