I Blame Beer

I just finished listening to the audio version of Tribal Leadership (Tip: You can get it for free from Zappos and a big thank you to @tempo for twitting that). I’m not, by any stretch, a leader and, frankly, don’t really know that I want to be one but I found the book fascinating - it was hard to hit stop when I finally got home - and enlightening - for the last few days I’ve been looking at world through Tribal Leadership glasses. I will definitely have to give it another listen possibly even get a text copy for deeper exploration.

Two things about the book:

1. Giving stuff away for free works: I’m recommending the book here to my friends and I might actually buy a copy myself. Why does it work? Because the book is awesome! So free works… when you’re awesome.

2. The main thing I’m taking away from this book (in addition to a lot of inspiration to be more awesome) is the authors’ description of the 5 levels where “corporate tribes” exist and the way they characterize the thinking at each level (and despite their focus on corporations and the work world, I think this applies to communities in general):

• Level 1: “Life Sucks!” - This is the level where street gangs live. People are mostly concerned with survival and create groups to further that goal. Most people I know have probably never seen this outside of movies. I think for a while, while in the army, I had a few visits here.
• Level 2: “My life sucks!” - Think “The Office” or the DMV. This level is better than level 1, people who exist here see that it’s possible for things to be better they just don’t see it happening to them any time soon. I’d say most of my army service was spent squarely in level 2. It was the fact that I had a clear date of when this will end that kept me disappearing in a black hole. Some part of my work life was also spent here, working for a boss I could not handle, doing work I had lost interest in, constantly hounded by the demands of a broken system I could not fix. Imagine how the people who worked for me at the time must have felt…
• Level 3: “I’m great!” - This is where most professionals today exist, college and university students, athletes, etc. The full description of level 3 is actually, “I’m great, and you’re not!” I don’t need to say much about this level, do I? We’ve all been there. In recent years I’ve been getting tired with this rat race and have been trying to move beyond this outlook on life. It’s not easy but I’m getting better at it (and there I go again… *sigh*)
• Level 4: “We’re great!” - This is where great groups come to life. Sharing values, sharing a common goal, expanding connections and building a social web. Every once in a while I find myself in a team that works at this level, it’s great! Information flows in all directions, everybody is committed, and everybody knows their role. It’s like a group of people in Flow, together. I’ve seen this happen at companies where I worked but more interestingly I’ve seen this happen in my community.
  I’ve seen events coming up, seemingly from nothing, and becoming great happenings - music, lights, food, people all showing up as if by magic. I’ve seen an industrial kitchen full of people cooking up wonderful, fantastic meals that brought friends together around a table (or 5) for slow conversation and singing around a piano. Imagine a community of people brought together by values like Openness, Acceptance and Love, a group dedicated to supporting each other and making life better for everyone involved. It’s a pretty cool place to call home and it’s a place worth investing in.
• Finally, Level 5: “Life is great!” - This is a rare place that few people get to visit and fewer yet get to stay. At this stage the group is no longer trying to outdo the competition, they’re just doing the right thing because it will make things better for everyone. This is the level that puts humans on the moon or cures cancer.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.