Book Review: Tribes by Seth Godin

The book Tribes by Seth Godin is one of the more interesting and thought-provoking leadership books I have read this year. Though not written in the form of conventional chapters, Godin provides some interesting food for thought about the new modes of leadership emerging within an ever-changing cultural and social landscape.

Godin lays the foundation of his thoughts by describing tribes as a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea. An idea that inspires their passion engages them and brings them close to one another. This automatically reminds me of Barack Obama and his tribe – a tribe of people tired and yearning for a change. And what brought about that change? Was it just a successful media campaign or was it more?

‘Leadership’ is what Godin would say.

The spread of the internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. And more importantly, they’re enabling countless new tribes to be born. But as with Barack Obama and his tribe, these tribes are all longing for a leader. The web can do amazing things but it can’t provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals. Seth through his book encourages the reader into thinking how we can challenge the status quo and lead both in our personal and professional lives.

In my opinion, Seth’s ideas move beyond the obvious and encourage us, as marketers to look into our businesses with a new angle. Some of his insights into leadership can seemingly be used by marketing managers to lead a tribe for their brand.

1. Faith and Belief: According to Seth, belief is a brilliant strategy. Belief leads to change. The modern consumer has decided to spend his time and money in what he believes in. Thus, we as marketers need to have faith in our product/service. This faith transfers into a culture of honesty and transparency transfers into a tribe around your product/service. A tribe that believes in your brand.

2. Be a leader not a manager: A leader is different from a manager. A manager directs while a leader connects. Seth encourages the reader to be a leader – to communicate your vision of the future, to create a culture around your goal and to involve others in that culture. For your brand, this means to communicate your vision for your brand, to create a culture around it and to make decisions based on that commitment.

3. Create a Movement: Seth quotes Bill Bradley’s definition of a movement that contains three elements: a narrative that tells a story about the group and the future it’s trying to build; a connection between and among the leader and the tribe; and something to do. Most important of these elements is to connect and empower the tribe members to communicate and not command. Once we have created a tribe, we need to believe in the power of the tribe and its ability to lead a movement. This is easier to say than accomplish. Most companies fail in letting go and believing in their tribe. It is important to remember that your tribe is your must successful advertising. Being a leader, if you believe in your brand and the power of your tribe, they will lead a successful movement for you. Seth explains this point further by giving examples of Skype and Twitter and how they were successful in creating a movement by encouraging communication amongst the tribe members.

4. Tightness: A leader can improve his/her tribe on two dimensions – its size and its tightness. While most leaders focus on size, sometimes a smaller but tighter tribe works better. It’s about knowing your niche, respecting your tribe and not trying to be all things to all people. There can be many strategies for tightening a tribe, like creating rituals, introducing people to one another, and providing a communications platform for tribe members.

5. Creating a Micro movement: Seth shares a step-by-step approach of creating an online micro movement:

· Publish a manifesto

· Allow followers to contact you

· Allow followers to contact one another

· Realize that money is not the point of a movement

· Track progress

With ‘social media marketing’ being the buzz word of the time, Seth’s approach to creating an online micro movement provides a simple yet a powerful approach to developing a powerful and leading online brand portfolio. Social media marketing is not a cheaper channel to push your goods and services to consumers. It’s about building a tribe around your brand with the social networking sites serving as mere channels of communication among the tribe members. Its not about having a million fans on your facebook page but about leading a tribe of even a mere 1000 fans who believe in your brand and serve as your brand ambassadors.

While critics argue that Tribes lacks “concrete data”, in my opinion the power of Seth’s ideas do not come from directing people to do things his way but by encouraging them to “lead”. There is nothing in the book that many of us don’t already know. All we need to do is to lead a tribe connected with an idea we believe in. The rest all falls in place. For me the idea was creating a leadership position for your brand.

What’s the idea for your tribe?