UPDATE: If you'd like to learn the techniques to creating a killer culture, Zappos has published the audio version of Tribal Leadership, available for FREE.

We had the wonderful experience spending a day at Zappos.com, the world's biggest online shoe store. They have truly perfected the art of culture. Not only are their core values well-known throughout the company, they actually have the means to track the values across departments.

The internal maxim of the company is "We're a customer service company. We just happen to sell shoes." And they certainly live the brand. They not only treat their customers well (evidenced by having zero limits on the amount of time the call center can spend with a customer), they treat their employees with equal respect.  The decorated hallways, nap rooms, and free lunches barely scratch the surface. If you take a deeper look you see the life coach on staff, the contests, random parades and campy department videos.  And if you take a much deeper look, you can see people's eyes light up as they walk down the hall of a company that is more like a family than anything. 

In our estimation, Zappos is one of the few companies that have successfully entered Stage Four and are looking to stabilize it before being pulled into Stage Five.  This may seem easy at first glance for a company with happy employees and revenues that just broke $1 billion per year.  However, it's inevitable that a company of 1600 people with departments whose goals are not always clearly in sync will run into growing pains.

If Zappos can create a culture of coaching and triads, around a noble cause that unites all departments, they will upgrade to a rock steady Stage Four, and as we demonstrated in the book, prime themselves for the world to call them into Stage Five.

Finally we're seeing the mainstream media covering companies that show a direct correlation between company culture and revenue. In TIME's recent article How to Succeed? Make Employees Happy, John Mackey of WholeFoods and Kip Tindell of the Container Store talk about the importance of an employee-focused culture, over the focus on shareholder value.

If you think about it, business innovations can often be counter-intuitive. At the beginning of the industrial age, who would have thought that if you give your workers breaks, that they'll actually produce more at the end of the day. "Give them time off? No way, they could be working!" But of course, this knowledge is now common sense.

One day it will be common knowledge that the success of the internal culture of a company is directly related to its revenue.

Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh just finished Tribal Leadership, and loved it, as we see on his twitter. We're going to visit them in July and talk about how we can build Stage four and five cultures in many companies. Do you think your company has the potential to be at Stage Five? Let us know.

What a week on YouTube. The video became the #3 most watched news item. Dave went on really believing this was going to be a discussion about the book but Stuart Varney of Fox turned it into a personal attack. But Dave gets him in the end.

If you have never been fired, then you either work at a Stage Two company where under-achieving is rewarded, or you've chosen not to be completely honest when your boss says, "Do you have any feedback for me?" Odds are that at some point you:

•    "Did not see eye-to-eye with management."
•    "Chose to go freelance"
•    "Wanted to spend more time with family"
•    "Were unware the sexual harassment laws had changed."

But if you're lucky, you're the person on the other end of this conversation. And for you, we would like to offer the top five worst ways to let people go, generously sponsored by the Stage Three Boss Association and the Scranton Ohio Rotary Club.

#5 "Disappear them."
A person in our Tribal Leadership study told us that he arranged lunch with a co-worker in the morning, and when the time came he went to her cubicle to find no trace of her existence.  When he asked what happened to her, the answer from a colleague was "she's been disappeared."  It's as though we're back in Pharaoh's Day, and her name had been scrubbed from every monument…well, memo and e-mail address book…in the land. 

Quick and efficient? Yes. But how does this contrast with that consultant-crafted mission statement that HR used in the overpriced plaque on the wall?  "Our workplace is innovative, collaborative, enthusiastic, with a sense of mission, filled with workers who would do anything for each other."  They forgot to add... "in which any member can fired for any reason with the others not missing a beat."

Bottom-line is you can't have it both ways.  That person you got to know—that you spent more quality time with than your family, is gone—so you're less likely to form your friendships here.  Trust is driven out of the system as fast as that employees' pictures come off their desks.

#4 Highlight "personal reasons." 
In 99% of cases, this phrase, if run through Dilbert's decoder ring, translates to "you all know we hate him, he was fired, thank God he's gone, …now get back to work."  People who leave companies through this method usually lost some high-profile fights, and endured weeks or months of public flogging to remove any trace of self-esteem.  This method is also useful when management hired the wrong person, and "for personal reasons," is much easier to type than, "this was our mistake, and we wish him well."

