The 5 stages of building a tribe, and 8 elements of telling the story of the tribe.

Communication by the leader of any tribe is the foundation for success because without everyone understanding the vision and the purpose of the tribe it is destined to fail.  On this episode I share the 5 stages an organization passes through on the path from crowd to tribe, and 8 essential elements for the language of the tribe to resonate within and beyond the organization.

Seth Godin says, “A crowd is a tribe without a leader. A crowd is a tribe without communication. Most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd. Smart organizations assemble the tribe."

The Five Stages of Workplace “Tribes,” by DAVE LOGAN AND HALEE FISCHER-WRIGHT, AUTHORS OF TRIBAL LEADERSHIP: LEVERAGING NATURAL GROUPS TO BUILD A THRIVING ORGANIZATION

 • Stage One: These tribes are distinguished by hostility and despair. Their members say things like "Life sucks."

 • Stage Two: These tribes are characterized by apathy and a sense of futility. They don't try, they don't care, they don't innovate, they don't hold one another accountable for anything, and they revel in their disengagement. Their members say things like "My life sucks."

 • Stage Three: Tribal members are selfish at this stage. They are in it for themselves, and they are extremely averse to collaboration. Their attitude is "I'm great . . . and you're not."

 • Stage Four: Tribe members have a sense of shared values; they willingly share knowledge and collaborate. Stage-four tribes are extremely competitive, but their competitive focus shifts to other tribes or companies. These tribes believe that "We're great . . . and they're not."

 • Stage Five: Tribes that attain this rare level are characterized by a sense of "innocent wonderment." They apply themselves to the creation of things no one has dreamed of and are frequently incredibly successful. These tribes say that "Life is great."

SPEAK|Pr is for business owners to unlock the value in their business brought to you by entrepreneur Jim James.

