Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

On the plane this week I read Seth Godin’s latest book called “Tribes.” “A tribe is a group of people connecte3d to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea” (p.1) This book is a little gem of a book. Permit me to site a few citations.

By challenging the status quo, a cadre of heretics is discoveing that one person, just one, can make a huge difference p.11

…there’s a difference btween telling people what to do and inciting a movement. The movement happens when peple talk to one another, when ideas spread within the community, and most of all, when peer suppport leads people to do what they always knew was the right thing p.23

Improving a Tribe–As we saw earlier it takes only two things to turn a group of people into a tribe: a shared interest and 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. So a leader can help increse the effectiveness of the tribe and its members by: transforming the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change; providing tools to allow members to tighten their communication; and leveraging the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members p. 25

Anatomy of a Movement: Senator Bill Bradley defines a movement as having three elements: 1. A narrative that tellsa story about who we are and the future we’re trying to build.  2. A connection between and among the leader and the tribe. 3. Something to do–the fewer limits the better. Too often organizations fail to do anything but the third. p. 27

I could write an entire book about the power of a blog to disseminate a leader’s ideas. An unpublished poet, previously doomed to railing against the system is now published (if he wants to be). If the ideas are great, they’ll spread. The spread of thse ideas can attract a tribe, and the poet goes from ananymity to leadership p. 54

A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his relegion before he explores it p. 63

I don’t think its a matter of saying a magic word; boom and then suddenly something happens and you’re curious. It’s more about a five-or ten-or fifteeen-year process where you start finding your voice, and finally you begin to realize hat the safest thing you can do feels risky and the riskiest thing you can do is play it safe p. 64

Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later p. 70

I’m imagining that your colleagues aren’t stupid but when the world changes the rules change. And if you insist on playing today’s games by yesterday’s rules, you’re stuck. Stuck with a stupid strategy. Because the world changed  p 114.

Growth doesn’t come from persuading the most loyal members of other tribes to join you. They will be the last to coma round. Instead, you’ll find more fertile ground among seekers, among people who desire the feeling they get when they’re part of a vibrant, growing tribe, but who are still looking for that feeling p 119.

Tribes gtrow when people recruit other people. That’s how ideas spread as well. The tribe doesn’t do it for you, of course, . They do it fr each other. Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work p. 129