I stumbled upon this book when I was reading 'Delivering Happiness'. The author, Tony Hsieh, who is an avid reader couldn't stop raving about this book and how it helped him to take Zappos to the next stage.
A lot of research and interviews form the backbone of this book, the authors consider organisations as 'tribes'. Their definition of tribe is 'a group of 20 to 150 people functioning together'. The number 150 is called 'Dunbar number' and it is an interesting story, read about it in my previous post here.
This book gives you ideas about how these tribes can be managed effectively and leveraged to the next stage.
In essence: There are 5 stages in 'Tribal leadership' ( an organisation can only be at one stage at a time) and your goal as a leader is to move your company to the stage 5, the last stage.
Stage 1: People are alienated, they behave with a 'life sucks' attitude. Frequent thefts or immoral complaints can be signs in the groups at this stage.
Stage 2: 'My life sucks' attitude prevails, they complain a lot and they behave as the victims to life.
Stage 3: 'I'm great and you are not' attitude is the indication (people in the same group hoard information and they are selfish in their own individual success).
Stage 4: You will see 'We are great and you are not' attitude (people in the same group work very well together and fighting their competitors fiercely).They can be good but never will be great!
Stage 5: People in this group feel that 'Life is great' with enormous enthusiasm and energy. The great companies that leave their mark in history see beyond competition and work for a noble cause.This stage is pure leadership, vision and inspiration, devoid of competitors. Examples in the book: Story of Amgen (their noble cause is curing diseases) and Griffin Hospitals (their cause is to fight against the existing working way of hospitals and to give exceptional service to their patients).
Interesting findings:
1. Companies run by people who have same background, temperament, personality, IQ and learning style become easy targets for competition because all leaders will share the same blind spots no matter how smart and accomplished they are.
2. Bosses who know the names and ages of employee's children, their employee's hobbies and interests do better than those who offer programs such as 'employee of the month'.
3. Tribes and it's leaders mold each other.
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