The word tribe is one that I have just recently started using. I know that there are bigger and greater organizations that have been using this word for some time, there are books about it and you can search it online and find a plethora of information about it, but for me it’s a new term. It’s really just a way of expanding my thoughts to include more people in our vision. When I talk about my team, I am referring to a smaller, more defined group of people who know each other and work together towards similar goals, but when I expand my vocabulary to use “tribe”, it is something more.
The idea of our tribe is the expanded group of people who not only work together, but also add value in other ways, either by being clients, suppliers, our community, or even members of our extended families. There is a huge tribe of people with tatoos, there are tribes of people who practice Buddhism, there are tribes of people who live to serve. It really means a group of people that are like us and do things like us. We care about the people in our tribe, and rally to support them when the need arises.
It is not an elite club, its an open door to a community that has the energy to create positive change. We don’t have rules, but we do have shared beliefs. Beliefs such as we all have the potential to make a difference in the lives of those we interact with. We care about our fellow man and work to make things better. Since I also have a business within a tribe, there are times when we have people in the organization who are not synchronizing with the culture of growth and connection that we have. This does not make them any less valuable as human beings, but it can cause ripples in the flow of our momentum as a business. It is the job of the leaders to ensure that the people they are leading understnad how we do things. In any business there is so much more power and better results when you have people working together, helping out when needed, and most importantly doing what they say and acting with integrity.
Just the other day one we had a scenario in one of my businesses where of my leaders asked someone to stay and hour later to help him with a project. The person, lets call him Jerry, agreed, however when the time came for him to help out, Jerry was nowhere to be found. Did Jerry forget? or was this an indicator of a bigger issue? A leader needs to look at the big picture and to have open communication. Is this the first time something like this has happened? Have we taken the time to really connect with Jerry and let them know they can trust us to be there for them as well? Are we transparent and clear when we have a one on one with Jerry, and let him know that the message he was sending by disappearing after committing to help was that he could be relied on?
We are working together to create positive change in our little universe, and what you did to get to this point in your growth, success, development, life, parenting, marriage, business, (use whatever word you like), will not get you to where you need to go next. This is why relationships end, brands die, people change jobs, stagnation happens. Everything is always changing, expanding, decomposing, and if you are not growing together, you are growing apart. It can be hard to let go of the old and embrace the new, but we are all changing all the time, so your tribe will see people come and go as part of the natural evolution of life. Don’t cry about it, just accept it and know that change is inevitable, growth is optional.
“What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50 million years. It’s about leading and connecting people and ideas.” Seth Godin