Tribes are the way of the future?
I thought it would be nice to start sharing my thoughts on books that i have recently read. Recently I have been reading a lot of business, organization, and marketing books. I just finished reading Tribes, by Seth Godin. I have been noticing a trend toward community and decentralization in business. I believe this is a part of the disruption that many high tech companies are encouraging. Seth Godin, will make you think about the opportunities for leading your fellow employees, customers, and community. Many of the books I have read in the past month have had a significant impact on my views of leadership, and the direction of our industry. I believe tribes have always been a huge influence on the direction of our evolution. Our future has always been a struggle between our ability to innovate with technology and our social nature. For what ever you think, we are a social species, and much of the research is revealing our biology controls and influences many of our decisions. Tribes is very inspiring and reminds me of many other books I have read including lectures I have recently watched like Ori Brafman, and Geoffrey Moore on Stanford’s Entrepreneurship and thought leaders. A few thoughts on the book:
“Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread.” - Build it and they will come mentality is dead! You need to engage your community and support it because building your channel is no longer an easy as it was. Technology is letting your customer/community subvert your control easier so you need to become a leader. The days of being a dictator are numbered and if you can not control people with power you have to influence them. An another wonderful book is “What Would Google Do?”, by Jeff Jarvis. In this book Jeff talks about what google has done to change the game. Because things are more interconnected and we have less control and influence over the market we have to become a better citizen.
“In order to lead a movement you need two things; and shared interests and a way to communicate." - When you join a tribe, you will find out it has a center of gravity and you want to be closest to that center. This is a place where people of like mind commune and share. Your message must be on topic and compatible to the tribes core dynamics. This is as much as identifying who is not a part of the tribe and who is. The best way to inspire people at the core of the tribe is to have a genuine passion. Communicate using all possible methods and engage your community. Joining a tribe should be a long-term commitment. Leaders naturally find this center and understand the dynamics of the community to help make small course corrections to influence the group. This is where you want to be and how to lead a movement.
”The status quo is persistent and resistant. It exists because everyone wants it to. Everyone believes that what they have got is probably better than the risk and fear that come with change.“ - Tribes are changing this! When people start to connect and share the influence they have on the environment around them is unstoppable. Today people are motivated, and connecting with each other faster than ever before. The status quo is just society fancy. As a tribe and leader, you must persuade people to join your tribe. Most people want to be part of the healthiest and strongest community so any effort made to empower your community ensures growth. Do what you love, follow your passion, shares your story, and people of like mind will join you.
”If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either.“ - Enough said
”People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. The always believe what they tell themselves. What leaders do: they give people stories they can tell themselves.“ -
I would like to invite a discussion on this topic. Over the many years in my career I have noticed the trends of how decisions and power play out. They seem to be more influenced by human characteristics than logical rational decisions. As technology becomes more ubiquitous and embraced, the speed at which change happens has grown to an unbelievable pace. I do not know if we are on the right path or not but I would like to talk about where you think we are going?
1 Notes/ Hide
- demetriusj-blog posted this