Shawn Askinosie Chocolate shares his story and his chocolate

Last week, we were very pleased to welcome our friend, chocolate maker Shawn Askinosie, to Zingerman’s. Shawn spoke first to an early morning audience at ZingTrain on the subject of vocation, then led an evening Chocolate 101 tasting for the public at Zingerman’s Events on 4^th. The following day, he even stuck around to give a talk and lead a chocolate tasting for Zingerman’s staff.

In the hours before the public tasting event at Zingerman’s Events on 4^th, I sat in Zingerman’s Delicatessen with Shawn Askinosie. In a soft-spoken voice, he told me about his realization that he no longer wanted to practice law. “I just couldn’t do it anymore,” he said. “If I kept it up, I knew if was going to kill me.”

Hearing these words, I realized I wasn’t merely hearing a story about looking for a new job, but of a life shift of tectonic proportions. Shawn Askinosie had worked as a criminal defense lawyer for over 20 years in Springfield, Missouri, and by all accounts he was very good at his job. But two decades in a profession often filled with sadness and tragedy were wearing him down. As he put it, “It was time for me to do something else.” But what, he didn’t know. So he said a short prayer each day asking for guidance. “It was really simple, and went something like, ‘Dear God, please give me something else to do.’”

Meanwhile, he’d begun taking the steps needed to transition out of the business. He brought in a law partner to take the new cases coming to the firm, and started to wrap up his own declining caseload. He turned to grilling as his first new venture/hobby, and even shelled out for a Big Green Egg grill. Soon after, he moved into baking. “I made a lot of cupcakes,” he said. “I really like cupcakes.” With baking, naturally, comes chocolate, and Shawn was soon making a lot of chocolate desserts. As he got better, he noticed that some types chocolate delivered better results than others. He also realized that he really didn’t know where chocolate actually came from. So, he resolved to find out, and took his first of many trips to the Amazon basin. After that trip, he “went in full-force,” and traveled extensively to learn all he could about cocoa cultivation.

Askinosie spent the next few years building a network of cocoa farmers. From the very beginning, he dealt directly with the farmers and involved them in every aspect of the business. He calls this Direct Trade Sourcing. The farmers have to agree meet certain criteria, such as cocoa bean quality standards, cultivation and fermentation methods, etc. In turn, Shawn pays the farmers directly. No middleman. He visits each farmer once per year with financial statements, which he and the farmers scrutinize.

“The cocoa farming business is a cash business,” he says, “so they were always happy when I brought them cash. But when I showed up with the books, and started going through them line by line, it blew their minds.” Shawn is a believer in Open Book Management (something he practiced as a lawyer), a concept popularized by author and consultant Jack Stack, who also happens to be a friend and mentor to Shawn.

“I had this idea to take OBM one step further upstream and really give these guys a true share in the business.” Shawn went to Jack Stack with the idea and, “He loved it. We named the program ‘A Stake in the Outcome,’ which is named after one of the Jack’s books.”

Shawn is emphatic about not taking a “paternalistic” approach with the business. “The farmers receive their money to distribute, spend, or save as they see fit.” A great byproduct of this direct relationship with the cocoa farmers that Shawn deals with worldwide is that all of his chocolate is 100% traceable back to its origin farm. “I believe this way of doing business results in higher-quality chocolate,” he says.

But chocolate is not Shawn’s only vocation. There is also Chocolate University.
“Our factory is locate in a part of the community that’s being revitalized,” he says. “Theres a homeless shelter a block away, called the Missouri Hotel. There are 80 kids a night there. From the day we started, we wanted to engage the kids in the community, including the kids in this shelter.” And so they developed Chocolate University to do just that.

“The kids in the elementary school come and tour our factory and we visit their schools, and we teach them about our business. It’s a sort of back and forth relationship.” he says. The middle school program is similar, but some of the kids get involved in our community work and learn a bit more about chocolate making and the business. But it’s the high school program that takes quite a bit of time because Shawn takes those students to Tanzania.