#3 Resignation effective two weeks from today. 
This method is most useful when someone still has self-esteem left.  Having her leave under these circumstances might send the message that seeking employment elsewhere may not be so bad.  During the two weeks between announced departure and leaving the building for the last time, the lame duck goes to meetings and learns just how irrelevant she is.  She has time alone to detach—one of the hallmarks of Stage Two—and so, when she leaves, she's tired, despondent, and unprepared to seek another opportunity.

#2 The security escort out of the building. 
Useful when remaining employees need to be reminded that you hold all the power.

#1 The walk of the shame. 
The ritual of packing up photos and coffee mugs into a single box (with or without the plant on top) and walking past the survivors is a nice recollection of simpler times: like when French aristocrats walked past the people on their way to a beheading. 

It's like we're in Hester Prin's day, but instead of wearing an "A," the person who leaves invisible sign says "My life sucks"—the hallmark of Stage Two—as a warning to those who remain.  This can happen to you, too, so don't get out of line.

What's the effect of these methods of removing people from companies?  The focus of attention becomes "me."  Is this going to happen to me?  Am I liked, trusted, thought of as competent?  Is there a move to get rid of me I don't know about?  This is where information becomes the coin of the realm, and gossip, the way to stay solvent. And all the Stage Three tools of self-promotion, time management, and subtle put-downs come in handy.

The bosses of such systems take the brunt of people's scorn.  "Does he really think we're so stupid as not see what really happened?", people gossip.  Ask the bosses (we did), and many say, "I'd like to tell the truth, but HR and Legal say doing so would put us risk of liability." 

All of this makes the modern workplace a chaotic system of rumor, fear, self-promotion, and survival by wits and guts.  Are there ways around this system?  Yes, but they all start with leaders recognizing the current system is as ineffective, inhumane, incompetent, and self-contradictory.  We'll talk about those methods in a future blog.





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Several years ago, I had dinner with a David Allen, author of Getting Things Done. His picture is on the cover of his book, and his company is named after him, the David Allen Company. He's a spiritual guy, a Stage Four leader—clearly not interested in the ego boost building a business empire. "Why did you do that?" I asked, "why make it all about you?"

"Simple—the market demands it," was his answer.

He seemed at ease with the decision in a way I would not have been. Tribal Leadership was nearing the final phase, and John's and my hope (we hadn't yet joined forced with Halee) was that it would be a Stage Four book presented in a Stage Four manner—written from a tribe, about tribes. (Stage Three is the zone of personal accomplishment, where people say, "I'm great and you're not." It's where people spar, each kicking the others down and self-promote. It's like the wild, wild west. The biggest problem with American business is that this zone runs business, with most MBAs using Donald Trump-style management to get ahead at the expense of others. Stage Four is based on shared values, where people express a "we're great" adage, and network together in tight social structures.)

I think a lot about that dinner now that Tribal's out. The media wants us to do the Stage Three thing, often doesn't know what to do with us when we don't pretend we're on a reality TV show. One radio host asked me, "so which leading person, you know, that we've heard of, is just full of crap?" The real answer is: no one. We're all trying to do the same thing, just using different words and different approaches.

Our publisher paused when we wanted to add Halee as an author, because books are extensions of individuals, not teams. (To their credit, they eventually embraced the idea.)

An interviewer asked Halee what five companies she could name that were screwed up, what exactly she did to save each one, and how each is doing today. Anyone who would answer that question has no business writing a book on leadership. (To do so would be to say—look at me—I'm the best consultant you've ever seen.) Halee didn't answer it, and the interview never ran.

Last week, I did a live segment on Fox Business. Stuart Varney, the host, did his best to win an Emmy for "biggest jackass on television" award. He spent most of the five minutes making fun of the "make nice, nice" approach in the book. (Note to future interviewers: at least know what the book is about.) At one point, he asked me what I did before writing the book. He latched onto the USC connection and said, in a sarcastic tone, "oh, an academic!" This went on until I felt the hairs on the back of my neck (sign a Stage Three outburst is forming in your brain), and said: "you want the down side of a system in which you crawl your way to the top, I got two words for: Elliot Spitzer." The woman next to him in the studio said "woo!", implying that I'd won that point. And the game was on. At the end of the interview, he repeated his objection to the book and I said: "You're totally wrong, Stuart, but I appreciate your point of view." He laughed in a way that seemed to say I'd surprised him by not being a complete idiot.

