Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright aim to put you on a journey that will light a fire in your heart. They want you to get everybody you work with to have the same desire and passion that you have. And most importantly, they want to help you make the work you do, day in and day out, have an impact not only in your workplace, but leave a proverbial dent in the universe.
What’s a Tribe?
A tribe is nothing new—they are groups of people between 20 and 150 in size, and we’ve had them for thousands of years. There are 5 stages of tribes that we’ll become familiar with:
Stage 1 tribes, which account for 2% of the world’s corporate tribes, is a group of people who think that “life sucks”.
Stage 2 tribes, which account for 25% of the world’s corporate tribes, is a group of people who think that “my life sucks”, and in particular, because I have to be at work with you idiots.
Stage 3 tribes, which account for 49% of the world’s corporate tribes, is a group of people who walk around thinking—and sometimes saying—“I’m great”. These people and tribes have a lot of energy, but none of it is directed to a common goal.
Stage 4 tribes, which account for 22% of the world’s corporate tribes, is a group of people united by the language like “We are great, and they are not”.
Lastly, stage 5 tribes, which account for 2% of the world’s corporate tribes, are a group of people united by a vision of changing the world.
The majority of our energy here will be on moving from Stage 2 to Stage 3, and from moving from Stage 3 to Stage 4.
Moving from Stage 2 to Stage 3
Stage 2 in action is when you look around and see zero signs of passion, and a lack of initiative or accountability. The people in this stage believe that their destiny is not their own, and so they avoid accountability like the plague.
The first step to escape this stage is to identify a few members of the tribe who seem to want things to be better. Currently, you’ll be working with that person one-on-one. You’ll start by telling them—one at a time—that you see potential in them and that you value their contributions to the team.
The second step you will take is to develop an interest in their lives. Make sure that it’s genuine. If you do this but aren’t genuinely interested, you should take a look in the mirror because you are then the problem.
How will you know that you are successful? You’ll start to hear those people say “I’m great” (the language of stage 3) rather than “my life sucks” (the language of stage 2). The person is going to start to gain confidence and will have an awakening of personal ambition as they want to reproduce those feelings of being valued.
From Stage 3 to Stage 4
Now you should have a bunch of people who are working towards success, however, they are still: (1) trying to create success for themselves and not the company, and (2) trying to do it all by themselves. Fortunately for you, you can start making the transition from Stage 3 to Stage 4.
The first thing you can do to start the climb is to point out to these people that they can only accomplish so much on their own. Even the most highly-optimized individual can do little to compete with a highly motivated, Stage 4 tribe. The authors have found a 30% increase in effectiveness when you make the leap from Stage 3 to Stage 4. This will be a compelling point because people in Stage 3 are very motivated by results.
Then, get them to build triadic relationships. Rather than two-way relationships where you are building them mostly for your own benefit, triadic relationships look for the mutual benefit between 3 parties. In this relationship, people come together and introduce each other because they know they have shared interests and values. It’s important to ensure that you do actually have shared values. The best way to do this is to have conversations with those you’re building your tribe with. Your job is to listen for what people in the tribe say is important to them, and then become an advocate for those values and make sure they are lived day in and day out.
Eventually, if you work hard enough and find a noble cause to work towards with your tribe, you could end up like Google’s now-famous “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”