Building Your Tribe

My Uncle/Mentor/Entrepreneurial Advisor, Matt Miller, sent me a copy of Seth Godin’s “Tribes” for me to read about a year ago. With it being at the beginning of my last college semester, the book sat idle on my desk for a few days, but once I picked it up I had difficulty putting it down. In between Calculus 2 and Intermediate Macro-Economics it proved to be a welcome break and Godin’s 147 page best seller opened my eyes to a number of realities about leadership in our current era. The book inspired me to get back in to blogging and join Twitter as well as quench many of my own excuses for putting off leadership to the future.

The book’s central theme is that passion for leadership and the willingness to stand out from the crowd are the only prerequisites for building and leading your “Tribe.” Seth details a number of inspiring anecdotes, from his own life and those of others, that highlight this reality. His goal is to knock down the traditional excuses that people use which keep them from active leadership.

As each of us is working to be more active politically and make an impact in our community it is important that we see leadership for what it really is. We need to realize how methods of leadership have changed with technology and learn how to utilize them effectively.

Much of the book can be condensed into what he outlines as the key elements of creating a micro-movement (a.k.a. building and activating your own Tribe.) There are five things you have to do and six principles you need to follow:

Five Things to Do:

1. Publish a manifesto.
2. Make it easy for your followers to connect with you.
3. Make it easy for your followers to connect with one another.
4. Realize that money is not the point of a movement.
5. Track your progress.

Six Principles to Follow:

1. Transparency really is your only option.
2. Your movement needs to be bigger than you.
3. Movements that grow, thrive.
4. Movements are made most clear when compared to the status quo or to movements that work to push the other direction.
5. Exclude outsiders.
6. Tearing others down is never as helpful to a movement as building your followers up.

Most of these action steps and principles look like to do lists from nation-wide political organization or a company that is trying to change the direction of an industry. However, Godin points out that following these same steps can make the most obscure movements and most radical ideas effective and help you build a Tribe and make a difference.

The book is fantastic! Easy to read, short enough to blow through in a few sittings, inspirational and cheap enough that you can afford to pass it on to a friend once you have caught the bug. Below is a link through to Amazon.com so that you can find out how to be a more effective leader and build your own Tribe!

WATCH SETH GODIN DISCUSSING TRIBES