{"id":48965,"date":"2025-01-31T14:29:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T19:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=48965"},"modified":"2025-01-31T14:29:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T19:29:00","slug":"ari-weinzweig-zingermans-deli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/ari-weinzweig-zingermans-deli\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Lead According to Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman’s Deli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman\u2019s Delicatessen, has spent over four decades building an iconic group of businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which includes the original Zingerman\u2019s Deli, a creamery, and around 20 other food and leadership ventures. With more than 700 employees under its umbrella, Zingerman\u2019s has become a model of sustainable growth and innovative leadership, largely thanks to Weinzweig\u2019s unique vision. A self-described \u201clapsed anarchist,\u201d Weinzweig rejects conventional corporate growth models in favor of fostering a diverse community of businesses, each with its own unique identity.<\/p>\n

From his early days behind the deli counter to shaping Zingerman\u2019s into a beloved institution, Weinzweig has become a respected figure in the world of artisan cheese and specialty food. We caught up with Weinzweig to get his thoughts on success, discuss his passion for writing, and find out how he navigates the emotional highs and lows of leadership.<\/p>\n

Culture (CM)<\/strong>: As co-owner of Zingerman\u2019s, can you walk us through a typical day in your life? With 700 employees across 12 businesses, I imagine your days are pretty varied.<\/p>\n

Ari Weinzweig (AW)<\/strong>: I\u2019m a co-leader. We\u2019ve been governing the organization by consensus of our partners group for 30 years. Today, I\u2019ve been writing all day, which I do on Mondays to get my e-news done, and then I\u2019m going to run, and then I\u2019m going to go back and teach ZingTrain to a group from the business school. It\u2019s a combination of writing, meetings, presenting, teaching, and more meetings. And then I spend an hour or two every evening on the floor at the [Zingerman\u2019s] Roadhouse just to reground myself in the basics.<\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: You mentioned writing. Between your newsletters, pamphlets, and books, it seems like you are really drawn to it. Have you always identified as a writer, or is that something you\u2019ve come to later in life?<\/p>\n

AW<\/strong>: I don\u2019t even identify as a writer now. I just write a lot. My next publication is a little chat book full of life lessons I learned from being a line cook. People often ask me what it\u2019s like to be a successful entrepreneur. I don\u2019t really think of myself as a successful entrepreneur. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m a failure, but I don\u2019t think of myself as a success. I\u2019m just a line cook who\u2019s doing pretty good. Writing started sort of by accident in the mid-nineties, when I took over writing our newsletter. At the time, I didn\u2019t really know anything about writing other than writing history papers. At first, I spent a lot of time super stressed and throwing paper against the wall, freaking out about every sentence. But nevertheless, I managed to get stuff out, and I started getting positive feedback, which I sort of dismissed because I didn\u2019t feel like I knew what I was doing. And then I got more positive feedback, and people started saying I should write a book. At some point, I finally figured I better get serious about learning how to write because I\u2019m not gonna do a book if I don\u2019t know anything about writing. So I joined a writing group that I was in for like 10 years, which helped me enormously. In a way, it\u2019s also good succession planning because I\u2019m sharing the approaches with more people both inside and outside the organization, and I learn a ton every time.<\/p>\n

CM<\/strong>: Instead of opening multiple locations, Zingerman\u2019s decided to expand its business outward, opening up different businesses under the Zingerman\u2019s umbrella. What inspired that strategy?<\/p>\n

