I recently completed Tribes by Seth Godin, author of Meatball Sundae and Purple Cow. Tribes is a book that breaks with conventions in a number of ways. For one, there is no content page, no forward, no preface and no chapters. What does this tell you? This is book and its is different.
What is a tribe? Godin defines it this way, “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.” Tribes emphasizes a grass-roots effort to use the internet, as a tool, to achieve the goal of your tribe. But this book is not written to the participants of the tribes as much as it is written for the leaders of the tribes. As he says, “Tribes need leadership”.
This is a book full of quotable quotes. Here are a few that I highlighted.
- Generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because she can.
- Everyone is not just a marketer–everyone is now also a leader
- Tribes are about faith–about belief in an idea an a community.
- Leadership…is about creating change that you believe in
- People yearn for change, they relish being part of a moment, and they talk about things that are remarkable, not boring.
- There’s a difference between telling people what to do and inciting a movement.
- Great leaders create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate.
- Tribes aren’t about stuff. They’re about connection.
- The only thing holding you back is your own fear.
- What people are afraid of isn’t failure. It’s blame. Criticism.
- Challenging the status quo requires a commitment.
- It’s nice to get paid. It’s essential to believe.
- Great leaders are able to reflect the light onto their teams, their tribes.
- Showing up isn’t sufficient.
- Leadership is a choice
- Trying to lead everyone results in leading no one in particular.
- Ultimately, people are most easily led where they wanted to go all along.
- Are you stuck with the way things were, instead of busy turning things into what they could be?
- No one anoints you as leader.
- The only thing holding you back from becoming the kind of person who changes things is this: lack of faith.
- No one gives you permission or approval or a permit to lead. You can just do it. The only one who can say no is you.
Tribes is about seeing the world from outside the box, challenging the status quo and leading. You’ll enjoy it and your thinking will be challenged.
BTW – Here’s a great video clip of Seth speaking about Tribes.