“It’s an every other year thing.” says Shawn of the program. “Juniors and Seniors in any Springfield high school – public, private, homeschool – are eligible to apply. They write essays and go through an interview process. And I partner with a local university near the factory to help me evaluate the applicants. We narrow it down to 13 kids out of about 70 applicants.” The students who make the cut then take part in summer intensive program, ‘Bean to Bar Chocolate,’ at the local college. “They spend a week on campus, and get to know each other. They learn about our business model, about profit sharing, about Open Book, the history of Tanzania, its language, culture, and sociology. And they learn about chocolate making, and evaluating cocoa beans. At the end of this week, they go for a day and pack. And then we take them to Tanzania.”

Shawn, the students, a teacher, and a college professor all travel to Tanzania where they get a first-hand look at how cocoa beans are cultivated and fermented, then prepared for shipment back to the U.S. They live with the farmers in a local village, and everyone pitches in.

“Over half the kids are funded by us, and the rest is made up by donors. It really ends up being a life-changing experience for these kids. When you help drill a water well for people who don’t have clean water, and you then drink from that well…you don’t forget that.” He then tells a story of overhearing a student texting his mother back in the U.S. that “this is the best day of my life!”

Shawn is smiling as he’s telling this story, and there’s a bit of a hitch in his voice. This is the real work. The vocation, as Shawn calls it.

“As I was telling the folks at ZingTrain this morning, meaningful work is not necessarily derived from the status of the work, or the kind of work. It’s derived the thought and attitude we give it. So we derive the dignity of the work from what we put into it, not what it gives us.” He pauses.

“If you have meaningful work, its a calling. Truly a vocation.”

Later, as I think about Shawn’s words, I take a small bite of his Tanzania Dark Chocolate and let it slowly melt on my tongue. I swear it tastes even better than I remember…

Sports Leadership Expert Jeff Janssen at the ZingTrain Speaker Series

We recently caught up with Jeff to ask him five questions:

How did you get into the world of Sports Leadership?
I have always been fascinated by the impact that leaders have on a team, especially in the sports and business world.

Do you think Sports Leadership is different from leadership, say in a business? If so, how?
I think effective leadership principles are mostly the same in sports and business – both deal with bringing out the best in people, both involve competitive situations, both rely on building and sustaining championship cultures.

Could you tell us a little bit about the work you do at the Janssen Sports Leadership Center?
We help coaches and captains become world-class leaders who are committed to a lifetime of service, success, and significance. We develop leaders who win on and off the playing fields by teaching them to effectively lead themselves and others.

Could we ask you to name-drop a little for us and tell us who some of your most exciting clients are?
My most exciting clients are Michigan, North Carolina, LSU, Illinois, Arkansas, NC State, and Colorado.

What will your speaker series session focus on?
We’ll focus on 7 Leadership Lessons from sport’s legendary coaches that can be applied by leaders of all walks of life.

John Beilein, University of Michigan Men’s Basketball Coach said,

“Jeff Janssen’s work with the Michigan Leadership Academy has been tremendous.”

We agree! And we’re tremendously pleased to offer a session with Jeff Janssen in this season of ZingTrain’s Speaker Series. If you are looking to build a Championship Culture in your business and help your team consistently perform to its full potential, then this is the session for you!

In this session, Leadership Academy Director Jeff Janssen reveals the seven Leadership Lessons he has learned from consulting with 25 NCAA National Championship teams at top athletic departments including Michigan, Stanford, North Carolina, Arizona, Notre Dame, and many others. Jeff’s program is designed for leaders who want to build a winning team – no matter from which walk of life, or what level of an organization! Please join us this coming Thursday, September 25, 8 – 930am! 

Reserve your seat here

We’re very happy to announce that founder and CEO of Askinosie Chocolate, Shawn Askinosie has rescheduled, and will visit two Zingerman’s businesses in mid-September to share his story and his chocolate!

Shawn Askinosie had a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer for nearly 20 years before he founded his Springfield, Missouri chocolate-making business. He was recently named by O, The Oprah Magazine as “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World.” They said,

“Why we’re fans: The philanthropically-minded chocolate entrepreneur aims to get students thinking about business ethics in a way that could have ripple effects for generations.”

Askinosie Chocolate is a small-batch award-winning chocolate manufacturer with 15 full-time employees. Askinosie sources 100% of their beans directly from the farmers, and Shawn travels to regions of Ecuador, Honduras, the Philippines, and Tanzania to work directly with the farmers. This allows the chocolate to be traced to the source and labeled Authentic Single Origin Chocolate. It also enables Askinosie Chocolate to profit share with the farmers, giving them a Stake In the Outcome™. The Askinosie Chocolate mission is to serve their farmers, their neighborhood, their customers and each other; sharing the Askinosie Chocolate Experience by leaving the world a better place than they found it.

