A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It’s our nature.
Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. But more important, they’re enabling countless new tribes to be born—groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.
And so the key question : Who is going to lead us?
The Web can do amazing things, but it can’t provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals— people just like you who have passion about something. The explosion in tribes means that anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips.
If you think leadership is for other people, think again—leaders come in surprising packages. Consider Joel Spolsky and his international tribe of scary-smart software engineers. Or Gary Vaynerhuck, a wine expert with a devoted following of enthusiasts. Chris Sharma leads a tribe of rock climbers up impossible cliff faces, while Mich Mathews, a VP at Microsoft, runs her internal tribe of marketers from her cube in Seattle. All they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect a tribe, and the willingness to lead.
If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a “sheepwalker”—someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doing you (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don’t do very well these days.
Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities in leading your fellow employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists, or readers. . . . It’s not easy, but it’s easier than you think.
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This is a very thoughtful book.
Not everyone interprets Seth’s books correctly: me, for one. I was thrown off by the very clever packaging of some past books. But years after Purple Cow appeared, I realized he was not writing simply about differentiation. It’s more than that.
Most people love ideas that confirm their own. To accept a new idea requires admitting you hadn’t already thought of it yourself. Plus some new ideas aren’t easy to comprehend; they’re new, after all, so they can look odd. I’ve been guilty of this, and I wonder if some critics here may be, too.
If someone spots something before I do, it doesn’t mean he’s wrong. It may only mean he’s driving the car ahead of me.
Some criticize this book’s lack of guidance to leaders. But this book is meant to get us thinking about tribes, tossing that idea in among other things we are pondering, and seeing what implications and new thoughts might pop out. It’s the classic notion of the marketplace of ideas. So I agree with Seth and others: Ideas don’t have to come with instruction manuals. There are plenty of those around already.
I now see the author, and some of his earlier work, differently. He spots things in their infancies that are worth noticing–because they look likely to get much bigger–and describes them nicely. Kudos and thanks.
Harry Beckwith, author at times
Its a great book. It was recommended by Dave Ramsey for anyone starting out a new business. It helped me see business from a different perspective and I love it.
This book is a collection of incoherent, repetitive ramblings with little or no support for the author’s claims. Mr. Godin should have development the ideas into something of substance. I enjoyed Permission Marketing, but Tribes is nothing more than cheerleading.
This book really makes you stop and think about what you can do to be a leader about what you are passionate about. It helped me personally, professionally and applied it with my own young children for what they will need to reach their potential. Read it to my husband in the car on a road trip and it really brought up a lot of discussion. I will use this book again and again as well as connect with online groups who are applying the book in their lives.
Seth Godin uses a small book to attempt to explain the inner workings of what makes a tribe great. His idea of a tribe is a group of people who end up working toward the same ideals, after one leader spreads the word and inspires followers. He gives numerous examples of (now) industry leaders who broke the (then) mold in order to create better products and services. Some of his examples include McDonald’s, Wikipedia, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. All of these organizations did something different from the norm at the time and greatly benefited from that.
Though he brings up this point later in the book when talking about he himself broke the mold, I have a hard time following Godin’s non-chaptered, very fluid writing. Without the encapsulated episodes, it becomes more difficult to put down the book at a natural point. Now, this effect might actually be highly innovative because it means that the person reading must devote a larger chunk of time. The book is not that long so theoretically it could be read in one sitting. However, practically, it is much harder to do so.
I think that Godin’s book is an interesting read because it does make you feel inspired to do more than just soldier on, but rather “general” on and lead by example.