Dave’s Take

As a rule, I am not a follower of populists or flavor-of-the-month consultants. I find them generally as shallow as televangelists. However, I just finished reading a new book, Tribes, by well-known author and entrepreneur, Seth Godin. It is one of the most poignant self-help books I have ever read. I call it self-help and not a business book because it contains some of the best advice I’ve ever read as to how one can achieve happiness and success in business and in life. Forget Wayne Dyer, Stephen Covey and all the other business gurus. Godin has surpassed them all with a simple, easy to understand, business guide to the 21st century.

Godin’s title is a reference to what he sees as the most empowering group existing in society today — tribes. He defines a tribe as a group of people that are connected to each other, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. As he sees it, tribes differ from mere groups because of two major things: a shared interest and a way to communicate. He reveals that the reason for the timely success of tribes now is the Internet. The Net has broken down the biggest barrier to the successful formation of tribes—geography. Social networks like Twitter, FaceBook and Linkedin are all providing empowerment to their members by facilitating instant and widespread communication. And when like-minded people can communicate, anything is possible.

Why are tribes so important? Because from tribes, come leaders and from leaders, we get movements, and movements change the world. When similar people connect for a common cause, their group action or movement can provide the foundation for changes in everything from business to government. He goes on to write that leadership is not management — leadership is about creating change. Why is change good? Because without it, everything eventually dissolves (just ask GM, IBM and ACME Buggy Whips). He further contrasts the difference between leaders and mere managers by pointing out how leaders have followers, managers have employees; managers make widgets, leaders make change. In short, anyone can lead a tribe to success, if they are committed to the mission.

Godin thinks good leaders do three basic things: motivate, connect and leverage. They motivate through involvement, empowering their members to take risks and seek a better future. He explains that the key emotion all leaders should strive to elicit is caring. By nurturing and encouraging people to care, really care about a product or issue, you unleash their true motivations. He further writes that anyone can be a leader. There are no secret requirements like education, money or heritage; it all boils down to doing what you believe in. But, unfortunately we are trained to avoid leadership throughout our lives. He believes fear is our biggest obstacle to success because we are taught to worry about criticism. Seth concludes if you paint a picture of the future and go there, people will follow. He lists several entities that get the tribe mentality – among them, Apple, Skype, Wikipedia and the Grateful Dead. All of them depend on the use of emotions and true belief in their products, (with the Dead taking tribal membership to a whole new level). All of them have members (employees/fans) that truly believe in what they are trying to accomplish and will do everything in their power to help meet those goals.

I encourage everyone to read his book. Not only is it simple and to the point, but at only 147 pages, it doesn’t require a great deal of time and effort to digest. If you’re not sure of his whole theory, check out his website at www.sethgodin.com. His blog is informative and enjoyable. You might not feel the tribal instincts right away, but I guarantee you will look at your boss with a different slant from now on.