I finished another book this weekend on my way to reading 9 books this year. The book I finished is "Tribes" by Seth Godin. This is an absolutely fabulous book for anyone trying to make their next move. It does a particularly good job dispelling the common belief that leaders are born.
A technique I have adopted from a book I read last year ("Love is the Killer App" by Tim Sanders), is cliffing which I use to share with you some of Seth's gems. I am very interested in your comments about these gems. In Tribes, Seth says;
- "Leaders have followers. Managers have employees. Managers make widgets. Leaders make change."
- "A crowd is a Tribe without a leader. A crowd is a Tribe without communication. Smart organizations assemble a tribe."
- "... by constantly touching a tribe of people with generosity and insight, she's earned the right to lead."
- "... in hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. - Dr. Lauence Peter (The Peter Principle)" "... in every organization everyone rises to the level at which they become paralyzed with fear. - Seth Godin"
- "If you work for someone...the actual cost of failure is absorbed by the organization, not by you." "What people are afraid of isn't failure, it's blame."
- "Leadership is a choice. It's a choice to not do nothing."
- "The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. The hardest think is to initiate."
- "Flynn Berry wrote that you should never use the word 'opportunity'. It is not an opportunity, it is an obligation."
- "The very nature of leadership is that you are not doing what's been done before. If you were, you'd be following, not leading."
- "Once you choose to lead, you'll be under huge pressure to reconsider your choice, to compromise, to dumb it down, or to give up... That's the world's job: to get you to be quiet and follow."
