If Presented the Choice, Will You Lead Your Tribe?

Photo credit: Helga76 @ Wikimedia Commons

Pam Slim, in her latest blog post about Seth Godin and his new business book, “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us,” quotes the man who coined the term permission marketing:

“It’s simple:  there are tribes everywhere now, inside and outside of organizations, in public and in private, in nonprofits, in classrooms, across the planet.  Every one of these tribes is yearning for leadership and connection.  This is an opportunity for you – an opportunity to find and assemble a tribe and lead it.  The question isn’t, ‘Is it possible for me to do that?’ Now the question is, ‘Will I choose to do it?’

Three hours ago, I listened-in to a telephone conference with Seth, Pam, Keith Ferrazzi, and Daniel Pink. It was moderated by Elizabeth Marshall of Author Teleseminars and it’s fair to say from asynchronous Twitter traffic, dozens of others joined me on speakerphone.

Not having read “Tribes” yet, I scribbled notes:

“Nobody follows someone who is average or normal,” said Seth, equating people who follow others as collectors. “People root for the Green Bay Packers [or any other sports team] to root for themselves.”

Shifting to social networks and blogs with hundreds or thousands of readers, Seth said, “Just because you have 30,000 readers of your blog on poetry doesn’t mean you should write a book about it.”

This was echoed by Keith, arguing that the host of a dinner party is not the reason why people RSVP and attend; people attend the dinner party “for the people in the room.”

When an organization does not lead with their tribe in mind, there is a disconnect.

“Leaders need a willingness to be heretics. Heretics challenge a given religion but do it from a strong foundation of faith,” said Seth, alluding to Gandhi. “Leaders need to challenge the status quo.”

In today’s world, business and leadership is about authenticity and transparency. As Dan Pink said, “Authenticity should be effortless.”

“Bosses hate to be wrong. They never compromise on the overall strategy,” Seth said. “If there isn’t anybody who doesn’t have something nasty to say, then you didn’t do a good job. Without critics and skeptics, it is very hard to stay smart,” adding it’s important not to fuel the egos of those who disagree to disagree.

Now that I’ve listened to what these four authors and marketing experts had to say about leadership and organizations and the new way to conduct business, I’ll pause and reflect; and write a follow-up post in the coming days.

If you were on this call, what did you think? Any takeaways? Thoughts on the above?

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