See you soon!

We’re very happy to announce that founder and CEO of Askinosie Chocolate, Shawn Askinosie will visit two Zingerman’s businesses in mid-May to share his story and his chocolate!

Shawn Askinosie had a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer for nearly 20 years before he founded his Springfield, Missouri chocolate-making business. He was recently named by O, The Oprah Magazine as “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World.” They said,

“Why we’re fans: The philanthropically-minded chocolate entrepreneur aims to get students thinking about business ethics in a way that could have ripple effects for generations.”

Askinosie Chocolate is a small-batch award-winning chocolate manufacturer with 15 full-time employees. Askinosie sources 100% of their beans directly from the farmers, and Shawn travels to regions of Ecuador, Honduras, the Philippines, and Tanzania to work directly with the farmers. This allows the chocolate to be traced to the source and labeled Authentic Single Origin Chocolate. It also enables Askinosie Chocolate to profit share with the farmers, giving them a Stake In the Outcome™. The Askinosie Chocolate mission is to serve their farmers, their neighborhood, their customers and each other; sharing the Askinosie Chocolate Experience by leaving the world a better place than they found it.

ZingTrain Speaker Series

On Wednesday, May 14, 7am, Shawn will take the reins at the ZingTrain Speaker Series to tell you his story, the story of how a criminal defense attorney became a chocolate maker. The story of how his business, Askinosie Chocolate, wins more awards for its chocolate than we can keep track of. The story of how his small 15-person business makes a huge positive impact on all it comes in contact with the world over. The story of how you can go about creating meaningful work, creating a business with a vocation.

RESERVE A SEAT

Students and non-profit organizations will get a 50% discount for this event!

Tasting at Zingerman’s Deli

On Thursday, May 15, 630pm, Shawn will share his story at Zingerman’s Events on 4th, and lead us in a tasting of a selection of his amazing bean-to-bar chocolates. This event sells out fast so get your tickets today!

RESERVE A SEAT

Bonus! If you register for both events, you’ll get three Askinosie Single Origin bars as our way of saying thanks!

ZingTrain Speaker Series 2014

The ZingTrain Speaker Series is a suite of thought-provoking presentations featuring experts sharing their wisdom on various aspects of the business world.

Dr. Vic Strecher is our next guest this Wednesday, February 19, 730am – 930am. 

SESSION DETAILS AND REGISTRATION

Vic Strecher could talk to you eloquently and cogently about public health, adventures, the life of cows and dogs in India, dung beetles, modern neuroscience and ancient philosophy, entrepreneurship, disease prevention, innovation …. and if that’s not reason enough to come and listen to Dr. Strecher talk then perhaps this is. Vic Strecher recently emerged from a life experience that made him question his ultimate purpose and being the kind of person he is, he distilled his learnings from the journey into a book On Purpose: Lessons in Life and Health From the Frog, The Dung Beetle, and Julia. The book is a self-help guide, college lecture, confessional, and time-travel adventure all rolled into one. On Purpose uses a beautiful, fantasy-fueled, graphic novel format to tell a story of self-discovery and personal growth you’ll never forget.

Please join us!

The other day a few of us were in deep discussion at the ZingTrain offices. It was a topic we’d all discussed before and the conversation was more of a memory dredge than content – because for once (opinionated bunch that we are) we were all in agreement about the content!

The content we were discussing was creating a price incentive for someone to attend the same seminar twice and though there were some differences of opinion on what that incentive should be, we were all in agreement that attending a seminar more than once is a great idea and that we should offer whatever price incentive we can to encourage it.

It occurred to me as I participated in the conversation that we’d never formally articulated why we were all so certain that it was a great idea to attend the same seminar twice (or four times!) and that sharing our reasons could be an even greater incentive than a price break – especially in a world where time is sometimes more scarce than money!

So here goes!

1. We’re ready to hear different things at different times.

   There is much science and neuroscience and cognitive big-wordy stuff behind this observation but I believe we all know it to be true experientially. Ever read a book or watched the same movie twice?
   When it comes to training, the first time you encounter an idea, you might be listening through the filters of “Can I apply this in my world?” or perhaps you’re trying to apply this new information to experiences you’ve already had. Or if you’re like me, and a little shy, the first time you’re in a room you’ve never been in before with a bunch of people you’ve never met before, everything you hear and say has a little nervous buzz around it.

