Tribes by Seth Godin
In fact the message is not a new one. When you look at John Kottter's work on change, he has been a strong advocate for leadership throughout the organization, not defined by the function of the person but by his passion. And that is exactly what Godin brings us. The nice thing about this book is that it is not a concept book, no dry theory. It is rather packed with small anecdotes. Small examples of people who did make a change. And especially in areas that we (or at least I) don't know so well. Small niches, in which people take the lead. They find their passion and model it into a community. This really makes you think, what about me? Do I have a passion in my niche that I can transform into a community. And in fact I do: changing projects. So I am looking forward to bring this in practice ...
On this same topic of leadership, I read an article this week-end in a newspaper about the lady that develops Fille d'O lingerie. She goes even as far as making claiming that we all have to take back our own personal leadership, in such areas as our view of our own body (she says we need to get this back from the fashion industry) and even of our own sexual life (which again is heavily influenced by the media).
Of course Godin takes up where Kotter has left. Since he is talking about the leadership in a tribe (a niche so to speak) he details how to tackle this, how to use tools on the web like Facebook or Twitter, or Ning to create ones own tribe and maintain it. A couple of rules he uses: lead, get people involved, make sure they come back to share the passion. Then he differs between leaders who organize and hold the space and those who create the space for the tribe and then sit back. Funily this is relates to a discussion we had recently on how a good facilitator (like for an open space) should behave: he should not only open the space but then make sure it is maintained, which is a fine line with overcrowding the space.


