Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Seth Godin
Description
In this fascinating book, Seth Godin argues that everyone has the opportunity to start a movement – to bring together a tribe of like-minded people and do amazing things.
Key words: Leadership, team building
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My Notes
Human beings can’t help it: we need to belong. One of the most powerful of our survival mechanisms is to be part of a tribe, to contribute to (and take from) a group of like-minded people. We are drawn to leaders and their idea, and we can’t resist the rush of belonging and the thrill of the new.
Tribes make our lives better. And leading a tribe is the best life of all.
Great leaders create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate. They establish the foundation for people to make connections, as opposed to commanding people to follow them. This is how Skype spread around the world. Niklas Zennström understood that overthrowing the tyranny of the phone companies was too big a project for a small company. But if he could empower the tribe to do it themselves, to connect to one another and to spread the word, he would be able to incite a movement.
It takes two things to turn a group into a tribe:
A shared interest
A way to communicate
The communication can be one of four kinds:
Leader to tribe
Tribe to leader
Tribe member to tribe member
Tribe member to outsider
The leader can increase the effectiveness of the tribe and its member by:
Motivate: Transforming the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change;
Connect: Providing tools to allow members to tighten their communications; and
Leverage: Leveraging the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members.
Every action you take as a leader can affect these three elements, and the challenge is to figure out which one to maximise.
Smart organisations assemble the tribe.
Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable.
All great leaders just HELP. They are generous. They exist to help the tribe find something to enable the tribe to thrive. But they understand that the most powerful way is to be statue worthy: by getting out in front, by making a point, by challenging convention, and by speaking up. Those are brave acts, and bravery brings status.
Deciding to lead, not manage, is the critical choice. Connect and inspire, don’t manage.
A motivated connected tribe in the midst of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group could ever be.
Growth and success are now linked to breaking the old rules and setting your organisations new rules loose in an industry too afraid to change.
A thermometer reveals that something is broken. Organisations are filled with human thermometers. They criticise or point out or just whine. The thermostat on the other hand, manages to change the environments in sync with the outside world. Every organisations needs at least one thermostat. These are leaders who can create change in response to the outside world.
The key elements in creating a micro movement consist of five elements and six principles.
Elements;
Publish a manifesto – A mantra or motto, that unites members, gives them a structure and a way of looking at the world
Make it easy for your followers to connect with you
Make it easy for your followers to connect with each other
Money is not the point of a movement
Track your progress
Principles;
Transparency is your only option
Your movement needs to be bigger than you
Movements that grow, thrive
Movements are made clear when they challenge the status quo
Exclude outsiders
Don’t tear others down, just build your followers up
The elements of leadership
Challenge the status quo
Create a culture around their goal and involve others in that culture
Be curious about the world you’re trying to change
Use charisma to attract and motivate followers
Communicate their vision of the future
Commit to a vision and make decisions based on that commitment
Connect followers to one another
What most people want in a leader is something that’s very difficult to find: we want someone who listens. Listen, really listen.
A big part of leadership is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realise that you’re going to get there one way or another.
Give credit to everyone else. Never take the credit. There is no record of Martin Luther King Jr or Gandhi whining about credit. Credit isn’t the point. Change is.
Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Leaders create things that didn’t exist before. They do this by giving the tribe a vision of something that could happen but hasn’t (yet). You can’t lead without imagination.
Leaders give people stories they can tell themselves. Stories about what the future looks like and about change.
“When the world changes, the rules change. And if you insist on playing today’s games by yesterday’s rules, you’re stuck.”
