سازماندهی و رهبری یک قبیله

CHAPTER TWENTY

Organizing and Leading a Tribe

It’s not your tribe

That’s the first thing I say to people who talk about the folks they’re lucky enough to work with and lead.

The tribe doesn’t belong to you, so you don’t get to tell the members what to do or to use them for your own aims.

If you’re fortunate, there’s a tribe that will listen to you and consider what you say.

If you’re lucky, they’ll interpret your words in a way that they believe will help them move the mission of the tribe forward, and you’ll get a chance to do it again.

And if you invest in them, they’ll show you what they want and what they need. You can gain empathy for them, understand their narrative, and serve them again.

The tribe would probably survive if you went away. The goal is for them to miss you if you did.

The power of now, not later

Marshall Ganz is the brilliant Harvard professor who has worked both with Cesar Chavez and Barack Obama. He has articulated a simple three-step narrative for action: the story of self, the story of us, and the story of now.

The story of self gives you standing, a platform from which to speak. When you talk about your transition—from who you used to be to who you became—you are being generous with us.

It’s not about catastrophizing your situation or the faux empathy of online vulnerability. Instead, the story of self is your chance to explain that you are people like us. That you did things like this. That your actions led to a change, one we can hear and see and understand.

The story of us is the kernel of a tribe. Why are we alike? Why should we care? Can I find the empathy to imagine that I might be in your shoes?

The story of us is about together, not apart. It explains why your story of self is relevant to us, and how we will benefit when we’re part of people like us.

And the story of now is the critical pivot. The story of now enlists the tribe on your journey. It’s the peer opportunity/peer pressure of the tribe that will provide the tension for all of us to move forward, together.

I was like you. I was in the desert. Then I learned something and now I’m here.

Of course, I am not alone. I did not do this alone and I see in you the very pain I saw in myself. Together, we can make this better.

But if we hesitate, or if we leave the others behind, it won’t work. The urgency of now requires that we do it together, without delay, without remorse, without giving in to our fear.

Story of self.

Story of us.

Story of now.

Here’s a simple example: “I used to be fifty pounds overweight. My health was in tatters and my relationships were worse. Then I discovered competitive figure skating. It was tough at first, but thanks to my new friends on the rink, I got to the point where it was fun. Within months, I had lost dozens of pounds, but more important, I felt good about myself.

“The real win for me, though, was the friendships I made. I discovered that not only did I feel terrific physically, but being out on the ice with people—old friends like you, and the new ones I made at the rink—made me feel more alive.

“I’m so glad you were willing to come to the rink today. I called ahead and they’ve reserved some rental skates for you . . .” In the first paragraph, we hear the story of our friend, a narrative of going from here to there.

In the second, we hear about how it changes our friend’s relationships, including to people like us.

And in the third, there’s a call to action, a reason to do something right now.

Manipulation is the tribe killer

In Rules for Radicals, noted labor organizer Saul Alinsky laid out thirteen principles that can be used in zero-sum game political settings to discourage and defeat enemies: “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.” “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”

“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”

“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

“A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”

“A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”

“Keep the pressure on.”

“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” “If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.” “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Alas, this approach is now often used by both sides on just about any issue, and it tears away at civil discourse. When you’re so sure you’re right that you’re willing to burn things down, it turns out that everyone is standing in a burning building sooner or later.

What happens if we reverse the rules?

“Put people to work. It’s even more effective than money.” “Challenge your people to explore, to learn, and to get comfortable with uncertainty.” “Find ways to help others on the path find firm footing.”

“Help others write rules that allow them to achieve their goals.” “Treat the others the way you’d want to be treated.”

“Don’t criticize for fun. Do it when it helps educate, even if it’s not entertaining.” “Stick with your tactics long after everyone else is bored with them. Only stop when they stop working.” “It’s okay to let the pressure cease now and then. People will pay attention to you and the change you seek when they are unable to consistently ignore it.” “Don’t make threats. Do or don’t do.”