AW<\/strong>: Well, that all came out of the original intent, which was always to have something very special\u2014not a copy of other things: Have great food, great service, and a great place for people to work. Do it all in a very down-to-earth setting, which is less dramatic today, but in 1982, to get really amazing food, you had to go somewhere pretty fancy. And from the beginning, to only have one [Zingerman\u2019s]. I\u2019ve always been drawn to the really special spots that you remember 20 or 30 years later. So that was our original intent. In 1994\u201412 years in\u2014we wrote our first formal vision, which was called Zingerman\u2019s 2009. It came out of countless conversations between Paul and I about what to do. He wanted to grow, I really wanted only one deli, so together we figured out a vision that described a community of businesses. We would create this community of businesses here in the Ann Arbor area. Each business would be unique, but each would be a Zingerman\u2019s business so we could grow the organization. And we wanted managing partners in each one because, in our experience, when there are owners on site, the energy is generally different. So it was meant from the beginning to be one organization, with semi-autonomous pieces.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw, Zingerman’s co-founder, in 2006.<\/p><\/div>\n

CM<\/strong>: Do you think there\u2019s one key thing that allowed that growth to be successful over these last 30 years?<\/p>\n

AW<\/strong>: Well, in my anarchistic setting, I would say the one thing is that there\u2019s no one thing. Because there\u2019s never just one thing. It\u2019s always a lot of things. But I think it\u2019s our embrace of the natural reality that it\u2019s always a lot of things. If you ask a farmer what makes their farm successful, there\u2019s no one thing.<\/p>\n

CM:<\/strong> You\u2019ve been involved in the cheese community for over 30 years, serving as the president of the American Cheese Society (ACS) in 1992 and later as a board member. It seems like the cheese community really attracts creative and unconventional thinkers. Was that what drew you to the community?<\/p>\n

AW:<\/strong> Well, what drew me to it is I like cheese. I recently retold the story of the first year I was president of ACS and we had the conference in San Francisco. In my opening remarks, I held up a plastic-wrapped American single. And I said, \u201cRight now, if you ask most people in the US what American cheese is, this is what they\u2019re gonna think about. But at some point, we\u2019re gonna successfully get to a point where, when people say American cheese, they start thinking of really great artisan cheese the way they do European cheese.\u201d And you know, we\u2019re kind of there. I don\u2019t mean every consumer in the country, but anybody who pays attention to food knows that there\u2019s a ton of really good American cheese out there. In \u201982, the only goat cheese we could get was Laura Chenel. I\u2019m sure there were a few others out there, but without the web, it was a lot harder to know about anything. At this year\u2019s ACS Judging and Competition, we had 1,500 entries.<\/p>\n

CM:<\/strong> Last year, I had the pleasure of sitting in on your \u201cRevolution of Dignity in the Twenty-First Century Workplace\u201d seminar at the ACS\u2019s Annual Conference, where you remind us to treat one another with respect and preach about the importance of positive beliefs. Beyond your annual presentation at ACS, how do you view your role within the cheese community as a leader, and what do you hope to contribute to its culture and growth?<\/p>\n

AW:<\/strong> Well, I mean, as an organization, I hope we\u2019re supportive of the artisan cheesemakers. As you said, it\u2019s a very generous and creative community. [Zingerman\u2019s has] certainly gotten a lot out of it, so hopefully we give back a little more than we got. And hopefully we model that you can actually stick to the really good cheese.<\/p>\n

CM:<\/strong> In one of your recent newsletters, you wrote about the rapid cycling of emotional ups and downs that come with leadership. We all experience this in our daily lives, but given that you have a team of 700 people, you must be going through this a little more than most people do on a given day. How do you manage those ups and downs?<\/p>\n

AW:<\/strong> I think I said it in the piece, but the more I think about it, the more true it is\u2014that I think there are even more of them because of electronic connections. Before, you weren\u2019t getting emails from every employee, so no matter how many people you bumped into, it was a slower pace, whereas now, the emails are constant. Just since I got on the phone with you, I probably have two pages of them, which is fine, but it\u2019s everything from junk mail to somebody who loves us to some complaint that I didn\u2019t even know what it is yet. So how do I deal with it? Running, journaling every morning, cooking, self-management, calling friends, solitude, and understanding that these ups and downs are normal and they\u2019re never really gonna stop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ari Weinzweig in front of Zingerman’s Deli, which opened in 1982.<\/p><\/div>\n

