20: What Tribe Are You In?
In this episode, Tricia and Rob talk about daily life as experienced within the concept of tribes, as explained in the writing of author Dave Logan in his book, Tribal Leadership.
We tend to associate ourselves into tribes based on the decisions we make: the cars we choose to drive, the type of music we prefer, whether we prefer a Mac or a PC. According to Logan, we even have “work” tribes, based on the kind of work that we do and the attitude we have while doing it.
To launch this discussion, Rob shares his “take-aways” from Logan’s book, Tribal Leadership:
Level 1: Life Sucks. This tribe is often found in a gang or prison culture.
Level 2: My Life Sucks. Some people are succeeding and happy, but I am not.
Level 3: I Am Great and You’re Not. You’re not as good as me.
Level 4: We Are Great and They Are Not. “We” have it figured it out. Everyone else is not great.
Level 5: Life Is Great. Including those who see life differently than we do. Let’s all be great together.
Most of us seem to live our daily lives moving between Levels 2, 3, and 4. When we do reach Level 5, it’s hard to stay there for long.
The Good News? You really can reach Level 4 consistently and even Level 5. You can.
The Bad News? You can’t skip a step.
“You have to keep fueling fire, keep adding to it. It’s hard to keep adding things that you hate, finding more and more in common with others who hate so that you can hate together. But if we build our relationships on the things that we both feel positively and passionate about, that is life-giving. And life-giving things are self-perpetuating.” – Tricia
“There is a point where you cannot feel any sadder. But there is no limit to joy.” – Rob
“Rarely do we have ‘bad days.’ Often we have a bad 45 minutes! And when you have a bad 45 minutes, give yourself 15 minutes to say, ‘Oh man, that was terrible.’ But then you have the capacity to turn it around and change it.” – Rob
You can be in more than one tribe—not everything is binary! You can drink Pepsi and like Mac—both of those can be true!
Today’s discussion question: What tribe are you proud to be part of, because it is life-giving?
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Logan, Dave. Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization.