I've Created a Tribe - Who Knew?!

I'm loving this book: Tribes: We Need You to Lead US, by Seth Godin.  The premise is that tribes are groups of people waiting for a leader, someone to identify a compelling goal, to promote it and to convene people interested in that goal.  The leader also has to create avenues for communication between the group members, so that they're talking to each other - and the group takes on a life of its own!  Godin captures the mood exactly, recounting that the Greatful Dead  held concerts "not just for fans to hear their music - but to hear it together."   Brilliant.  There's even a restaurant in New York that only opens once in a while, and you sign up in advance to go there;  people are going not just for the food, but to be with their tribe members!

Godin proposes that anybody can be a leader; it's not about your position - it's about creating something that people believe in, generating exciting ideas - and that can come from any level of a company or organization. Leaders are people who question the status quo - how nice to find validation for those of us questioners!

So I've chaired a professional development organization for facilitators, trainers and OD practitioners (Organizational Development), the Boston Facilitators Roundtable,  for 10 years, and I'm thinking we've become a tribe!  People come to meetings because they enjoy learning together;  there's a wonderful buzz when you walk into the room.  When I started, 10 years ago, I immediately created an online listserv for members to talk to one another, because I believed that members needed that communication in order to build the community- and that listserv now hosts a dynamic exchange of ideas, questions, and resources.  So I'm loving this description of how leaders mobilize a tribe:

• translating a shared interest into a goal that people are passionate about
• providing tools for members to communicate
• leveraging the group to allow it to grow

I started another group 3 years ago, and I'm trying to make it more of a community, by promoting the tools of communication;  it hasn't happened yet, but I'm hoping we get to a tipping point sometime soon!