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Transcript

Jim James: 0:05

Are you leading a tribe? Are you within a tribe? Or are you part of a crowd or many crowds? If you're a business owner or a business leader, a tribe is a much more effective and efficient way to create measurable change in a marketplace, whereas organizations which are sharing the characteristics of being a crowd have been proven to be less so. There are five stages for formation of a tribe, and I'm going to share those with you today. I'm also going to talk about the communications aspect of building a tribe, because tribes build businesses. Tribes create change, and that's really what we all want to do with our own organizations. According to Seth Godin, a thought leader and author of some 22 books, including Tribes,"A crowd is a tribe without a leader. A crowd is a tribe without communication. Most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd, but smart organizations assemble a tribe." A tribe, according to the dictionary, is a social division in traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties with a common culture and dialect typically having a recognized leader. In modern day terms, businesses can also become tribes. We recognize this when we go to organizations and everybody across the organization, all the touch points, are passionate about that brand and that service. I was thinking about this because I got an email today from a chap called Mark Bowness, who runs a business called We Build Tribes. He's an Englishman who now lives in Australia, and I subscribed to one of his courses where he helps people build communities and tribes around a sense of common purpose. He has some 30,000 people now following him as a tribe leader. It's a fantastic business model he's built, and he helps to create a sense of purpose and drive as well as the structure required for people to create a tribe. Businesses need to do the same thing, because tribes are groups of people committed to a common sense of purpose, and they recognize the roles within that organization. Quite often, the center of power is no longer in control of the people delivering the value of the service. I thought of this, because I went to a shop here in Bath, and the assistant said they were going to close shop in five minutes. I said, "Could I just try something on?" He said,"Well, if I need to stay, I'm being paid by the minute, so that's up to you." It was a different attitude rather than him saying, "Would you like me to make sure that you've got what you like? I know that the store's closing." Obviously, there's a cultural issue within that organization where this person doesn't feel as though he's part of the tribe. He feels like he's just one of the crowd working for the company. In 2008, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright wrote a book entitled Tribal Leadership, leveraging natural groups to build a thriving organization. They interviewed 24,000 organizations and built a five-stage model for tribe leadership and building within organizations. Their view is that tribes are ultimately more powerful than companies and more powerful than individual executives, and that you can create tribes through a methodology. They believe tribes are comprised of only 15-150 people. Statistically, that would cover pretty much all companies around the world, because as we've said before, really, only 1% of all companies are above 250 people. The obvious implication of this is that every business could be a tribe, and a fundamental part of the role of the founder of the company is to be the leader of that tribe. So, let's look at the five stages that companies go through and how you can position yourself as the leader through the communications tools that are available. According to these authors, stage one is where tribes are distinguished by some degree of hostility and despair where their members say things like,"Life sucks." That sounds a little bit extreme. We've probably all been in places where we hear staff members complaining about the nature of the management, the facilities, or the hours that they have to work. Stage two is where tribes are characterized by apathy and a sense of futility, where the people in the organization basically don't try, they don't care, they don't innovate, and they don't hold one another accountable for anything. Actually, it's not just a detached lifestyle. They say,"My life sucks." In other words, they feel committed enough to the organization, but in a negative way. The third stage is where tribal members or members of staff are selfish, and they're really in it for themselves. They're finding ways to support their own cause internally and quite possibly make themselves look better by making others look worse. Their attitude is, "I'm great, but you're not." Stage four is where tribe members have a sense of shared values, and they're willing to share knowledge and collaborate with each other. They are still competing slightly with each other, but their competitive focus shifts to other tribes and other companies. They move from internal competition to external competition, which, of course, is a good situation in some respects. They're saying, "We're a great company, but they're not. Buy from us because we're good, but I wouldn't go there because they're bad." The last stage is where tribes attain what the authors call a rare level of innocent wonderment, where they say that the individuals within the organization apply themselves to the creation of things that no one has dreamt of yet, and are often incredibly successful. These tribes and the people within them say, "Life is great," and these people are solving what they believe to be a higher purpose, a problem bound into some deep and primal instincts. Although, it's a lot easier for individuals and for companies to be competitive with other companies and other individuals than it is for them to take on a larger, higher purpose challenge, such as changing the world and not merely their company or their industry. The point of the authors is that these stages can be managed, which is essentially a good thing. Pixar, Apple, and Tesla are companies that have a messianic desire, which really runs through the entire organization. It's not just these big companies. It's also smaller, owner-operated restaurants, for example. There are some great training companies that I've dealt with where the founders have imbued a sense of mission and purpose throughout the team, and that person has created a tribe around what they believe. In the same way Mark Bowness is creating with his, we create tribes. If we look at people like Tony Robbins, these people are creating tribal leaders and creating what Simon Sinek talks about in terms of why the organization exists. I personally think that we have to look upstream from that and look at who the leader is, because that creates the authenticity to the "why." If we look at Donald Trump, who says his purpose is to drain the swamp and to make a blue collar revolution in America, he's a billionaire, so the authenticity there for me is a stretch. Here we have a billionaire following what he is proposing as populist measures, so there's a disparity there between the life role and purpose of the of the tribal leader and the members of the tribe. Storification is the first part of the SPEAK|pr methodology, because who you are is very important. When my sister, Dr. Shelley James, was younger, she was knocked off a bicycle, and she suffered a head injury. As a result, she had issues with understanding color, and so she had to re-learn it. Later on in life, she studied it and got a PhD in color and how we interpret color through the mind. She could have had an academic fascination with color, but that's who she is. That's her story. That's her challenge of trying to reconnect her mind with color. She's an artist too, which created a special need for her, and that's a genuine part of her story. Now, when she now talks about light, people can understand why it's important to her and also resonate and connect with that meaning for her. When we're creating our own companies, how do we have people that have a shared history or a shared mission? Who are those people? This seems to be some of the characteristics of a great company built on a tribe of commonly driven people. It's the old adage now in business, and I've done this myself when I've hired people, where I'm more interested in who they are than what they know, because who they are, I can't change, while what they know, I can. So, part of what we want to think about when we're running our own businesses, and I think about this from a public relations point of view, is the way everybody in the organization behaves becomes the reality for the consumers, the partners, and also for the staff. Coming all the way back to that member of staff who said to me when I went to buy outdoor equipment that he'd stay another five minutes, because he was going to be paid for an extra five minutes, he was fine with that as opposed to saying, "I want to make sure that you get what you need." What they might have done around the brand's PR in the media isn't being translated into the experience in store, and I personally believe that public relations is greater than press releases. It's greater than the contact that we have with the media. It's all the touchpoints that we create with our company. Now, marketing is the act of telling stories about the things that we make, the stories that sell, and the stories that spread. It's important that we have stories with a narrative that are genuine. If we've got our tribe and we're building the tribe through the five different stages from apathy through to evangelism, how do we do that? From a communications point of view, we need to think about the platform we're going to use. If it's internal staff, which platforms can we use? In the SPEAK|pr Technology Applications Directory, I've listed over 100 platforms that can be used for communication. One of the core ones is face-to-face, whether that's now in a digital platform or if it's in a lockdown situation. Nevertheless, personal contact is going to be essential, in one way or another, to create a tribe. Another thing is about being consistent. The messaging that we want to be sharing must be consistent. The point of this is that if it's who you are, if the mission of the company is who you are, it's going to be consistent, because you're staying in line with your purpose and your sense of mission, posting content that is relevant and thought through. For my SPEAK|pr podcast, I always do some research in advance. I try not to just post things generally. I commit myself to six days a week, and I commit to making sure that it's researched and considered, because it's not fair to the listener if I just talk generally without preparation. That's not a value that I would like to share. Being candid is another part of sharing our values and creating a tribe. If we're a tribal leader, then we're going to need to be telling people, as we do in any situation, the good and the bad, because we need to prepare people for reality,. Categorizing your content with the use of hashtags, as I've talked about previously, is also key. Quality is important. Getting great images, great video, great audio are all really important, because then they're not a distraction for the audience. We should also credit the people who have shared the information we're using. It's important not to claim credit where credit shouldn't be claimed, but to give credit where it's due. This then leads me on to the next point about loyalty being earned and not given. People lead tribes, and they're given authority, because of what they say and how they behave. This is different to people who are appointed with authority. Often, we find the people who are the leaders of organizations are not necessarily the people with the title of leadership. We all know one or two people in an organization who get things done, who other people look to for answers, even though they may not have the job title or the responsibility given to them by the organization. Senator Bill Bradley from America defined a movement as having three elements. The first is a narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we're trying to build. The second is a connection between and among the leader and the tribe. The third is something to do. The fewer the elements, the better. In our methodology of storification, around the "Vision, But, Therefore," the tribal leader has the vision, but they also help to articulate the "but" or why there are challenges. They also envision and articulate the solution. Ultimately, tribal leaders are who people want to trust and follow. We even be a member of more than one tribe, like in our family and at work, and so we will have different roles to play. In communication terms, it's important to know which ones we're playing how and when, and which ways we can do that, so that the greater good of the organization is transferred across to everybody that needs to know about it.