Izzy Avraham, Founder and Executive Director of Holy Language Institute, recommended me this book while starting my process to be accepted as a volunteer in this awesome program he funded and directs in such a wonderful way. I was accepted.
Seth Godin, author of this book, says that tribes are about faith. Basically about belief in an idea and in a community. Imagine the admiration followers have for a leader, that’s what a tribe is made of.
After finishing the book I made a small mental list of all the things I love and wanna do, and could make an impact in the world, but I just don’t because (1) I am a lazy bum, (2) I assume no one else will care, but who knows, maybe I just need to find my tribe.
There are three words that, in my opinion, should be kept in mind while reading this book. Heretics, status quo and challenge. It is a real challenge, for everyone of us, to be a heretic and therefore defy the status quo we are used to living in.
Managment is about manipulating resources to get a known job done. Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in.
The big question here is, are we ready to face and go on with that change? Now, more than before, companies do not need super smart and well educated CEO’s, they need people willing to take a risk, to make a stand and change the routine path into something new.
To have a group of people reunited to do a task it is almost easy cake, but to turn it into a tribe, that will fight for the same goal, requires two things:
- A shared interest.
- A way to comunicate.
Izzy, has managed to do that in HLI, and I hope to be able to do it at some point when I decide what I want my tribe to be about. In order to get all this, first you need to be a partisan, you gotta take a side about what you want.
How can a leader increase the effectiveness of the tribe? He needs to transform the shared interest into a passionate goal, also he/she needs to provide tools that will allow the members to tighten their communications, and by last he needs to leverage the tribe so they can grow and gain new members.
A fundamentalist is a person who consideres whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it. As opposed to a curious person who explores first an then consideres whether or not he want to accept the ramifications.
Read Tribes here or listen to it here.
My final personal pieces of advice after re-reading the book:
- Turn off the sheepwalking, you have all the right to just follow what turns on your heart. You were not created to always be behind the line.
- Learn how to listen. Part of a leader’s success is how he listen to his tribe.
- Charisma comes from leadership, not the other way.
- Own the trick. Take the risk.