CM:<\/strong> Zingerman\u2019s is famous for using open-book management, which is not that common, especially in retail. How would you convince a skeptic to try this out? What are some of the selling points you might use?<\/p>\n

AW:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019ve learned through beliefs work that you can\u2019t make anyone change their beliefs. So, probably what I would do is say, \u201cIf you like the way things are going, just keep going the way you are.\u201d And then if they didn\u2019t, I would say, \u201cIt\u2019s like there\u2019s a basketball game going on, but only the coach knows the score and how much time is left. And the coach just yells at the players all the time to play harder. And because there\u2019s no scoreboard, the players believe in their minds that they\u2019re winning by 300, but the coach knows they\u2019re down 40 and the clock is running out. So, if you think that\u2019s a good model, keep going.\u201d But wouldn\u2019t it be a lot easier if the players actually knew the score so they could make better decisions? Because they\u2019re making decisions whether you want to admit it or not. You know, be nice to the customer or not, try to sell a little extra or not, answer the phone or let it go to voicemail. When they understand what\u2019s going on, they\u2019re going to be able to make wiser decisions than if they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

CM:<\/strong> I know you say you\u2019re not a successful business owner, but by many people\u2019s standards, you are. It\u2019s impressive what you and your team have been able to build. If you were to give your younger self some advice about starting a business, what would it be?<\/p>\n

AW:<\/strong> Well, not to be too broad, but all the stuff I write in the books is stuff I wish I would\u2019ve known at the beginning. Visioning, beliefs, dignity, open-book management, all of that. The visioning is an easy one to focus on because it\u2019s one thing you can do that would help everybody. There\u2019s really no reason not to.<\/p>\n

CM:<\/strong> Was it a scary decision to jump and start your own thing when you decided to do it?<\/p>\n

AW:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019m scared of everything, I just got used to it more. But the chronology is that I had just given two months notice at my kitchen manager job and I didn\u2019t know what I was gonna do next. So that made it a lot less scary, since I was only seven weeks or eight weeks away from being unemployed.<\/p>\n

CM:<\/strong> From the outside, it looks like you\u2019ve done a really great job of creating a positive workplace environment, but I imagine that is much easier said than done.<\/p>\n

AW:<\/strong> A good workplace environment doesn\u2019t mean there are no problems. There are plenty. It\u2019s more how you deal with them. Americans take democracy for granted until we don\u2019t have it. It\u2019s easy for people in our organization to forget that it\u2019s kind of a big deal that you can complain to your boss and not get in trouble, or that you can go to the huddle and get paid to learn about how the business runs, or that you could be an owner, you know? Because the problems still annoy you.<\/p>\n

CM:<\/strong> Do you find it difficult to uphold that positive culture?<\/p>\n

AW:<\/strong> Well, yeah, anything good is difficult. I mean, it\u2019s hard to make good cheese, you know? It\u2019s not a bad thing. Staying in shape is difficult. Writing poetry is difficult. Having a long-term relationship is difficult. Once you embrace that all good things are difficult, then it\u2019s less bothersome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman\u2019s Delicatessen, has spent over four decades building an iconic group of businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which includes the original Zingerman\u2019s Deli, a creamery, and around 20 other food and leadership ventures. With more than 700 employees under its umbrella, Zingerman\u2019s has become a model of sustainable growth and innovative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":48968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[33619],"class_list":["post-48965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-voicings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Lead According to Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman's Deli - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman\u2019s Delicatessen, has spent over four decades building an iconic group of businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman\u2019s Delicatessen, has spent over four decades building an iconic group of businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which includes the original Zingerman\u2019s Deli, a creamery, and around 20 other food and leadership ventures. With more than 700 employees under its umbrella, Zingerman\u2019s has become a model of sustainable growth and innovative leadership, largely thanks to Weinzweig\u2019s unique vision. 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