Words

Just finished reading Tribal Leadership, and excited to have learned a bit of organizational knowledge. According to the book, there are 5 stages of a tribe:

1. Alienated - Life sucks
2. Separate - My life sucks
3. Personal - I’m great
4. Partnership - We’re great
5. Team - Life’s great

The trick is to recognize where your tribe (e.g. team, company, group, etc…) is currently, and try to elevate it, stage by stage, to the greatness of stages 4 and 5. Definitely easier said than done, but it’s worthwhile if you and your team want to do something significant in the world. I’m looking forward to seeing how this can be applied in my own personal organizational settings at LinkedIn.

From Clarence B. Jones, the lawyer of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Behind the Dream:

Even those who knew they would never live to see the needle budge a millimeter in favor of Negroes, let alone make it to “the Promised Land,” were there, fighting for those on down the line. This was one important key to The Movement, out in the open but invisible to most who opposed us: It was never about me now, it was always about someone someday. It could not have worked otherwise.

We could all challenge ourselves to live more for somone someday.