What was that? It had nothing to do with making people leaders. It was about ratings, pure and simple. It was the CNBC version of Survivor. I knew I'd fallen to Stage Three. It was fun, but I felt I needed a shower to wash away the bits of ego juice I'd sweated out.

Stage Three is fun to watch. Two people, both think they're better, self-promoting and trying to kick the other in their...credibility. We (the audience) take sides. We say "ouch!" and "she won that point!" as we sit back and eat our popcorn.

But in the industry of writing leadership books? Stage Three created sub-prime, when charlatan sales reps sold middle America mortgages they couldn't afford, while executives looked the other way and reaped short-term profits that morphed into long-term bankruptcies. The market cap of Wall Street would double—and that's conservative—if Stage Four became the center of gravity of U.S. corporations.

We're supposed to get that message out while throwing insults, saying we did it, and look at me—I'm the smartest author you've ever seen?

Einstein said "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." We can't solve the problem of Stage Three by staying in Stage Three.

Maybe my friend David Allen is right—maybe it's better to give the market what it wants and wait for evolution to run its course. Until we get to that point, we're going to keep hammering away at the message of Tribal Leadership—from our tribe to yours.

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Roger Cohen of the New York Times wrote about how tribalism is alive and thriving in all aspects of our world, only further empowered by technology:

We’re beyond tribalism, right?

Wrong.... The Internet opens worlds and minds, but also offers opinions to reinforce every prejudice. You’re never alone out there; some idiot will always back you. The online world doesn’t dissolve tribes. It gives them global reach.

Cohen makes the tribal connection to terrorism...

Jihadism, with its mirage of a restored infidel-free Caliphate, is perhaps the most violent tribal reaction to modernity. But fundamentalism is no Islamic preserve; it has its Christian, Jewish, Hindu and other expressions.

And conversely, he draws a tribal connection to peace...

America’s peaceful tribes are also out in force. As Obama and Hillary Clinton engage in the long war for the Democratic nomination, we have the black vote, and the Latino vote, and the women-over-50 vote, and the Volvo-driving liberal-intellectual vote, and the white blue-collar vote, and the urban vote, and the rural vote, and the under-30s vote — sub-groups with shared social, cultural, linguistic or other traits and interests.

As a tribal leader, The Democrat nominee will be the candidate who can understand the language and values of each faction, and unify them by elevating them from Stage Three subgroups, to a Stage Four tribe.

My passion is women’s leadership. There is no better audience for this book than women in business. Women have had a challenging time finding positive and supportive role models in business leadership to emulate, or a way to leverage their unique abilities to be Tribal Leaders. Helping women to lead from who they are, with their values and their strengths is a personal mission.

One of the personal insights that co-authoring Tribal Leadership has given me is the special message to women.

One of the companies we have worked with and written about is CB Richard Ellis (CBRE). CBRE is the largest and most successful commercial real estate services firm in the world. We have been working with CBRE for about 10 year. When we first started, commercial real estate was a male-dominated industry. When we started, we led executive education programs for their teams, managers, and individual professionals-and working to support to the Women's Network. Our role has grown: now we are faculty for their corporate university, we work with leaders throughout the company, both women and men, and with their executives.

The change we’ve seen in that time has been gratifying, and remarkable. More than a decade ago, CB was mostly at Stage Three—individual brokers working on deals, often in competition with each other. Women found it challenging to make a dent a largely male-dominated industry. We started working with them to discover and deploy their own “Tribal Leaders,” who build the group culture around a strong commitment to values. They also develop “tribal strategies” with those they work with—pulling in anyone who has a contribution to make, regardless of gender, skin color, etc.

While the industry is still dominated at men, that is changing. More importantly, CBRE has gotten ahead of the curve, with many of their most successful teams led by women. CBRE has many Stage Four tribes among its thousand of employees. One of most successful tribes created from these efforts is the Women’s Leadership Network.


