Secret Sauce

But on top of participating in those animating debates, OSCA board members also had to determine who could join a co-op in the first place.

“It was really high pressure,” said Maggie Bayless ’77, who in her senior year served as OSCA’s membership secretary.

Even though slots were distributed through a lottery, Bayless’ classmates begged for special consideration: One even tried to sway her with a quarter taped to Congressional letterhead, swiped from the office where he was interning. But during Bayless’ tenure, OSCA came up with a workaround. Instead of drawing names from a hat, the board programmed a punch card machine in Mudd Library to randomize applications and spit out a list.

Although Bayless didn’t know it at the time, the process improvement foreshadowed her future career. In 1994, after a dozen years of collaborating with the collection of businesses that grew out of Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Bayless founded ZingTrain. A kind of ongoing colloquium for progressive business owners, ZingTrain helps its seminar takers find tools and master methodologies to strengthen their organizations.

In short, ZingTrain teaches well-meaning food entrepreneurs (and everyone else who signs up for its courses) how to overcome system glitches that threaten to undermine their passion or derail their vision.

Bayless said she often encounters people who are surprised that Zingerman’s is willing to share its approach to leadership development, staff training, and self-management, among other topics. But in keeping with her cooperative background, Bayless can’t imagine monopolizing valuable information.

“I’m not interested in policing what other people are doing,” she said. “That’s such a downer. If it improves the overall level of customer service, that’s great—and we learn more ourselves by teaching. It’s just that abundance mentality.”

While Bayless credits Zingerman’s founders Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw with fostering that mindset, Weinzweig in turn credits Bayless with working “quietly, consistently, collaboratively [and] caringly.” When Bayless stepped back from day-to-day ZingTrain responsibilities in 2020, Weinzweig wrote, “Some people say they’re ‘in it to win it.’ I think Maggie’s always been in it to help others around her come out ahead.”

The daughter of two Oberlin graduates, Bayless grew up visiting campus: The school was such a steady presence in her life that she didn’t apply anywhere else. At Oberlin, she studied German literature. Soon after graduation, she got a job at First National Bank of Chicago. But her college boyfriend had moved to Ann Arbor, “which seemed like this cool, groovy town,” so she relocated to join him.

Almost immediately, their romantic relationship ended. But Bayless’ relationship with Ann Arbor was just beginning. She’d met Weinzweig when the two were waiting tables at the same restaurant, and she became an informal advisor to the deli when it opened in 1982. Bayless worked Saturday counter shifts while she earned her MBA from the University of Michigan and stayed close to the operation as instructional design emerged as her dominant professional interest.

“When the world news is really depressing, I teach a seminar and realize there are all of these people doing great work,” she said. “It isn’t making headlines, but it makes life worth living.”

Spoken like a true OSCA membership secretary.