Tribes: We need you to lead us. (Book Review).

(Image Source: Amazon India) 

Quick Summary: 

Book proposed a new type of leadership for the hyper-connected world, where anyone can be a leader. The book outlines “what” kind of leader tribe needs and “how” to be one. 

Intended Audience:  

The author is a marketing professional with a corporate background, but the book is generalized. It focuses on any leaders in any context -corporate, government, and non-profits. So professionals in any context will benefit from this. 

My Take on Book: 

Seth Godin, an author of  the book has 19 best-sellers to his credit, a popular blog with 2000+ articles, an innovative altMBA program, and a sought after key-note speaker. Generally leadership is a considered over-hyped topic. But the idea of Tribe is delivered on the TED platform (see below). And readers uplifted Seth Godin’s book, creating their own complementary case-book. Seth wrote in his signature style of small bytes, and the book itself is smaller. Just above 100+ pages, one can read quickly over the weekend. But the small-scale book has a big-scale idea and can be scaled to really large-scale! 

Seth analyzed the history of idea adoption into three categories. First is the factory cycle. Inexpensive labor and fast machines were currencies in the factory model. And power is drawn from one’s proximity to the CEO or Owner of the factory. Factories were efficient, output was measurable, and was generally stable. But labor and machine advantage faded, losing competitive advantage. The loss gave rise to the cycle of advertising and marketing. In this second category, the idea’s moved from the mass market to branding. Firms still connected to the customers. But the flow of ideas moved from top to bottom and internally focused. And then the third cycle evolved with the advent of the internet. This third category is the tribe! 

A tribe is a “group of people connected to one another, leader, and idea”. Two things define tribe, one is a shared interest, and two is a way to communicate. A peculiar characteristic is anybody can be a leader—something scary for managers living in the idea of factory cycle. Heretics – who challenged the status quo, traditions, and cultural artifacts led these tribes. The rise of the internet, outsourcing, fast spread word-of-mouth, and long-tail businesses gave massive leverage to tribe leaders. Tribes can be geographically unconstrained, internal, and can cross the boundaries of the organization. Tribe leaders don’t need formal authority. They don’t need a factory cycle. But leaders required organizations for a complex product, services, and massive scaling. But factory cycle is outdated for tribes. Bigger size doesn’t drive tribe leaders; they are concerned about close-nit, tight connections. Tribes are suitable for communities, and leading them is the best life of all. 

[ This book is the part of 39 books on mastering people skills – a list of HR-OB books].