Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://specialtyfoodmagazine.epubxp.com/i/139333
the educated retailers' guide tions on the spread of new ideas. These restrictions manifest in a variety of ways and with a variety of security claims, including the need to guard intellectual property, trade secrets and proprietary technology. The problem with these closed environments is that they inhibit serendipity and reduce the overall network of minds that can potentially engage with a problem. Keeping people tightly trapped in departmental silos without giving them a sense of how the business is doing will drastically diminish people's creative thinking. On the other hand, open and active sharing of information encourages insight and innovation. Finding systemic ways to make everyone in the know will work wonders. Granted, it does take time, but it's an investment in long-term innovation and effectiveness. At Zingerman's, that information is flowing in every direction almost all the time. Here are some of the ways we do that: • All meetings are open, and agendas and notes are widely circulated. • Open-book finance helps everyone makes sense of dollars and cents that most organizations would never allow a frontline staffer to see. • Our leaders teach at least an hour a month to make sure we keep putting information out there. • We have a process, called the Bottom Line Change system, that puts information about impending changes in front of everyone who will be impacted. • Our annual strategic planning process gets almost everyone involved in figuring out what we're going to do in the next year. And that's only the tip of the information iceberg for us. W cooked up e've something special. Our authentic Italian family recipes are made with high-quality ingredients. Now available through UNFI. 5. Bring in Information from the Outside The next big contributor to creativity is the inflow of information from other sources. This includes materials that come from benchmarking, traveling, reading and engaging in other positive pursuits of knowledge. If we want to successfully and effectively put pieces together in new and creative ways, we have to have a lot of interesting pieces to play with. But when people don't pursue outside information and experiences, they are more likely to get stuck in a rut and lose energy and excitement. These folks then find themselves doing poor, uninspired work. Knowing now that information inflow is so important, I can see easily why we at Zingerman's were able to foster a creative workplace. Gathering information from outside our everyday existence has been a critical component of our culture since our very first days at the Deli. To start with, Paul Saginaw and I are just wired that way. So too are pretty much all the partners and managers who've come into the organization since. If they're not, in all honesty, they probably don't do well. There's just too much learning going on to make it comfortable to stand pat. Today, as always, we're very clear that the more info we can take in, the better. ZingTrain, our training business, takes all that up a few notches still. We probably NEW! Stop by booth #5268 and Sample our neW GreenvieW Kitchen orGanic SauceS! Contact: sales@giovannifoods.com www.giovannifoods.com When people don't pursue outside information and experiences, they are more likely to get stuck in a rut and lose energy and excitement. Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 5268 96 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com