LocalFirst wraps up a year of dialogue surrounding Small Giants with Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss’s 2017 book for the #GRLocalChallenge “Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big.” The discussion is set for Jan. 9 at 10 a.m. at Schuler Books & Music, 660 28th St. SE.
In “Small Giants,” veteran journalist Bo Burlingham takes the reader deep inside 14 remarkable privately held companies, in widely varying industries across the country, that have chosen to march to their own drummer. He searches for the magic ingredients that give these companies their unique “mojo” and the lessons we can learn from them. One of those businesses is Ann Arbor-based Zingerman’s Community of Business, including the world-famous Zingerman’s Deli.
Size and growth rate aside, these small giants share some very interesting characteristics. They are all utterly determined to be the best at what they do. Most have been recognized for excellence by independent bodies inside and outside their industries. All have had the opportunity to raise a lot of capital, grow very fast, do mergers and acquisitions, expand geographically, and generally follow the well-worn route of other successful companies.
To stay on the road less traveled, these companies have remained privately owned, with the majority of the stock in the hands of one person or a few like-minded individuals. They were founded by and still are run by unique entrepreneurs who recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create and allowed themselves to question the usual definitions of success.
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