Dave Concannon

Tribal Leadership is a guide to using natural groups within an organization to create more effective leadership. This concept in this book is slightly different to that of Seth Godin’s “Tribes”, but is an effective complement with a similar core message – an effective organization needs happy people all working towards a focused goal. Seth  mentioned Tribal Leadership in Tribes, and I happened to stumble upon it in a discount book store.

The authors gauge organizations into five tribal stages, starting from misanthropic groups of “Stage One” tribes, through to the sort of altruistic “Stage Five” tribes which the authors describe as “pure leadership, vision, and inspiration”. Interestingly, this isn’t some sort of self-help checklist you’re supposed to follow to reach enlightenment but a way to recognize the motivations and concerns of the tribes at various levels of a company.

The book emphasizes that for an organization’s workers to be truly motivated, the organization has to be driven by a noble cause. “Core Values” is not just some Dilbert-esque item to be checked off for a company to be complete – There has to be an actual reason for the people you work with to want to continue doing what they do. As the organization grows and creates tribal leaders at the stage four and five levels, they create what the authors describe as “triads”.

Triads

The concept of the ‘Triad’ will be familiar to anyone who’s read Keith Ferrazzi’s ‘Never Eat Alone’. The Triad is an influential person creating a relationship between two people they know, and then politely moving on. The distinction is that this creation holds no immediate benefit for the person making the introduction and indicates that tribes within the company are moving beyond the individualistic culture of “I’m great” of stage three type tribes towards the “we’re great” atmosphere of stage four and five.

Summary

I’d recommend this book as a separate viewpoint from Seth Godin’s work on the power of tribes. The motivation is more of an internal analysis of an organization than a rabble-rousing call to escape corporate life. The book has several interesting case studies of people and organizations at various developmental stages, and insightful commentary on how to influence tribal direction. Particularly amusing is an interview with Gary Cole, the actor who plays boss-from-hell Bill Lumbergh in the movie “Office Space”. If you were going to pick between this and “Tribes”, I’d say I enjoyed ‘Tribes” more – but got a lot out of both.

I think my interest in entrepreneurship is firstly that it’s a nicely contrarian view to the “Go to school, go to college, get a job, retire in 45 years” type of life planning, and secondly that I find different people’s attitude to risk fascinating.

Reward Focused

My reasoning is that you should take every opportunity that you have to do something you’re wildly passionate about. It might not be practical to just jump into this passion straight away, and if so your plans and goals should somehow put you closer to getting there via either an amazing learning experience or some really good reward in exchange for your time. This view is a sort of backwards-reasoning – less focus on the risk, more on how to get to the desired result from where you are. Some people take it to extremes – One Mixergy interviewee quit a job in a very promising startup, figuring that the fractional percentage equity stake he had been given was never going to change his life as much as holding the reigns to a business himself.

My ideal long-term dream situation isn’t overly materialistic – No mortgage, and never look at the right-hand side of a menu again. I’m not even talking about Roman Abramovich-level gastronomic excess, just somewhere straight across the middle of Jason Cohen’s ‘Rich vs King’ matrix. I see myself still working away at something I’m really interested in long after my gray hair has turned white, but I’m happy to take a little risk to get there.

Risk Focused

The opposite view people tend to take is in weighing everything in terms of risk and loss.  What happens if you try to reach for the goal and fail: Will you lose a secure job? Will you have to dip into savings? If you’re a guest in an awesome country, would you be deported or have to frantically find another job? They only press forward when they’re absolutely certain that the opportunity is safe.

Here’s a completely unscientific chart:

For most people the sane strategy is to do anything possible to move towards the “Low risk, high reward” section and do anything to avoid the “High risk, low reward” quadrant.  Things that will help move you towards this “golden quadrant”:

• Learn. Eric Sink’s Career Calculus says it far better than I can. Mark Suster’s “Earn or Learn” lends a fantastic perspective directly related to startups. Learning more reduces the risk in decision making.
• Networking and Mentors - Get to know people who’ve been there and get advice, and people who are trying to get there for support. I’d recommend Keith Ferrazzi’s “Never Eat Alone” as a great primer on effective and authentic networking.
• Goal Setting. Some people have a plan hard-wired into them, and some people need to create one. Either way, setting SMART goals is a great way to make sure you’re heading in the right direction.

The ‘Crazy’ Zone

The top left quadrant (Low reward, High risk) is an interesting place. On one hand you have The Saints – e.g. Aid workers and volunteers in dangerous locations. Next to them, you have desperate people with no other choice – e.g. a Drug Mule,  Then you have the insane or unaware – People who are either deliberately making life hard for themselves, or who don’t even know they’re in a bad place. If you wake up one day suddenly realizing that you fit into that last group, it’s time to bail ASAP.

The ‘Crazy’ Zone and Startups

If you’re running an early-stage startup you might be in the top right quadrant, rightfully hoping for a high reward for putting your money and long hours on the line. While this is true, entrepreneurs should bear in mind that some of your employees may actually be closer to the upper left quadrant (bootstrapped wages, job insecurity) unless they have a meaningful stake in the company or a fantastic opportunity to learn.

According to Seth Godin, the bottom left ‘Low Risk, Low Return’ quadrant may not even exist any more in terms of ’safe’ jobs. This puts what would have formerly been a safe ‘job for life’ closer to the Crazy zone. In my mind, this is clear motivation to start a business.

Keith Ferrazzi is a fanatical connector; someone who goes out of his way to meet new and interesting people. It’s this rabid interest to connect with others, and subsequently introduce his connections to each other that he attributes a lot of his success.   In “Never Eat Alone“, Mr Ferrazzi takes the reader through the mindset of some of the most powerful connectors on the planet, before gradually introducing some of the key concepts he uses to meet those he doesn’t know.

Early in his career, Keith’s ambition had turned him into ‘a jerk’ – Ignoring his peers, but going out of his way to catch the attention of his bosses. Eventually one of these bosses informed him that in order to succeed as a manager, you have to enable those around you to be successful. This simple advice the essence of his book – Do good work by allowing others to succeed.

Much of the advice reminds me of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People“. He provides solid reasoning as to why you might want to follow his advice, clear examples of what to do (and what not to do), and case studies of famous super-connectors.

I really enjoyed this book, not only is it solid advice but it’s clear that Mr Ferrazzi truly believes what he writes. Recommended!