PDF Summary:Tribes, by Seth Godin

Tribes is a self-help book about how to create and lead your own tribe—a group of people who are connected by a leader and an idea. Godin contends that, thanks to the ability to connect easily via the internet, there’s never been a better time to build a tribe (or step up to lead an existing one).

An entrepreneur and marketing guru, Godin is perhaps best-known for his book Purple Cow, about how to succeed in business by standing out from the crowd. Much like Purple Cow, Tribes is about coming up with an exceptional idea, then spreading it to the right people in order to make your vision a reality.

In this guide, we’ll examine Godin’s theories about tribes—including where his ideas originated and any significant criticism of those ideas. We’ll also provide concrete, actionable advice for how to achieve what Godin suggests.

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In The Leadership Challenge, Barry Posner and James Kouzes’s Third Principle is: Challenge the Status Quo.

They provide two guidelines to help you do so effectively:

• Search for opportunities. Good leaders aren’t afraid of change; however, the first step is to identify what needs to change. Look for areas where your tribe is stuck in a mentality of “we’ve always done it that way,” and try to envision ways to improve upon the status quo.

• Experiment and take risks. Along the way to any major change, you’re going to encounter a number of small successes and failures. As a leader, make sure to celebrate the successes with your tribe—those small victories will make the larger project feel achievable. However, make sure that you also learn from the failures—each new thing that you try will give you valuable feedback about what’s working and what isn’t.

Society Creates Acolytes

While apostates are the ones who become leaders, Godin believes that our society is designed to churn out acolytes—people who try to fit in, instead of standing out.

Godin says there are two main ways that this happens:

1. School: Modern education teaches us how to pass tests. In other words, we’re graded on our ability to give answers that fit in with the curriculum—deviation from the accepted answers is punished with bad grades.
2. Work: Companies naturally want the cheapest labor possible, and that comes from people who keep their heads down and do as they’re told.

In short, Godin argues that we’re trained from childhood to uphold and defend the status quo.

Upending the Status Quo

Godin seems to take it for granted that people tend to keep their heads down and try their best to fit in. He explains how society creates the status quo, but not why we’re so reluctant to fight it.

In Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins explains why we’re often scared to go against the status quo: We associate some kind of pain with making a change, so we tend to keep things as they are (basically, we prefer the devil we know to the devil we don’t).

Therefore, according to Robbins, the trick to upending the status quo is to identify exactly what we’re afraid of—what pain we think we’ll experience if we make this change—and work to unlink that fear from the change we want to make.

Become a Leader

Becoming a leader seems daunting; we’re often afraid to become apostates, or we think there’s some secret ingredient of leadership that we’re missing. However, Godin argues that all you need to become a leader is attitude and ability. In other words, if you believe in yourself and convince others to believe in you as well, then you’re a leader.

Godin points out that many of us hesitate because we think that we also need authority—in other words, we think that someone else has to give us the power or the “right” to lead. However, that misses the point: If you’re following someone else’s instructions, or waiting for permission, then you’re not leading.

Overcoming Low Self-Esteem

If you think you need someone else’s permission to become a leader, you may be suffering from low self-esteem. Norman Peale’s book The Power of Positive Thinking offers some advice on how to overcome self-defeating thoughts and boost your self-esteem:

• Find the root cause. Why do you feel inferior to other people? Perhaps you struggled in school, or you were constantly overshadowed by a sibling.

• Embrace “confidence concepts.” When you find negative or self-deprecating thoughts creeping in, replace them with thoughts about your own competence, confidence, and the certainty that you’ll succeed in whatever you’re doing.

• Imagine the best, instead of the worst. People tend to inflate problems in their minds, and envision the worst possible outcomes. Instead, try to imagine the best possible outcome, and recognize that the problems you encounter won’t be as bad as you think.

• Stop underestimating yourself. Take an honest inventory of your skills and talents. Assess your abilities—then raise your assessment by 10%.

• Seek professional counseling. While Peale offers many tips on how to build confidence and overcome negative thoughts, he also acknowledges that there’s no substitute for working with a professional.

Note: The Power of Positive Thinking is heavily based on Christian faith and practices (Peale himself was a minister). However, many of the lessons within it are helpful no matter what your religion is—or if you don’t practice a religion at all.

Build a Tribe

Now that we’re in the age of the internet, anyone can create his or her own tribe practically instantly. The internet is such a powerful tool because there are only two prerequisites for a group of people to become a tribe:

1. A shared interest
2. A shared means of communication

The internet is the go-to method for communication these days, whether through social media or one of the many chat services like Discord and Slack. Furthermore, because the internet allows you to connect with millions of people in the blink of an eye, you can find others who share just about any interest you could imagine.

Unfortunately, not all tribes are positive ones. For example, in his 2017 article How America Lost Its Mind, Kurt Anderson points to the internet as a major contributor to a rising extremism and disconnect from reality in American politics.

In essence, Anderson is saying the same thing as Godin: The internet makes it possible to find like-minded people (a tribe) no matter what your thoughts and beliefs are. However, for Anderson, that ease of finding and creating tribes isn’t a good thing—it means that people with extreme and untrue beliefs can find others who will support those views, while shutting out more moderate voices that might help balance out the conversation.

An Alternative: Find a Tribe

Godin points out that there are already countless tribes in the world waiting for the right leaders to come along. Usually, these are tribes that are too stuck in their status quo to achieve their visions—for example, a company that fails to turn a profit, or a small group that fails to attract new members.

Instead of building a tribe from the ground up, a visionary leader can turn a stagnating group into an exciting new movement.

