The tribes we lead Seth Godin

[Music]

so sometimes I get invited to give weird

talks I got invited to speak to the

people who dress up in big stuffed

animal costumes to perform its sporting

events unfortunately I couldn’t go but

it got me thinking about the fact that

these guys at least most of them know

what it is that they do for a living

what they do is they dress up as stuffed

animals and entertain people at sporting

events shortly after that I got invited

to speak at the convention of the people

who make balloon animals and again I

couldn’t go but it’s a fascinating group

they make balloon animals there’s a big

schism between the ones who make gospel

animals and porn animals but they do a

lot of really cool stuff with balloon

sometimes we get in trouble but not

often and the other thing about these

guys is they also know what they do for

a living

they make balloon animals but what do we

do for a living what exactly do the

people watching this do every day and I

want to argue that what we do is we try

to change everything that we try to find

a piece of the status quo something that

bothers us something that needs to be

improved something that’s eating to be

changed and we change it and we try to

make big permanent important change but

we don’t think about it that way and we

haven’t spent a lot of time talking

about what that process is like and I’ve

been studying it for a couple years and

I want to share a couple stories with

you today first about a guy named Nathan

Winograd Nathan was the number two

person at the San Francisco SPCA and

what you may not know about the history

of the SPCA is it was founded to kill

dogs and cats cities gave them a charter

to get rid of the stray animals on the

street and destroy them and in a typical

year four million dogs and cats were

killed most of them within 24 hours of

being scooped off the street Nathan and

his boss saw this and they could not

tolerate it so they set out to make San

Francisco a no-kill City create an

entire city wherever

dog and cat unless it was ill or

dangerous would be adopted not killed

and everyone said it was impossible

Nathan his boss went to the City Council

to get a change in the ordinance and

people from SPCA s and humane shelters

from around the country flew to San

Francisco to testify against them to say

it would hurt the movement and it was

inhumane they persisted and Nathan went

directly to the community he connected

with people who cared about this

non-professionals people with passion

and within just a couple years San

Francisco became the first no-kill city

running no deficit completely supported

by the community Nathan left and went to

Tompkins County New York a place as

different from San Francisco as you can

be and still be the United States and he

did it again he went from being a

glorified dog catcher to completely

transforming the community and then he

went to North Carolina and did it again

and he went to Reno and he did it again

and when I think about what Nathan did

and I think about people here do I think

about ideas and I think about the idea

that creating an idea spreading an idea

has a lot behind it and I don’t know if

you’ve ever been to a Jewish wedding but

what they do is they take a light bulb

and they smash it now there’s a bunch of

reasons for that and stories about it

but one reason is because it indicates a

change from before to after it’s a

moment in time and I want to argue that

we are living through and are right at

the key moment of a change in the way

ideas are created and spread and

implemented we started with the factory

idea that you could change the whole

world if you had an efficient factory

that could turn out change we then went

to the TV idea that said if you had a

big enough mouthpiece if you can get on

TV enough times if you could buy enough

ads you could win and now we’re in this

new model of leadership where the way we

make change is not by using money or

power to lever a system but by leading

so let me talk about the three cycles

the first one is the factory cycle Henry

Ford

comes up with a really cool idea it

enables him to hire men who used to get

paid 50 cents a day and pay him five

dollars a day because he’s got an

efficient in a factory well with that

sort of advantage you can churn out a

lot of cars you can make a lot of change

you can get roads built you can change

the fabric of an entire country that the

essence of what you’re doing is you need

ever cheaper labor and ever faster

machines and the problem we’ve run into

is we’re running out of both ever

cheaper labor and ever faster machines

so we shift gears for a minute and say I

know television advertising push push

take a good idea and push it on the

world I have a better mousetrap and if I

can just get enough money to tell enough

people I’ll sell enough and you can

build an entire industry on that if

necessary you can put babies in your ads

if necessary you can use babies to sell

other stuff and if babies don’t work you

can use doctors but be careful because

you don’t want to get an unfortunate

juxtaposition when you’re talking about

