There are three things that I love: Books, Sports, and Social Media. Depending on the day that order may vary, but the three always stay the same. Seth Godin has long been known in the marketing circles for his fresh take on leadership, content, marketing, and life. This is the first book of his that I read, and I have to say it was hard to turn a page without highlighting some quote or idea that I wanted to remember for later. From those quotes I narrowed it down to 8 main themes that I wanted this presentation to focus on. I hope you enjoy the 8 Lessons I Learned from Seth Godin's Tribes.
8 Lessons from Seth Godin's Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us
1.
2. “The secret of leadership is simple: Do
what you believe in. Paint a picture of the
future. Go there. People will follow.”
“More than anyone else in an organization, it's the person who's
challenging the status quo, the one who is daring to be great,
who is truly present and not just punching a clock who must
have confidence in her beliefs. Can you imagine Steve Jobs
showing up for the paycheck? It's nice to get paid. It's essential
to believe.”
“If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have
either. Part of leadership is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time.
Long enough that the critics realize that you're going to get there one way or
another...so they follow.”
Believe In What You Do
3. “Senator Bill Bradley defines a movement as having three elements: (1) A
narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we're trying to build.
(2) A connection between and among the leader and the tribe. (3) Something to
do - the fewer limits the better. Too often organizations fail to do anything but the
third.”
“None of these stalls are appropriate for a
leader in search of change. There's a small
price for being too early, but a huge penalty for
being too late. The longer you wait to launch
an innovation, the less your effort is worth. “
Create a Movement
“It's not
time”
“Take it
easy”
“Wait
and see”
“It's
someone
else's turn”
4. “The secret of being wrong
isn't to avoid being wrong!
The secret is being willing
to be wrong. The secret is
realizing that wrong isn't
fatal. The only thing that
makes people and
organizations great is their
willingness to be not great
along the way. The desire
to fail on the way to
reaching a bigger goal is
the untold secret of
success.”
“Perfect is an illusion, one that was created to maintain the status quo. The
Six Sigma charade is largely about hiding from change, because change is
never perfect. Change means reinvention, and until something is
reinvented, we have no idea what the spec is.”
Failure isn’t Fatal
5. “If the only side effect of the criticism
is that you will feel bad about the
criticism, then you have to compare
that bad feeling with the benefits
you'll get from actually doing
something worth doing. Being
remarkable is exciting, fun,
profitable, and great for your career.
Feeling bad wears off. Once you've
compared the bad feeling and the
benefits, and you've sold yourself on
taking the remarkable path, answer
this one: How can I create something
that critics will criticize?”
“Remarkable visions and genuine
insights are always met with
resistance. And when you start to
make progress, your efforts are met
with even more resistance. Products,
services, career paths - whatever it is,
the forces for mediocrity will align to
stop you, forgiving no errors and
never backing down until it's over. If it
were any other way, it would be easy.
And if it were any other way,
everyone would do it and your work
would ultimately be devalued. The yin
and yang are clear: without people
pushing against your quest to do
something worth talking about, it's
unlikely to be worth the journey.
Persist.”
Seek Criticism & Persist
6. “Life's too short" is repeated often enough to be a cliché,
but this time it's true. You don't have enough time to be
both unhappy and mediocre. It's not just pointless, it's
painful. Instead of wondering when your next vacation is,
maybe you ought to set up a life you don't need to escape
from.”
No Escape
7. “A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is
acceptable to his religion before he explores it. As opposed to
a curious person who explores first then considers whether or
not he wants to accept the ramifications.”
“Successful heretics create
their own religions....You can
recognize the need for faith in
your idea, you can find the tribe
you need to support you, and
yes, you can create a new
religion around your faith. Steve
Jobs did it on purpose at Apple
and Phil Knight is famous for
doing it at Nike.”
Create your own Religion
8. “What most people want in
a leader is something
that's very difficult to find:
we want someone who
listens...The secret,
Reagan's secret, is to
listen, to value what you
hear, and then to make a
decision even if it
contradicts the very
people you are listening
to. Reagan impressed his
advisers, his adversaries,
and his voters by actively
listening. People want to
be sure you hear what
they said - they're less
focused on whether or not
you do what they said.”
Listen!!!
9. “Real leaders don't care [about receiving credit]. If
it's about your mission, about spreading the faith,
about seeing something happen, not only do you
not care about credit, you actually want other people
to take credit...There's no record of Martin Luther
King, Jr. or Gandhi whining about credit. Credit isn't
the point. Change is.”
Take No Credit
10. Buy the Book
Chapters / Indigo
Amazon Canada
Amazon US
Barnes & Noble
Seth’s Website