Tribal leadership is an interesting concept about large
groups that exist within organizations (both companies and non-profit
groups). Tribe is the term the authors
chose, and has nothing to do with native Americans or African tribes or the
like. “Tribes” are groups of
20-150. Below 20 is where you have
teams. And when a group goes over 150,
will split into 2 tribes. So smaller organizations
may comprise one tribe, whereas larger organizations may have 2 or 3 or more
tribes.
So what is your “tribe”?
It’s more than just your circle of friends. It’s the group of people you work with at your
company or in the organizations you are in.
It’s the people you probably have in your contact list (phone or email). Your ‘circle of acquaintances’, which is more
than just your friends. As the authors
put it, if you met them on the street, you’d at least say “hi” to them.
This is all covered in the book
Tribal Leadership by Dave
Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright (2008, paperback edition in 2011
with new intro and afterward). They have
a website:
www.triballeadership.net
.
There are some good videos on YouTube
that explain this concept, but these should be used as an introduction, not as
a replacement for reading the book. The
TED video is a good intro, and for a longer overview take a look at the Google
talk or the Rypple video:
The authors speak of 5 stages of tribes and the people in
them. Each stage has certain
characteristics. They speak of a theme of each stage, which is illustrated by a certain phrase. There is a mood of people at each stage and
how they work together (or not). People
can move up the different stages, so it’s both a function of the attitude of
the individuals, and their leader(s) as to what kind of tribe it is, sometimes
it’s the ‘system’ (corporate culture) the people are a part of that defines the
stage you’re in (leave that system and you can level that stage). And, yes, people can move down in stages as
well. Someone with a Stage 1 attitude
who comes into a higher stage tribe will either be changed or removed. The efforts of a leader can transform a lower
stage tribe to a higher one, but the members of the tribe also need to be
willing to change.
What then are these 5 stages?
Stage 1 is marked by the attitude “life sucks”. Only about 2% of groups operate here. This is the stage of criminals and gangs, a
group of hostile people. In a company,
this would be a group that is stealing from the company or the like.
Stage 2 is a big step up from Stage 1. Its theme is “MY life sucks”, a little
different. About 25% of groups are
here. This is the type of group you see
on The Office or when you visit the department of motor vehicles. People don’t care, and it shows. In many cases, this has been caused by the
culture of the group. People have been
beat down. No among of touchy-feely
stuff like team building exercises, motivational posters, or the like will
change things.
Stage 3 is the dominant culture of groups, with 49% of
groups being here. Its theme is “I’m
great”, with the unspoken completion of “and you’re not”. This is where you have a group of experts,
who do not work together (and why should they?
Each one feels that “I’m great, and you’re not”), and so it’s a culture
of the ‘lone warrior’ (“oh, I had to do all this work, because no one else can
do it. After all, I’m great, and you’re
not”). Everyone is in it to win it for
themselves. Again, the system these people are in is what
causes this attitude. It’s not
necessarily that people are selfish or the like, but the system they are in
causes them to be this way.
One big characteristic of this stage is the relationship
between people. It’s always between two
people. The authors use the term “dyadic”
for this. But the relationship is a
negative one. This is not a
mentor/mentee relationship or a partnership.
Here the two-way relationship is more of a leader and a follower, where
the follower is told what to do and only given limited amount of
information. If a leader has several
followers, then the relationship still is between the leader and each
individual follower, there is no teamwork, there is no connection between the
different followers. If you chart the
relationships, you get a wheel/spoke, instead of an interconnected web. This is an important point, as changing this
is an important factor in moving a group to Stage 4.
As noted, the largest group of tribes are at this
stage. A perfect example of this is the
movie “Office Space”. Lumbergh, the
manager, is the classic example of the “stage 3 boss”. All his underlings are weak Stage 3 or Stage
2. Stage 3 bosses prefer weak Stage 3
people or Stage 2 people, as they can dominate them. The character of Milton is at Stage 2, who
is pushed back to Stage 1 by Lumbergh.
And you see the result of this.
Stage 4 is next, and it’s a huge jump for Stage 3. Here the theme is “we’re great”, with the
unspoken completing being “and they’re not”.
This is actually the stage that tribal leadership should be trying to
move people to (I’ll explain why shortly).
About 22% of groups are here. And
it can be very difficult to get here, both for the leader and for the
followers. The leader needs to move
beyond the “I’m great” attitude, and think in terms of what is best for the
group. But once done, it’s the place to
be.
The concept of “they’re not” is that usually Stage 4 tribes
have a “rival” they are ‘fighting’ against.
For companies, it could be the competition, in colleges, it’s a rival
college. For tribes at Stage 4 to move
to Stage 5, this rival needs to be more abstract. So for a pharmaceutical company, their rival
is not the competition so much as diseases.
Stage 5 is the final stage.
Here the theme is “LIFE is great”.
Unlike in Stage 4, there is no attitude of an ‘enemy’ to fight per say. But one thing that is pointed out is that
this stage is unstable. What you want as
a goal is to get to Stage 4, and move the group at times into Stage 5. But in Stage 5, great things happen.
Servant leadership & tribal leadership
In learning about tribal leadership, I wondered where (or
even if) servant leadership fits in. The
authors make no mention of it, and I have no idea if they know about it. But in going over things, and the aspects of
leaders in the different stages, it seems clear to me that the leaders of stage
4 & 5 tribes are likely to be servant leaders. Servant leaders in stage 1, 2, 3 tribes would
be working hard to get their tribe up to stage 4 & 5. Now, this doesn't mean that a stage 4/5
leader is automatically a servant leader, but most likely they will be. If you read the book, it’s also clear that
the “stage 3 boss” is a leader-first leader, the opposite of the servant
leader.
As many of us are involved in large groups, this work has
value. I first learned of it from
Toastmasters when they ran an article in the August, 2011 issue of the
Toastmasters magazine. And they had
the main author speak at their International Convention in 2011 and they gave
out copies to people. As I look around in many of my groups, I do
see a lot of Stage 3 tribes. I do see
attempts at creating Stage 4 tribes. And
I see Stage 3 tribes that the boss is trying to disguise as Stage 4. This is actually something the authors warn
about: the fake Stage 4.
An example of this is in the Rypple video. This quote was given: “Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead. I've heard it before
and agree. I've seen great things done
in many of the organizations I am part of, lead by people with a vision for
something better. This is an example of
a stage 4/5 leader. But author David Logan has this corollary: “Never doubt
that a small group of thoughtless, uncommitted people can prevent the world
from changing. Indeed, they do so every
day.” (he says that 70% of tribes do this.)
And sadly, I've too often seen this.
Someone trying to make a change, but is stopped by others in the
organization because they lack the vision or want to come up with some reason to
stop it or just don’t want change. What
is especially sad is that too often the people doing the blocking wrap
themselves in the rhetoric of the Stage 4 leader or a servant leader, which in
my mind means they really don’t understand the concepts.
A great concept and I encourage all leaders to check it out.