   On the other hand, if you encounter the concept again after you’ve had a chance to try it on for size or the opportunity to share it with or teach it to others, you listen in a different way and hear things you hadn’t quite heard the first time around.

   At Zingerman’s we speak of the four levels of learning. Listening. Reflecting. Assimilating & Acting. Teaching. One of the first steps of getting trained to teach a class at Zingerman’s is to attend the class again because you listen differently when you listen in order to be able to teach. In fact, I believe that we listen in different ways at each and every one of those stages of learning [a topic ripe for a longer conversation and perhaps the subject of a future newsletter!] but the point here is that it’s well worth our time to attend the same training multiple times as we move through the different levels of learning.

2. We hear different things amongst different cohorts.
   ZingTrain seminar attendees come from all walks of life, every size of business you can think of and pretty much every level of the organization. We frequently hear this feedback from our seminar attendees : “It was so reassuring to find that other successful and driven businesses/business owners/managers/trainers/(insert organizational group of your choice here) face the same challenges I do!” It is indeed.

   As you might imagine, in that setting, infused with the excitement of having found peers, one might listen to the content and the reactions of the other seminar attendees with a particular filter. But if you were to attend the same seminar with your boss and a very clear (and hopefully inspiring!) mandate on what to bring back to the business from the seminar, you’d listen differently. Or if you were the boss and you were coming with five of your staff, you might listen differently. I could continue with the examples, but I think you’re seeing the point, yes?

Those are two broad categories and I believe they cover a pretty nuanced range of situations in which we might hear the same information differently. I’m certain there are more and I’m certain that you’d have some excellent suggestions which I would love to hear. But while we all put our heads together to compile a more exhaustive list, I’d like to share a different way to think about the same idea – this idea of the factors that affect what we “hear” in training and what we do with our training. At Zingerman’s, the leader’s role in training is to provide the staff with Context, Reinforcement, Use [CRU].

• Context: This refers to the context we use to frame the information we are hearing. Do you have a vision for your business and is the seminar one of the resources that is going to help you get there? Did your leadership send you to the seminar with the mandate that you are to implement a way to measure customer service within 3 months of attending the seminar? Are you coming back to the seminar to feel inspired and re-invigorated?
• Reinforcement: This particular aspect makes more sense when you’re the Leader providing positive reinforcement for your staff members after they’ve completed the training. And yet, if you’re the business owner attending the seminar, it couldn’t really hurt to give yourself a little positive reinforcement about your decision to come! You can find that amongst like-minded peers or in your journals or just call us!
• Use: As you might imagine, Use literally refers to using the information you encounter in training. We think this is a critical step, and in fact, we recommend that people use what they learn in training within 48 hours of learning it because otherwise – poof!

Ultimately, if the Context or Reinforcement or Use changes, the listening and learning change and in our experience, become deeper and richer and more nuanced.

As you read this, please know that the point of this edition of OnTrack isn’t just to have you come back for a ZingTrain seminar you’ve already taken (although we would be so incredibly happy if you did) – the point is to also frame a different way of thinking of training and how you can effectively use (re)training in your organization. Whether it’s because it’s been a tough winter and everyone is just ready for a little inspiration or because a particular systemic change you were trying to implement didn’t stick or you want to give a boost to a particular systemic change that you really, really want to stick, it’s worth considering using your existing training resources in a different context.

All of which makes for a nice conversation but perhaps it still feels a little theoretical at this point? So here’s a little check-list of real life situations that might help bring home what I’m really trying to say here.

I would attend the same training twice because:

• I want to reward the team for a great season.
• I want to start teaching this topic.
• I’ve become competent at this but now I want to be a ninja!
• I want to get re-inspired.
• I want the team to get re-inspired.
• I hit a roadblock.
• I want to infuse new energy into an old system.
• I want to take implementation to the next level.
• I want to “shepherd” new staff into our organization by attending training with them.
• I miss ZingTrain and the seminar lunches!

Which one resonates with you? What would you add to the checklist? I would attend the same training twice because… I can’t wait to hear from you!