Notes from Tribal Leadership

This is a book I really Enjoyed.
If you pick it up I think you will find it very informative.


Every company, indeed, every organization, is a tribe, or if it’s large enough, a network of tribes—groups of twenty to 150 people in which everyone knows everyone else, or at least knows of everyone else. Tribes are more powerful than teams, companies, or even CEOs, and yet their key leverage points have not been mapped—until now. In Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright show leaders how to assess their organization’s tribal culture on a scale from one to five and then implement specific tools to elevate the stage to the next. The result is unprecedented success.

In a rigorous ten-year study of approximately 24,000 people in more than two dozen corporations, Logan, King, and Fischer-Wright refine and define a common theme: the success of a company depends on its tribes, the strength of its tribes is determined by the tribal culture, and a thriving corporate culture can be established by an effective tribal leader. Tribal Leadership will show leaders how to employ their companies’ tribes to maximize productivity and profit: the authors’ research, backed up with interviews ranging from Brian France (CEO of NASCAR) to “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, shows that more than three quarters of the organizations they’ve studied have tribal cultures that are merely adequate, no better than the third of five tribal stages.

The authors explain exactly what Tribal Leadership is, and offer a wealth of “technical notes” which explain how to implement the leadership system in any culture. They also offer coaching tips and a “cheat sheet” that provides the key action steps to building great tribes—including how to identify a tribe’s language and customs, how to move yourself forward while moving your people, and how to build a support network. “The goal is to give you the perspective and tools of a Tribal Leader,” the authors write. “The result is more effective workplaces, greater strategic success, less stress, and more fun. In short, the point of this book is for you to build a better organization in which the best people want to work and make an impact.”

TRIBAL LEADERSHIP details each of the five tribal stages and helps readers identify which actions affect it and which strategies will enable the tribe to upgrade to the next level. The authors discuss how each stage has a unique set of leverage points and why it is critical to understand them—more than three quarters of the organizations they studied have tribal cultures that are adequate at best. The five stages include:

• Stage One: The stage most professionals skip, these are tribes whose members are despairingly hostile—they may create scandals, steal from the company, or even threaten violence.

• Stage Two: The dominant culture for 25 percent of workplace tribes, this stage includes members who are passively antagonistic, sarcastic, and resistant to new management initiatives.

• Stage Three: 49 percent of workplace tribes are in this stage, marked by knowledge hoarders who want to outwork and outthink their competitors on an individual basis. They are lone warriors who not only want to win, but need to be the best and brightest.

• Stage Four: The transition from “I’m great” to “we’re great” comes in this stage where the tribe members are excited to work together for the benefit of the entire company.

• Stage Five: Less than 2 percent of workplace tribal culture is in this stage when members who have made substantial innovations seek to use their potential to make a global impact.

The authors also offer an in-depth look at Tribal Leadership strategies, and discuss how leaders can identify the tribe’s core values and the noble causes to which they aspire. They then explain how to use those principles along with the tribe’s inherent assets and behaviors to foster success based on the tribe’s goals and objectives. As the authors explain, once the tribe sets its strategy based on these factors, a palpable sense of excitement begins to emerge. “Every member of the tribe knows exactly how to succeed and what each person must do to make the tribe effective,” they write. “That’s the promise of tribal strategy.”

Leaders, managers, and organizations that fail to understand, motivate, and grow their tribes will find it impossible to succeed in an increasingly fragmented world of business. The often counterintuitive findings of Tribal Leadership will help leaders at today’s major corporations, small businesses, and nonprofits learn how to take the people in their organization from adequate to outstanding, to discover the secrets that have led the highest-level tribes to remarkable heights, and to find new ways to succeed where others have failed.

A Vision and a Dream…..Truth is in the Custard.

The other night we went out to a restaurant that just opened here, two locations, and we decided to give them a try.  Can you say major disappointed.. that is putting it mildly? I looked at the restaurant website and have had friends back east rave about it. So I decided to let it rest after it opened, and figured it would be safe, first, it was 5:30pm on a Friday night, bad move, but it was close by so we went.

What I thought having never been to one was one thing, it was like having a bad dream, and waking up to realize that it is real.  I thought we be seated, it was just open seating, and it was packed, I secured seats, had my 9 & 11 year olds sit, while I went with my wife to order, the menu was hard to read, and the order taker didn’t read back the order, (hence the missed bacon on 3 cheeseburgers) I thought it would be in baskets, it was in paper boats, there was only 1 service station, and had only mustard & ketchup in pumps, and no plastic cutlery, but it came with dinners of some, (I didn’t get a spoon with my shake)..Hmm…and their French fries left a lot to be desired. A runner brings your order to the table, and no follow up like at Whataburger…My burger was uneventful, if I was in college, there wasn’t enough to write home about. They need to work with their staff, we might go back, but if I wanted just a burger, I rather go to Fudd’s or Whataburger, or Carl’s Jr. or In & Out, Five Guys was great, expensive, but lived up to the hype.

 In a market where they aren’t known they didn’t do a good enough job letting you know what to expect…The burger was good, but the bun wasn’t big enough to hold it all together, I may be picky, but to give them credit where it’s due, the shake was good, and their private label root beer was great, I should have gotten a float. Maybe we will go back after all…

Evolution and Change The Flintstones and the Jetsons.

This is where technology meets the airwaves.  Our house has an old rotary phone in the kitchen on the wall, we never use it, rarely, we answer it when we’re in the kitchen, that’s about it, the rest of the house has 4 cordless phones.  We had a power surge the other night and lo and behold the phone was dead, we troubleshot it in the house, and when we checked the wall phone, since it never goes out, it was out. So I called a 1-800 # and put in a repair ticket, the gentleman told me it would be repaired with 24 hours by 8pm the next day, so I checked through out the day, and nada…so I did a courtesy call at 5 pm, and was informed by a 2^nd gentleman that the ticket was in the hopper, slated for 7:30 pm, with 2 calls in front of it. Another follow up call in the morning, and a chat with Traci in Iowa, supposedly it is first in line this morning.  We’ll see…The funny thing is that the second gentleman I spoke with asked what type of phone, I told him an old rotary, and he told me it could be the problem, and that the wiring may need to be replaced, I know that the house was built in 1968, and like everything else, it needs to be updated to stay with technology.

We had this conversation after dinner, and somehow it led to evolution and how our bodies are in the same boat. 40 is the new 30, right, The boys had dentist appointments last week, and my 11 year old had 2 baby teeth left to fall out and it will be soon, so you get your permanent teeth by 12 and live to 90, back in the day, you lived until 50. Using just the teeth, you probably need 3 sets of teeth to last your whole life, I know that there are bridges, and dentures; It’s like keeping up with technology. Look where TV’s have gone in 60 years, where cell phones have evolved from the big brick phone. Like everything else in hospitality from service, Ipads,  Open Table, In the old days it paid to know the Maitre’d…literally…the old handtip…Maitre’d handshake…It all changes in a blink of an eye…In the end it’s still food on a plate, it just depends on how it’s ordered and presented.

On a footnote the Tech that fixed the problem, which was in a switchbox almost half a mile away, we talked about his stay and experience while staying at The Talking Stick Resort & Casino in Scottsdale, he told me how nice the spa was, how nice his room was, he got a great rate on off days, and the food was better priced and better quality than his previous stays in Vegas. Now I suppose we’re going to have to check it out..