Here's an excerpt from the book Tribes by my fav author Seth Godin.
A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea... A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.
Tribes are about faith - about belief in an idea and in a community. And they are grounded in respect and admiration for the leader of the tribe and for the other members as well.
Do you believe in what you do? Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy.
Three things have happened, pretty much at the same time. All three point to the same outcome:
1. Many people are starting to realize that they work a lot and that working on stuff they believe in is more satisfying than just getting a paycheck and waiting to get fired (or die)
2. Many organizations have discovered that the factory-centric model of producing goods and services is not nearly as profitable as it used to be.
3. Many consumers have decided to spend their money buying things that aren't factory-produced commodities. And they've decided not to spend their time embracing off-the-shelf ideas. Consumers have decided, instead, to spend time and money on fashion, on stories, on things that matter, and on things they believe in.
So here we are. We live in a world where we have the leverage to make things happen, the desire to do work we believe in, and a marketplace that is begging us to be remarkable. And yet, in the middle of these changes, we still get stuck.
Stuck following archaic rules.
Stuck in industries that not only avoid change but actively fight it.
Stuck in fear of what our boss will say, stuck because we're afraid we'll get into trouble.
Most of all, we're stuck acting like managers or employees, instead of like the leaders we could become. We're embracing a factory instead of a tribe.
The irony is that all of this fear used to be useful. Fear of change is built into most organisms, because change is the first sign of risk. Fear of change in a huge factory is appropriate when efficiency is the order of the day.
Today, though, the fear that used to protect us at work is now our enemy; its now the thing standing in the way.
Fear's an emotion, no doubt about it. One of the strongest, oldest, and most hardwired.
What's interesting about the folks I meet who are engaged and are clearly heretics is that they've actively talked themselves out of fear. I mean, the fear is still there, but it's drowned out by a different story.
It's the story of success, of drive, of doing something that matters. It's an intellectual story about what the world needs and how your insight can help make a difference.
I believe you can talk over fear, laying out a game plan that makes the fear obsolete. It's not about some clever tactic or a better way to write a memo to your boss. It's about making it clear to yourself that the world is now demanding that we change. And fast.
Wait.
We need to stop again. It's clear that just a few paragraphs aren't going to be sufficient to undo a lifetime of having fear beaten into you.
So stop for a second and think about this... the only technique or how-to or inside info is this: the levers are here. The proof is here. The power is here. The only thing holding you back is your own fear.
Not easy to admit, but essential to understand.
A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea... A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.
Tribes are about faith - about belief in an idea and in a community. And they are grounded in respect and admiration for the leader of the tribe and for the other members as well.
Do you believe in what you do? Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy.
Three things have happened, pretty much at the same time. All three point to the same outcome:
1. Many people are starting to realize that they work a lot and that working on stuff they believe in is more satisfying than just getting a paycheck and waiting to get fired (or die)
2. Many organizations have discovered that the factory-centric model of producing goods and services is not nearly as profitable as it used to be.
3. Many consumers have decided to spend their money buying things that aren't factory-produced commodities. And they've decided not to spend their time embracing off-the-shelf ideas. Consumers have decided, instead, to spend time and money on fashion, on stories, on things that matter, and on things they believe in.
So here we are. We live in a world where we have the leverage to make things happen, the desire to do work we believe in, and a marketplace that is begging us to be remarkable. And yet, in the middle of these changes, we still get stuck.
Stuck following archaic rules.
Stuck in industries that not only avoid change but actively fight it.
Stuck in fear of what our boss will say, stuck because we're afraid we'll get into trouble.
Most of all, we're stuck acting like managers or employees, instead of like the leaders we could become. We're embracing a factory instead of a tribe.
The irony is that all of this fear used to be useful. Fear of change is built into most organisms, because change is the first sign of risk. Fear of change in a huge factory is appropriate when efficiency is the order of the day.
Today, though, the fear that used to protect us at work is now our enemy; its now the thing standing in the way.
Fear's an emotion, no doubt about it. One of the strongest, oldest, and most hardwired.
What's interesting about the folks I meet who are engaged and are clearly heretics is that they've actively talked themselves out of fear. I mean, the fear is still there, but it's drowned out by a different story.
It's the story of success, of drive, of doing something that matters. It's an intellectual story about what the world needs and how your insight can help make a difference.
I believe you can talk over fear, laying out a game plan that makes the fear obsolete. It's not about some clever tactic or a better way to write a memo to your boss. It's about making it clear to yourself that the world is now demanding that we change. And fast.
Wait.
We need to stop again. It's clear that just a few paragraphs aren't going to be sufficient to undo a lifetime of having fear beaten into you.
So stop for a second and think about this... the only technique or how-to or inside info is this: the levers are here. The proof is here. The power is here. The only thing holding you back is your own fear.
Not easy to admit, but essential to understand.
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