Transform Culture

Ari Weinzweig is co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, which is world-renowned for their superior customer service. Due to his great success in applying The Zingerman’s Approach, he now teaches other businesses and organizations the same principles. When you receive good customer service, it shouldn’t be surprising to learn it’s a reflection of that company’s […]

Working virtually can mean anything from accessing technology that allows you to work when you’re not in the office to running a company without a physical location. Association managers and members are already using tools to access information and network virtually. Imagine how a virtual environment could improve member services, create operational efficiencies and increase the […]

Ari Weinzweig is co-founder of the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, which are world-renowned for their outstanding customer service engrained in the company culture. So how was such a culture established? Ari is quick to point out that there is no single solution. That said, one of the important factors he emphasizes is that his entire staff […]

How often do you feel you receive remarkable customer service from a company? Is this the type of service your association delivers to your members? Let’s look at what I mean by remarkable customer service. Imagine a food establishment like this: “A free brownie finds its way into a get-well-soon package. An accountant interrupts her […]

A long time ago, in an IT department far, far away, I managed a wide-area network comprised of about 120 users. This was during the havoc-filled days of the budding Internet, where new worms and viruses cropped up almost daily with names like “LoveLetter” and “Red Button.” These malware packages, exceedingly virulent and easy to […]

If you are the CEO, one of the most important things you can do is read, and read constantly. You have your leadership methods that stem from your own experiences, but reading offers new perspectives and ideas that will ultimately make you better at what you do.  Here are six books that have had a […]

Over the past few weeks, I have spoken with volunteer and staff executives who, facing an age of an ever-increasing rate of change, feel like they are struggling to be nimble in their attempts to keep up. As we dove deeper into what factors were emerging, the conversation kept coming back to a focus on […]

What makes some associations high-performing and the rest so-so? Why do some teams reach or even exceed their goals and why do some fail? How do some organizations embrace change while others can’t seem to get out of their own way? These questions are coming up more and more in the association community. And the […]

Has your supervisor ever asked, “why did you do it that way?” or “why do you want this posted on social media?” How did that make you feel? Did you instantly get defensive? Did you feel like you had to justify your reasoning? Now turn that around. Have you ever asked a fellow staff member […]

For those unfamiliar with the concept, being “lean” means to create more value with fewer resources. Understandably, this is a topic that has gotten a lot of attention in the business world and in the association space. We’ve talked about how to adopt a lean mindset, we looked at how one week of analyzing your schedule […]