one thing instead of the other this

model requires you to act like the king

like the person in the front of the room

throwing things to the peons in the back

now you are in charge and you’re going

to tell people what to do next that you

know the quick little diagram of it is

you’re up here and you are pushing it

out to the world

this method mass marketing requires

average ideas because you’re going to

the masses and plenty of ads what we’ve

done as spammers is trying to hypnotize

everyone into buying our idea hypnotize

everyone into donating to our cause

hypnotize everyone into voting for our

candidate and unfortunately it doesn’t

work so well anymore either

but there is good news around the corner

really good news I call it the idea of

tribes what tribes are is a very simple

concept that goes back fifty thousand

years it’s about leading and connecting

people and ideas and it’s something that

people have wanted forever lots of

people are used to having a spiritual

tribe or a church tribe having a work

tribe having a community tribe but now

thanks to the internet thanks to the

explosion of mass media thanks to a lot

of other things that are bubbling

through our society around the world

tribes are everywhere the internet was

supposed to homogenize everyone by

connecting us all instead what it’s

allowed is silos of interest so you got

the Red Hat ladies over here you got the

Red Hat triathletes over there you’ve

got the organized armies over here you

got the disorganized rebels over here

you got people in white hats making food

and people in white hats sailing boats

the point is that you can find Ukrainian

folk dancers and connect with them

because you want to be connected that

people on the fringes can find each

other connect and go somewhere every

town that has a volunteer fire

department understands this way of

thinking

now it turns out this is a legitimate

non photoshopped photo people I know who

are firemen told me that this is not

uncommon and that what firemen do to

Train sometimes is they take a house

that’s going to be torn down and they

burn it down instead in practice putting

it out but they always stop and take a

picture so you know the pirate tribe is

a fascinating one they got thrown flag

they got the eye patches you can tell

when you’re running into someone in a

tribe and it turns out that it’s tribes

not money not factories that can change

our world that can change politics that

can align large numbers of people not

because you force them to do something

against their will but because they

wanted to connect that what we do for a

living now all of us I think is find

something worth changing and then

assemble tribes that assemble tribes

that spread the idea and spread the idea

and it becomes something far bigger than

ourselves it becomes a movement so when

Al Gore set out to change the world

again he didn’t do it by himself and he

didn’t do it by buying a lot of ads he

did it by creating a movement thousands

of people around the country who could

give his presentation for him because he

can’t be in 100 or 200 or 500 cities in

each night you don’t need everyone what

Kevin Kelley has taught us is you just

need I don’t know a thousand true fans a

thousand people who care enough that

they will get you the next round and the

next round and the next one that means

that the idea you create the product you

create the movement you create isn’t for

everyone it’s not a mass thing that’s

not what this is about what it’s about

instead is finding the true believers

it’s easy to look at what I’ve said so

far as I wait a minute I don’t have what

it takes to be that kind of leader

so here are two leaders they don’t have

a lot in common they’re about the same

age but that’s about it what they did

though is each in their own way

created a different way of navigating

your way through technology so some

people would go out and get people to be

on one team and some people get people

to be on the other team it also informs

the decisions you make when you make

products or services you know this is

one of my favorite devices but what a

shame that it’s not organized to help

authors create movements what would

happen if when you’re using your Kindle

you could see the comments and quotes

and notes from all the other people

reading the same book as you in that

moment or from your book group or from

your friends or from the circle you want

what would happen if authors or people

with ideas could use version two which

comes out on Monday and use it to

organize people who want to talk about

something now there is a million things

I could share with you about the

mechanics here but let me just try a

couple the Beatles did not invent

teenagers they merely decided to lead

them that most movements most leadership

that we’re doing is about finding a

group that’s disconnected but already

has a yearning not persuading people to

want something they don’t have yet when

Diane hats worked on the meatrix her

video that spread all across the

internet about the way farm animals are

treated

she didn’t invent the idea of being a