Case Study: Apple

In his business book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, Richard P. Rumelt gives a clear example of the invigorating effect that a new leader can have on a group:

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Apple was struggling badly. Microsoft had practically cornered the computer market with Windows 95, and Apple’s CEO Gil Amelio was floundering with an incoherent business strategy—layoffs, pointless reorganizations, and new services that didn’t mesh with Apple’s current business model.

When Steve Jobs stepped in as the new CEO, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. However, Jobs implemented a bold new vision for the company, and eliminated anything that didn’t serve that vision. With Jobs’s vision and his leadership, Apple went from a soon-to-be-bankrupt company to a powerhouse in the computer industry—and it now has a tribe with members all over the world.

Improve Your Tribe

Godin says that people tend to think size matters most in a tribe—that a leader’s goal should be to recruit as many people as possible into the tribe. Such people believe that simply having more members will somehow make their tribe better. However, Godin argues that connection is more important than size; that it’s better to have a small group of true believers than a huge number of uninvested people in your tribe.

Recall that a tribe is a group of people with a shared vision and the drive to achieve it. When members are strongly connected to each other and to the leader, they’ll have that shared passion the tribe needs.

Furthermore, the best way to grow your tribe is to have members with strong connections to non-members; those members will do your recruiting for you. Thus, although it’s counterintuitive, the best way to expand your tribe is to not focus on expansion—instead, focus on improvement.

People Share Their Passions

In Purple Cow, Godin goes into more detail about how passionate members of a tribe can spread your ideas and recruit new followers.

Briefly: Most people aren’t looking for new things. They’re content with what they currently have, and aren’t willing to take a risk on some new idea or product. However, passionate members of a tribe (innovators and early adopters, to use Purple Cow’s terminology), will vouch for your idea. Those people will then convince their friends and family that your idea is worth adopting—that your tribe is worth joining.

This works because people are much more likely to listen to someone with whom they already have a personal connection, rather than a leader who’s just sending out blanket advertisements to reach as many people as possible.

Improve Communication

Recall that one of the things a tribe needs is a means of communication. So far, we’ve mostly focused on being a leader and communicating with the members of your tribe. However, there are actually four different kinds of communication within a tribe, and all four are necessary:

1. Leader to members
2. Members to leader
3. Member to member
4. Member to outsider

Godin asserts that one of the surest ways to improve your tribe is to make sure that those four types of communication are convenient, comfortable, and effective.

Two-Way Communication

In The Effective Executive, author Peter Drucker suggests leaders ensure open, two-way communication between leadership and members by:

• Taking responsibility for their own contributions and outcomes. In other words, openly stating what they believe they’re bringing to the group, and how they intend to use those abilities or resources.

• Asking members to do the same. Each person should have the chance to say what he can contribute to the group and how leaders could make the best use of those contributions.

Drucker says that companies (which are one type of tribe) often hobble themselves by only focusing on the first type of communication: leader to members. However, he continues, when employees aren’t asked to contribute to the conversation, they’re not receptive to what the leadership says—nobody likes being talked at instead of talked with.

Lead Fearlessly

One point Godin repeatedly returns to is that, by definition, a leader is someone who goes off the beaten path (consider a common synonym for leader: trailblazer). Such people are often viewed as odd, crazy, or even heretical; however, a leader who only goes where she’s “allowed” to go isn’t a leader at all.

Therefore, in order to be an effective leader, you must be fearlessly committed to your vision.

Godin urges us to be fearless, but doesn’t provide much concrete advice for how to overcome our fears; in this case, our fears of other people’s opinions.

Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations suggests that you overcome fears about what other people think of you by recognizing two facts:

• You can’t control what other people think.

• Other people’s thoughts can’t hurt you.

In short, what people think of you is neither your responsibility nor your problem.

Aurelius also says that the best thing you can do is devote yourself completely to your duty—in this case, your duty to lead your tribe and fulfill your vision.

Stop Holding Yourself Back

Godin says that many of us are waiting for the right time to lead; for example, when we have the right education, the right funding, or the right support. However, Godin argues that waiting never pays off. Instead, he urges you to just get started: Make that Facebook group, publish that blog, or start that workplace petition. With how easy it is to build and lead tribes in the modern world, the only thing stopping you is yourself.

You don’t need money or education to lead, and you certainly don’t need permission—all you need is a vision and the drive to pursue it.

Just Start Somewhere

In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson offers similar advice for when you’re struggling with accomplishing a difficult task or making a major change: just start somewhere. You don’t need to have every step planned out, and you don’t even need to have all the necessary skills and resources; just find something you can do that will get you a step closer to your goal, and then do it.

Manson says that there are several major benefits to approaching your problem in this way:

• Reaching a small goal (even if that goal is “just do something”) will motivate you to keep working toward your larger objective.

• You’ll get your mind working on the problem. Doing something—anything—is much better than staring at your problem and waiting for a fully formed solution to appear in your head. For example, say you’re trying to solve a difficult math question. If you just start to write down numbers and formulae, you may find that you actually do know the first step, and then the step after that, and so on. If not…

• You’ll find out where you’re getting stuck. Continuing with the math example, you might realize that you don’t know the proper formula after all. However, now you know exactly what information you’re missing, so looking it up will be quite easy.

You can use this same approach when you’re trying to build a tribe: Just get started. You’ll undoubtedly run into problems along the way, but—as Manson says—you’ll either find solutions to those problems, or you’ll find out exactly what your weaknesses are so that you can fix them.