Part 4 in the Guide to Good Leading series shares 11 more “Secrets” from of one of the country’s most progressive companies!

Thirty-four years ago Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig opened Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a staff of two and a $20,000 bank loan. Today Zingerman’s—a place Inc. magazine called “The Coolest Small Company in America”— is a creative collaborative of ten different businesses in the Ann Arbor area, employing over 700 people and doing sales of about $60,000,000 a year. With the release of Ari’s new book, Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 4: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business, more of the secrets behind the business’ success are now available to the world.

Parts 1, 2, and 3 have gained wide acclaim from progressive business leaders—and readers—over the last seven years. Part 1, A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business, explores Zingerman’s unique approaches to organizational visioning, values, mission, systems and culture. Part 2, Being a Better Leader, dives deep into subjects like Servant Leadership, Stewardship, and energy management, as well as an in-depth look at Ari’s beliefs about anarchism’s application in 21st century progressive business. Part 3, Managing Ourselves, examines Ari’s experiences with mindfulness, self-management, personal visioning, time management, free choice, creativity and more. All have become essential reading for leaders looking to leave behind the old mainstream business models and create progressive, forward thinking organizations.

And now the eagerly-awaited fourth volume in the series is hot off the local presses and on the shelves at Zingerman’s. Some of the country’s foremost thought leaders have already weighed in. Business philosopher and author Peter Koestenbaum says, “Ari’s new book is a gem in today’s revolutionary leadership movement.” Dr. Michael D. Amos adds, “I love the first three books in the series. But I believe this new volume is Ari’s greatest work.”

As with all of the books in this series, the essays in Part 4 are guaranteed to get the reader thinking in new and creative ways. John U. Bacon, author of the New York Times bestseller, Endzone: The Rise, Fall and Return of Michigan Football, writes: “Some business leaders know practice. Some know theory. Ari Weinzweig is one of the few who knows both. He and his partners have built a famously successful organization, while giving it more thought than the business gurus who merely philosophize about such things. The insights Ari shares here are both deeply perceptive and highly practical, from the ideas of Howard Zinn, Viktor Frankl, and Anaïs Nin on one page, to the importance of learning your employees’ names on the next. Like its author, this book is uncommonly smart, helpful, and just plain fun.”

The insights in Part 4 illuminate a transformative new way of looking at—and working in—the world. What we believe about our organization, ourselves, our products, customers, coworkers, and the world at large is impacting every decision we make and action we take. Most of us though, all too often, aren’t aware of what we believe, let alone understand the impact our beliefs have on our lives at work. Dr. Amos writes of the new book, “Examining the power of beliefs as Ari has done is the missing link to understanding the power of harnessing higher levels of human performance and engaging in the spirit of strategy.”  

Ari writes about the eye-opening effect that the increased awareness of beliefs has had on his own life. In studying the subject, he shares in the book’s Introduction: “It turns out that I’d ‘discovered’ a major player in the drama and dreams that make up my life, both personally and professionally. It was as if I’d been focusing on the play itself, the lines of the script, and the way actors sounded from the stage, but altogether ignoring the playwright who wrote the words and set the stage—literally and figuratively—for them to all be there doing what they do.”  

As with the other three volumes in the series, Part 4 is framed around individual essays, each labeled (with Ari’s usual tongue-in-cheek humor) as “Secrets.”  Parts 1, 2 and 3 in the Guide to Good Leading series (see zingermanspress.com) contain Secrets #1 through #39. The new volume, Part 4, showcases Secrets #40-49.

The first four of those Secrets take a deep dive into Ari’s new learnings about beliefs—how they underlie every decision we make; how our beliefs create the realities around us (even the problems we profess not to like); why we will only get to organizational greatness when we root our work and our worldview in positive beliefs; and, as with all the books in the series, a practical, and well-practiced recipe, in this case, for changing our beliefs. Part 4 also includes essays that detail Ari’s approaches on how to build hope and the spirit of generosity in the workplace. There’s more on Ari’s expanding and innovative beliefs about anarchism in business. For those who like to learn the practical application of the theory, the book includes three Secrets on particularly effective ways in which Zingerman’s builds positive beliefs, hope, and generosity into its organizational fabric—its new staff orientation class, its engaging approach to One + One work, and Zingerman’s unique visioning process.

While the two essays in the book on hope in the workplace don’t get title status, they may be just as powerful as the pieces about beliefs. Innovative, socially-conscious, chocolate maker Shawn Askinosie says, “Ari’s new work on hope is one of those rare essays that speak to my soul. This project on hope gives me practical real world applications to the principles Ari sets forth. All I have to do is take a deep breath, sit down, pick up this essay and I feel hope knowing that it’s possible to serve joyfully in the midst of chaos.”

Other experts around the country have also weighed in with high praise. Restaurateur and writer Danny Meyer adds, “The Power of Beliefs in Business is chock full of fresh wisdom—and enough memorable ‘Ari-isms’—to set anyone up to be a champion.” Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals, says: “With a tablespoon of generosity and history, a dash of food, and a pinch of art and anarchism, Ari delivers a tasty recipe for building healthy organizations.”  

As with all of Ari’s written work on leadership, the book brings together the voices of progressive business writers, anarchists, philosophers, poets, painters, and a healthy peppering of Zingerman’s partners, staff, customers, and suppliers. Written in his distinctive, conversational style, with plenty of good quotes and quips, the material in the book will challenge the beliefs of any business thinker and progressive leader. As Ari writes in the Introduction, “as you read and reflect on what follows, it’s likely that some of your beliefs will be challenged—even changed.” And from that, your actions, and hence, your life, as well.

Peter Koestenbaum concludes: “Ari’s writing is very readable and continually it is spot-on wise.”  And, he makes clear, “Ari’s writing will change the reader.”