“Build a team with the capacity and the patience to do the work that needs doing.” “If you bring your positive ideas to the fore, again and again, you’ll raise the bar for everyone else.” “Solve your own problems before you spend a lot of time finding problems for the others.” “Celebrate your people, free them to do even more, make it about the cohort, and invite everyone along. Disagree with institutions, not with people.” All thirteen of these principles get to the mission of the marketer. To engage with people and help them create the change they seek. To understand their worldviews and talk and act in ways that align with who they are and what they want. To connect people to one another in an infinite game of possibility.

Shared interests, shared goals, shared language

A tribe doesn’t have to have a leader, but it often is populated with people who share interests, goals, and language.

Your opportunity as a marketer is the chance to connect the members of the tribe. They’re lonely and disconnected, they fear being unseen, and you, as the agent of change, can make connection happen.

You can intentionally create cultural artifacts, to use status roles to elevate a costume, a series of code words, or even the secret handshake. You can be Betsy Ross and sew the flag (Betsy Ross herself, the very concept of Betsy Ross, is a symbol).

Don’t say it all, and don’t make it obvious. It’s fine that there are secret handshakes, Easter eggs, and unknown features. It’s fine that commitment and longevity earn an extra edge.

You can challenge the tribe to go further, encourage them to adopt goals, and push them forward. When Nike committed millions of dollars to Breaking2, a moonshot to break the two-hour mark on the marathon, they were engaging and challenging the tribe. Even if they don’t succeed, they (and the tribe members who organize around them) will come out ahead.

Most of all, the tribe is waiting for you to commit.

They know that most marketers are fly-by-night operators, knocking on doors and moving on. But some, some hunker down and commit. And in return, the tribe commits to them.

Because once you’re part of a tribe, your success is their success.

It will fade if you let it

There’s the hope that you can spin up a movement and then get out of the way as it takes on a life of its own.

A vision that once you cross the local chasm, you’ll become a permanent part of the culture and can move on to the next challenge.

In fact, that rarely happens.

There are always new ideas beckoning the early adopters. They’re on the prowl, and they’ll be the first to leave.

But those who admire the status quo might leave as well, once the tension is gone. They might have embraced your restaurant, your software, or your spiritual movement for a while, but the original status quo, the one they walked away from, persists as well, and without persistent and consistent inputs and new tension, they’ll show up a bit less for you.

There’s a half-life at work. For any tribal behavior that’s not energetically maintained, half of the activity will disappear. Every day, every month, every year—it’s not clear what the half-life for a given movement is, but you can expect that it will fade.

The alternative is to reinvest. To have the guts to sit with those you have instead of always being distracted to chase the next thing.

The best marketers are farmers, not hunters. Plant, tend, plow, fertilize, weed, repeat. Let someone else race around after shiny objects.

Take a room in town

Zig Ziglar was a door-to-door salesman of pots and pans. In the 1960s, this was a thing.

Most of the three thousand representatives in his company followed the same plan. They filled their cars with samples and hit the road. They’d visit a town, make all the easy sales, then get in the car and drive to the next town.

Early adopters, as we’ve seen, are easier to find and easier to sell to.

Zig had a different strategy.

He got in his car, found a new town, and moved in. He took a room for weeks at a time. He showed up and kept showing up.

Sure, he made the same early adopter sales as everyone else. But then people noticed he didn’t leave like all the other salespeople that they’d seen before. He stayed.

By continuing to organize demonstration dinners, he got to know the people in town. He might engage with someone in the middle of the curve five or six or seven times over the course of a month.

Which is precisely what this sort of person wants before they make a decision.

Zig did the math. He understood that while most salespeople would flee when they hit the chasm, he could build a human bridge. There’d be days with no sales at all, but that’s okay, because after crossing the local chasm, the volume would more than make up for the time invested.

The easy sales aren’t always the important ones.