vegan she didn’t invent the idea of

caring about this issue but she helped

to organize people and help turn it into

a movement

Hugo Chavez did not invent the

disaffected middle and lower class of

Venezuela he merely led them Bob Marley

did not invent Rastafarians he just

stepped up and said follow me Derek

Siver’s invented CD Baby which allowed

independent musicians to have a place to

sell their music without selling out to

the man to have a place to take the

mission they already wanted to go to and

connect with each other what all these

people have in common is that they are

heretics that heretics look at the

status quo and say this will not stand I

can’t abide this status quo I am willing

to stand up and be counted and move

things forward I see what the status quo

is I don’t like it that instead of

looking at all the little rules and

following each one of them

that instead of being what I call a

sheep Walker somebody who is half asleep

following instructions keeping their

head down fitting in every once in a

while someone says up and says not me

someone stands up and says this one’s

important we need to organize around it

and not everyone will but you don’t need

everyone you just need a few people who

will look at the rules realize they make

no sense and realize how much they want

to be connected so Tony Hsieh does not

run a shoe store

Zappos isn’t a shoe store Zappos is the

one the only the best there ever was

place for people who are into shoes to

fight each other to talk about their

passion to connect with people who care

more about customer service than making

a nickel tomorrow it can be something as

prosaic issues and something as

complicated as overthrowing a government

it’s exactly the same behavior though

what it requires as Geraldine Carter has

discovered is to be able to say I can’t

do this by myself but if I can get other

people to join my climate ride then

together we can get something that we

all want we just waiting for someone to

lead us Michelle Kaufmann has pioneered

new ways of thinking about environmental

architecture she doesn’t do it by

quietly building one house at a time she

does it by telling a story to people who

want to hear it by connecting a tribe of

people who are desperate to be connected

to each other by leading a movement and

making change and around and around and

around it goes so three questions I’d

offer you the first one is who exactly

are you upsetting because if you’re not

upsetting anyone you’re not changing the

status quo the second question is who

are you connecting because for a lot of

people that’s what they’re in it for the

connections that are being made one to

the other and the third one is who are

you leading be

because focusing on that part of it not

the mechanics of what you’re building

but the who and the leading part is

where change comes so you know Blake at

TOMS shoes had a very simple idea what

would happen if every time someone

bought a pair of these shoes I gave

exactly the same pair to someone who

doesn’t even own a pair of shoes this is

not the story of how you get shelf space

at Neiman Marcus it’s a story of a

product that tells a story and as you

walk around with this remarkable pair of

shoes and someone says what are those

you get to tell the story on Blake’s

behalf on behalf of the people who got

the shoes and suddenly it’s not one pair

of shoes 100 pair of shoes it’s tens of

thousands of pairs of shoes

my friend red Maxwell has spent the last

10 years fighting against juvenile

diabetes not far during the organization

that’s fighting and fighting with them

leading them connecting them challenging

the status quo because it’s important to

him and the people he surrounds himself

with need the connection they need the

leadership it makes a difference you

don’t need permission from people to

lead them but in case you do here it is

they’re waiting we’re waiting for you to

show us where to go next so here’s what

leaders have in common the first thing

is they challenge the status quo they

challenge what’s currently there the

second thing is they build a culture a

secret language a seven-second handshake

a way of knowing that you’re in or out

they have curiosity curiosity about the

people in the tribe curiosity about

outsiders they’re asking questions they

connect people to one another do you

know what people want more than anything

they want to be missed they want to be

missed the day they don’t show up they

want to be missed when they’re gone and

tribe leaders can do that and it’s

fascinating because all tribe leaders

have charisma but you don’t need

charisma to become a leader being a

leader gives you charisma and if you

look and study the leaders who have

succeeded that’s where charisma comes

from from the leading and finally they

commit they commit to the cause they

commit to the tribe they commit

to the people who are there so I’d like

you to do something for me and I hope

you’ll think about it before you reject

it out of hand what I want you to do is

only takes 24 hours is create a movement

something that matters start do it

we need it thank you very much

[Applause]