Tribal Leadership recommendation

This book is really what I want our non-profit and our teams and programs to be about.  It puts into words and in a framework a lot of what I buy into.  It is the reason why I guess I do a lot of the things I do without thinking about it or verbalizing it.  (I was telling someone one of the quotes from the book with a "Well, duh" comment -- and her comment is that my "well, duh" actions aren't "well, duh" by most people...).

So -- if you want to see where I'd like to head, here it is -- definitely worth at least watching the Ted Talk (linked on the website) but I think worth reading the entire book.  I'd like to recommend it for all our highschool students as well.  It explains some of the challenges some of the outside teams we're working with are facing, and explains some of the challenges of working with different mentors who buy into different aspects.  It's the reason I think we had the split with some of the our team members in April -- core values, different stages of what's important -- and was behind some of the big discussions with one of the families who left the organization.

Tribal Leadership:  Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization

And the website:

http://www.triballeadership.net/

Key ideas:

Organizations/teams/tribes are at different stages, depending on where the individuals are in their own mindset.  Individuals go through their own process and stages.  The only way a tribe moves up the stages is to have most of their people go through the stages as well -- and change the language of the tribe.  Language is huge (like the sarcasm we kept hearing on our team in April).

Stage 1:  Life sucks

• Mostly those without hope

Stage 2:  My life sucks 

• Where many school-aged students are, Dilbert cartoons, people at the DMV, those people who talk about what "corporate's doing" as the enemy
• Everyone else's life is better but my boss/parents/teachers/government make my life worse and we can bond through that message
• Little initiative, little urgency, reluctance to do things

Stage 3:  I'm great 

• Promoted and rewarded in school -- get individual A's, do better for yourself
• Over half of corporations in the world, most of the leadership/business books/training focus on this stage -- how to get ahead, how to make yourself better, how to create your own value and be better than other people doing the same thing
• Most universities -- people working to further their own scientific expertise
• This stage is important so people have been through that power and feel successful 

Stage 4:  We're great 

• Our team has the opportunity to be here -- not about individuals, but about working together for a bigger purpose -- language focuses on "we" instead of "I" -- benefit of shared information, shared communication, shared norming, shared core values 
• Fewer than 1/4 of the corporations/businesses
• Stage 4 people/leaders have to go through Stage 3 before getting to Stage 4 so they have to feel they have some value they bring to the group
• Instead of banding against "the boss" or someone with power, or competing against each other, it's having a common foe -- "being a better team than...?"

Stage 5:  Life's great

• This is not a stable stage -- but Stage 4 teams can go in and out of Stage 5.
• This is where history's made, where life changing occurs, where the greater good happens.
• This is what we achieved with the summer cross-team training (in my mind, anyway -- maybe not in the minds of most of our students)

Key aspects:

• The tribe's stage is based on where the individuals in the tribe are -- mostly Stage 4, then the team will be at Stage 4.  A few vocal ones at Stage 2, and the whole team could drop to a Stage 2... 
• Language used is critical -- and you can tell the stage of the team and individual by the language you hear
• Core values are critical -- alignment but not necessarily agreement.  If people are aligned on defined core values, they have a place to discuss agreement and disagreement with implementation based on those values.
• Building the tribe is more important than building the "what" -- if you build the tribe and the core values, the rest will follow

So -- if you read it, let me know... I'm just itching to talk it over with people who have read it.