Your Team is Your Tribe

Seth Godin is an author/marketing guru that I’ve read for years. His latest book Tribes explores the relationship between groups and leaders and good leaders are successful marketers/business persons. I haven’t read the book yet but I did read this E-book he published which explores questions prompted by the subject. I found it to be very relevant to the small dynamic of the dental office. On a larger scale, we can also be seen as tribal leaders in our community.

As leaders and members of small offices – our own tribes – we look to one or two of the members to be leaders. We need them to be leaders. Here’s an example of one of the questions:

What are the top mistakes leaders make that kill their tribes?

Mistakes are not terrible and mistakes will not necessarily kill your tribe. The key is to recognize that you have made a mistake, learn from it, and not repeat it. When a leader focuses so much energy on not making a mistake to begin with, it creates stress for the leader and the tribe, which leads to hard feelings and lack of enthusiasm. This emotional turbulence can kill a tribe sooner than any mistake could.

Characteristics and actions in a leader that can lead to the death of the tribe include:
• Inability to learn from a mistake
• Pitting members against one another
• Forgetting that a tribe has a life of its own rather than existing as an extension of the leader
• Not delegating (“I am the start and finish of all decisions.”)
• Making decisions based on personal agenda rather than on tribal agenda
• Thinking they cannot learn from their members and worse, thinking they know everything
• Conversely, being too passive and standing by as factions form and turf wars take place
• Allowing drama to exist by
• Devoting time, energy, and resources to deal with personal issues or conflicts
• Passively allowing these activities to exist even if they don’t take part

“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

Click here to read ‘Tribes: Q&A’ – click the answer buttons to skip to the relevant question/answer.

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