Conflict Resolution and Corned Beef Sandwiches: Life Lessons Learned at a World Famous Deli

by Jim Herbert

If you’ve seen the movie When Harry Met Sally, you will certainly recall the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene which was filmed at world-famous Katz’s Delicatessen in New York City. In that scene, Harry, played by Billy Crystal, learns a valuable lesson about male/female sexual relationships from his rather enthusiastic dining companion Sally, played by Meg Ryan.

I’ve had the pleasure of eating at Katz’s Deli a couple of times through the years, but other than having a really good corned beef sandwich, I can’t say that I learned much about life or dined with an unusually enthusiastic dining companion. My own personal life lessons at a delicatessen came back in the early 1980s when I did a brief stint working at another world-famous delicatessen named Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I only lasted a few shifts at Zingerman’s because I wound up getting a job closer to my dorm room at a punk rock music and head shop called The Alley, which was far more interesting to me at the time than making sandwiches.

My very brief stint at Zingerman’s did make an impact on me though, so much so that I actually wound up taking a team of managers I was working with in the 1990s back to Ann Arbor for a course called Zingtrain. The course focused on how Zingerman’s delicatessen used its extraordinary customer service vision to turn a small corner deli into a business that now has over 23 managing partners and $60 million in annual revenue.

At the root of Zingerman’s customer service and guest relations program is their method for dealing with guest complaints, also known as “The Three A’s” of guest concerns.

Whenever a guest has any concern whatsoever, the person who is assisting them does three equally important things:

1. Acknowledge
2. Apologize
3. Act

To this day, when I go back to Zingerman’s while I am attending a University of Michigan football game, I frequently see some college-aged kid, who is probably working their first-ever job, perfectly executing the procedure. It’s truly amazing to watch. An example of how this might play out would look like this:

“I see that you’re not happy with your sandwich. I’m sorry that you’re not getting the experience you were hoping for. What can we do to make this experience the experience you came here for today?”

The three A’s are such a powerful tool and I am astounded when I see grown adults working in customer service roles who have no clue how to address resolving guests’ concerns. I can remember a time early this year when we ordered a gluten-free pizza from a Chicago pizza joint.

We had recently discovered this new pizzeria and had two or three wonderful GF pizzas. On this particular occasion though, the pizza was overbaked so the crust was exceptionally hard and the cheese was not just golden brown, but actually a little charred. I stopped by the pizzeria a few days later and mentioned it to the person who was working at the counter. The first thing he said to me was, “Did you take a picture of it?”

I explained to him that I did not take a picture and that the only reason I didn’t bring the pizza back that night was that we live 30 minutes from the pizzeria and by the time I brought it back it would’ve been too late to feed it to my daughter for dinner, so we just ate what we could.

The man behind the counter at the pizzeria proceeded to tell me, “With no evidence I have no way to know if it was actually over-baked, and our gluten-free crusts are harder than our regular crusts anyways.”

After Mr. Pizzeria guy doubled down on making me feel like I was the one in the wrong for not taking a picture and for not knowing that gluten-free crusts are harder than regular crusts, I quietly thanked him for his time and left. He asked me for my phone number and said he would have his manager call me. That was six months ago and I have still never heard from a manager and we have not ordered a pizza from them since.

No acknowledgment. No apology. No action.

If you’re reading this and wondering what the significance of customer service in delicatessens or a pizzeria has to do with a blog at MenLiving, I offer you this:

Wouldn’t it be nice if all interpersonal conflicts in life could be resolved by this same simple “Three A” strategy? Far too often, people have a tendency to take any expression of dissatisfaction personally. Instead of acknowledging someone else’s disappointment, people immediately get defensive as if they are being personally accused of some sort of massive injustice. I see this in my own life with my reactions to my wife’s or my daughter’s disappointments. I see it play out within our men’s community. I literally see it everywhere.

Even when we go about our lives with the best possible intentions, we inevitably will cause harm to others. Oftentimes, this harm starts out as very insignificant, but it can easily escalate when the party that is harmed doesn’t get any sort of acknowledgment or apology. My overall sense is that way too many people feel that if they acknowledge somebody else’s dissatisfaction they now have to bear the responsibility for creating that dissatisfaction and it taps into their own insecurity and/or self-worth.

I need to look no further than in the mirror to see a person who frequently has a first response of not wanting to acknowledge the unhappiness of another. As a lifelong people pleaser, my default setting is to want to make people happy and when I feel like I fail to do so it can be an extraordinary burden for me to bear.

Here’s the best part of the Three A’s though!

When we acknowledge another person’s dissatisfaction and apologize for any part we might have played in causing it, we break the cycle of frustration that can fester into resentment and result in broken relationships. It doesn’t matter if it’s a burnt pizza, the wrong condiment on a corned beef sandwich, or something we said that caused unintentional harm, taking action to diffuse the conflict must start with acknowledging that the conflict exists and that working constructively toward resolution is important. In fact constructive conflict resolution is so important that it is the fourth bullet point in our MenLiving connection expectations.

Relationships are complicated. So complicated in fact that in the movie, it took Harry and Sally over 12 years to figure out that they could actually create one that was worth fighting for. What relationships in your life are worth putting in a little extra effort for? Perhaps by using the rule of the Three A’s, you and everybody else you care about can find more acknowledgment, more support, and a higher level of contentment.

I think I’ve got a taste for some corned beef. Now if I could only decide whether I’d rather have a Ruben sandwich or a hot corned beef with mustard. And whether I’d rather head to New York City or Ann Arbor? Either way, I hope if they don’t get it right, they’ll know all about Acknowledge, Apologize and Act.

PS… If you ever get to Zingerman’s, be sure to check out the Magic Brownies. They aren’t exactly like the ones we used to bake back in our college apartment back in the early 1980s, but they are pretty darn good!