How To Find A Tribe And Lead It

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A tribe according to Seth Godin in his book “Tribes” “….is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea”.  Becoming the leader of a tribe gets you respect and admiration. A powerful combination of feelings for any marketer. Buy Seth goes on to write “Everyone is not just a marketer – everyone is now a leader. The explosion in tribes, groups, coven and circles of interest means that anyone who wants to make a difference can.” So how can you find your tribe that you can lead?

Firstly, you have to believe in what you do, want to lead and have the desire to make something happen. Then the market needs you and your vision. In every one of these markets there is a movement waiting to happen, a group of people (a tribe) just waiting to be energised and transformed.

So to get the word out about what you do, its becoming ever easier with the net by using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. They connect people who are keen to promote for you. These new sites and technologies are specifically designed to do this job of connecting people with the same passions.

Once you find your tribe the next step is to find leaders (the heretics who are doing things differently and making change) and then amplify their work, give them a platform and help them find followers.

Whats needed is the creation of a community. The community in a tribe is a thrilling place to be. The movement is the work of many people, all connected all seeking something better. To empower the tribe to communicate and create a movement, there are tools such as blogs, forums, social networks (Facebook page), Twitter, customised social networks (ning, socialgo) that can be utilised. Your job as leader is to merely create these foundations so they can make connections. Training, as part of this foundation building for the tribe member leaders on how to set up and use these tools, maybe required. But this does not have to be done by the leader themselves.

In fact as Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the fall of the Berlin Wall, its fall was not down to one hardworking activist but instead by gradual but inexorable growth of the tribe, a loosely coordinated movement of activists that gained in force until it couldn’t be stopped.

The three main ways a leader can increase the effectiveness of the tribe and its members are:

• transform the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change
• provide tools to allow members to tighten their communications; and
• leverage the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members

Most leaders focus on the third way, but the tribes effectiveness will suffer.Of course when momentum is building and the tribe’s effectiveness to change improving, the leader can take more of a back seat. If stasis occurs the leader should then step back into the vacuum and create motion which transforms what is now just a group of people back into a tribe. If this doesn’t work due to perhaps internal squabbling, like in the case of wikipedia, its then better to say you’re off and then bet that the best of the tribe will come with you.At the end of his book, Seth hopes that you make a choice, to lead or follow. If you choose to lead then don’t quit! He writes;“Once you choose to lead, you’ll be under huge pressure to reconsider your choice, to compromise, to dumb it down, or to give up. Of you course you will. Thats the world’s job: to get you to be quiet and follow. The status quo is the status quo for a reason. But once you choose to lead, you’ll also discover that it’s not so difficult. That the options available to you seem really clear and that yes, in fact, you can get from here to there….GO”For more on how to find a tribe and lead it, I highly recommend you buy Seth’s book at Amazon.

Seth has another highly recommended book called “Purple Cow” and we review it in our article HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN PURPLE COWS AND TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS