Background

‘Tribal Leadership’ is a book written by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright. My colleague, Junda, lent me the book. I read it without any expectation simply because the title doesn’t catch me. It turned out to be an eye-opening book.

What’s it about?

The book categorises our mindset (not sure ‘mindset’ is the right word) towards our life, daily life problem, work and love. It might sound like the book tries to simplify such a complicated concept. But I think it’s the beauty of the idea behind “Tribal Leadership”. Such simplification allows me to easily internalise the concept and come up with some action steps.

Details:

(1) What a tribe?: A group of lesser than 150 people. A organisation is a tribe or a tribe of tribes depending on its scale. Organisation can be your work, your network,… that attempts to solve a problem.

(2) There are 5 stages. Instead of long definitions, the book explains it using 5 soundbites.

• Stage 1: “Life sucks”. This stage refers to those who view life (doesn’t matter my life, your life, his life, some random people lives) is terrible. Mostly, gangsters are in this group. They are angry with life.
• Stage 2: “My life sucks”. This stage refers to those who view his life is worse than other people’s lives, not life in general. Though this stage sounds so negative, it’s actually a significant improvement from stage 1. One has started comparing his life to others. This is the important foundation to stage 3.
• Stage 3: “I’m better than other people”. This stage refers to those who has confidence in certain subjects and makes sure that he’s better than others. In my opinion, it takes one quite some time to fully experience stage 3. Technically, these are the steps you have to go through: (1) Which skill you can be better than others? Also, define others (colleagues, neighbours or the rest of 7 billion people). Ideally, it’s 7 billion people but that’s technically impossible. (2) Spend time/effort in mastering that skill and showcasing to get your skill recognised (3) Maintain that status quo. I believe, there are 3 caveats to this stage: (1) You can NOT always be better than others because of factors: aging, emotions, (2) To maintain it requires hard work, really really hard work and (3) In this changing world, is your skill really relevant? Anyway, stats show that for a successful company, you need people in stage 3 to push your company’s standard forward and compensate them accordingly. 25% of organisations fall into this bucket. Without stage 3, you can’t go to stage 4.
• Stage 4: “We’re better than other groups”. This stage refers to those who identify themselves based on their group and works hard to maintain the group output. How this stage can blossom is when a person in stage 3 realises he can achieve much more in a group setting. This is when the group power comes into place. It’s not about “I’m better than you” anymore, but more “Will what I do matter to the group?”. You might be surprised that terrorists can fall into stage 4 as they are fighting under the name of a group, not for anyone. This is to prove how powerful this stage is. If a company is fortunate in this stage, this company will surely move fast and become a leader.
• Stage 5: “Life is great”. This stage refers to those who dedicate themselves into doing what they believe will improve everyone’s life. According to a book, people at this stage have overcome all the comparison: me vs. you, us vs. them. It’s not that they don’t exist, but they don’t matter. I really admire people who have reached this stage.

How you apply this to your life?

Like all the philosophical concept, it’s hard to understand the “So what” part. However, I truly relate to this one.

Identifying your stage and being aware of other stages are important to elevate your life and maybe others. Think about what stage your tribe is in. You’re only comfortable if your tribe mates are in the same. You will feel slightly uncomfortable and be motivated to change if your tribe mates are in higher stage than yours. That uncomfortable feeling is necessary.

People in stage 3 are usually in dyadic relationship while those in stage 4 make triadic relationship. The effect of this network is crazy. So for those who want to move to stage 4, you can start form a group of 3. When you’re in the group, refer to the other people and stop talking about yourself.