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leadership development

Managers Utilize the Compensation Database

By |2024-02-03T21:17:15-05:00January 31st, 2024|

The concept of pay equity affects all co-ops, no matter who their general manager (GM) is. The ability of our stores to attract, train, and retain quality candidates creates a rising tide for all co-ops, especially as Principle 6 mandates our collective cooperation. Columinate’s Compensation Database is a remarkably helpful tool that enables general managers and boards to understand how their compensation package compares to similar stores throughout the country.

Deli management, Part 3: Systems To Stay On Track In All Seasons

By |2024-01-24T18:09:36-05:00January 24th, 2024|

Timing is key to any recipe. Cook things too long and they burn. Wait too long to add an ingredient, and it may not cook all the way. Before you prepare to cook a new recipe, you give yourself ample time for the work of reading the recipe directions, cutting, chopping, and measuring ingredients. That way, when the beautiful chaos of cooking begins, you’re prepared for each step in the process.

Meet Molly Phipps: Putting Her Passions to Work

By |2024-01-03T15:44:41-05:00January 3rd, 2024|

Molly Phipps, welcomed to the Columinate consultant team in 2023, has centered her career around three key passions: food, people, and the natural environment. As a result, this warm and analytical cooperator’s resume exhibits an eye-catching variety of job titles, including evaluation and research associate, farmer’s market manager, board member, and lab manager. The breadth of Phipps’ experience and her leadership in planning/evaluating strategy are sure to generate a positive impact for co-ops in the grocery industry as well as for resident-owned communities in manufactured home parks.

General Manager Support for Deli Departments

By |2024-01-23T17:37:55-05:00November 14th, 2023|

Columinate consultant Dana Tomlin specializes in supporting deli departments and making sure general managers have the knowledge and confidence to oversee successful programs and systems long-term. Learning the complexities, language, rhythms, and pitfalls within your deli can make a huge difference in performance and consistency. Deli departments need to put out product in abundance and quality that meets customer expectations across staffing changes, daily chaos, and product availability.

Columinate Learn: Applying Principle 5 in the Digital Divide

By |2023-11-08T15:35:16-05:00November 8th, 2023|

Ready for digital literacy Co-ops have a lot of teaching to do. To build a cooperative ecosystem with knowledgeable and invested stakeholders aware of what it is they have become a part of, it takes a lot of orienting, sharing, demonstrating, and educating. A cooperative can fail if it does not consistently apply Co-op Principle 5: Education, Training, and Information. Lack of strong education systems within a co-op culture can slowly erode its core.

Board Training Evolves: Enter CBLD Academy

By |2023-11-16T15:28:27-05:00October 31st, 2023|

This fall, consultants at Columinate will launch CBLD Academy, an on-demand learning loaded with revitalized and accessible content. Cooperators can expect three courses within the “Foundation Series” at the outset, with more courses planned to round out this base of co-op training. “It's a natural and a march towards progress in how we provide a framework for learning about the co-op business model,” said Leslie Watson, governance at Columinate.

A Long Road of Cooperation: Revisiting Vernon Oakes

By |2023-12-05T15:47:20-05:00October 4th, 2023|

I enjoyed interviewing Vernon Oakes and asked him a few questions about his remarkable career. Vernon, tell us a few things to help Columinate readers know you better: people and places that are most important to you. My parents, Odell Oakes Sr. and Florrie Smith Oakes, met while serving in the US Army during World War II and married in New York City, where I was born. We later moved to Bluefield, West Virginia. I attended public schools, and due to a speech impediment, I was put in a “special ed” class in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. Words and reading didn't come naturally to me, and reading still isn’t my favorite thing. But math made sense and would later help me to make sense of life and the business pursuits I had. School was tough due to the added factor of racism and integration in 1955, when I was entering the 3rd grade.

Prompts from a Racial Equity Challenge: A Tool for Board Engagement

By |2023-06-27T17:35:56-04:00June 27th, 2023|

I serve as a co-chair of the board of directors of PFC Natural Grocery and Deli in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a co-op that identifies as being anti-racist. Dismantling systemic oppression is an ongoing journey. As the primary organizer of our board’s work together, I aim to make sure we are holding ourselves accountable for this work. I don’t want it to get lost or forgotten amidst all of our other roles and responsibilities.

Welcome! Lisa Malmarowski and Pam Mehnert, Flying Squirrel Milwaukee LLC

By |2023-06-27T14:59:57-04:00June 27th, 2023|

Sometimes the road to Columinate is a direct line, and sometimes it’s a leisurely path with many twists and turns. For Lisa Malmarowski and Pam Mehnert of Flying Squirrel Milwaukee LLC, joining Columinate has been a logical extension of the work each of them has been doing at Outpost Natural Foods in Milwaukee. They have been sharing their skills with fellow cooperators for years, putting into practice the cooperative principles of education and cooperation among cooperatives.

Jeanie Wells’ Mighty Community Markets Wins Innovation and Achievement Award

By |2023-06-19T17:47:05-04:00June 19th, 2023|

Independent grocers and co-ops face formidable challenges to survival, from WalMart to dollar stores, while often lacking the resources they need. Columinate's Jeanie Wells is providing these retail operations with essential skills and tools. At the June 2023 CCMA conference, Wells' Mighty Community Markets (MCM) training program was held up to its national audience as an outstanding example of cooperative innovation and achievement. (Go [...]

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