Women have an advantage in setting up Stage Four cultures. It’s my mission to help women discover and deploy their natural abilities, becoming Tribal Leaders.

I had more time to think about the Pew research study on religion than most people. One of their pollsters phoned me when I was home sick, and since I had nothing better to do, answered what seemed like an hour of questions about my past religious activities, and my beliefs today. What I didn’t know then was that millions of other Americans made the same transition I had just described to the researcher: I left the religion of my childhood.

Like many, what I transitioned to wasn't religion, it was to a workplace community.

As a child, I pitied people without religion in their lives, thinking they must be empty. Ironically, all those years later, I was sick with a cold because I had pushed myself too hard finishing last-minute edits on a book about workplace communities. After doing research on 24,000 people with my colleagues John King and Halee Fischer-Wright, we had come to a conclusion that still rocks our world: today, people many find their spiritual expression at work, but only if they’re lucky enough to work in a great company.

My memories of going to church are mostly about the community that formed there. We didn't talk about the sermon—we talked about our lives, filtered through the prism of values that bound us together. There were funny people, mixed together with zealots, down-on-their luck folk, people with new families and empty-nesters. It was what I and my colleagues came to term a tribe.

Today, my life still has community based on values, and strong tribes, but none involve religion. There is a tribe of professors of students and the university where I teach, all aligned on the values of learning and growth. There is the tribe of consultants and clients in the business where I work, all focused on the values of effectiveness and creativity. As a consultant, I have visitor status in a number of tribes, in financial services, commercial real estate, and high technology. Most of those are also vibrant tribes, focused on values like family, success, and even love.

75% of business workplaces have cultures that weren’t like what I experienced as a kid going to church, that don’t see themselves as tribes. No shared values, no strong feeling of being a community. Instead, 2% resemble gangs and prisons, with a mood of despairing hostility, what we call Stage One cultures. What we call Stage Two is the 25% of cultures that resemble the Department of Motor Vehicles, where people do the minimum to not get fired or hassled. Stage Three is the 48% of workplaces that resemble the wild, wild west with people having to be the sharpest draw, or in modern parlance, the smartest person in the room; the compete with each other from dawn to dusk, and the measure of a good day is when they came out on top.

The remaining 25% of U.S. workplaces—Stages Four and Five--see themselves as tribes, where care of tribal members, and for the tribe itself, is the key to competing on the business front. These top performing workplaces are also fun, exciting and nurturing.

To be clear, religion and spirituality don’t come up much in workplace conversations that we studied. People don’t talk about doctrine, metaphysical beliefs, or what happens after death and what is the nature of God. For me, there is a void on those subjects. But the questions of how we should live, what we want our lives to stand for, the people we care for, are increasingly answered at work. Even more to the point, who we are at our deepest core—our values—finds its way into competitive advantage for those companies wise enough to tap its power. When values unite a group, at church or work, you get a Stage Four tribe.

In reading the Pew study, I realized that I’m one of the lucky ones: when my own religion no longer worked for me, I found a new set of tribes: cultures at Stage Four.

There are many good reasons why corporate leaders need to pay attention to workplace cultures, not the least of which is that great tribes outperform dysfunctional groups, create wealth for shareholders, and better products and services for customers. We can now add another reason to the list of why culture matters: workplaces are becoming places of spiritual expression.

Recession Proof Your Business

Is there a secret to so-called “recession-proofing” in business? Can you still improve performance, products, and productivity when the going gets tough?
The answer to both these questions is a resounding yes…if you know how to build a world-class culture. The process is straightforward, and any company would do well to follow its lessons.
Many companies plan and then rely on forecasted orders. In a downturn demand becomes unstable and unpredictable, and so the very key to our survival seems outside our control. This is an opportunity to take a lesson from the service industry, in which many businesses have to reinvent themselves every few years. Truth be told, some people and companies not only weather recessions but also flourish in them. Here’s how you can count yourself among those who thrive.

Identify and Understand Your Tribes
The key to recession proofing your company is to identify the basic building block of companies--it isn’t leaders, or departments, or divisions. It’s a naturally occurring group we call a “tribe”— between 20 and 150 people. In any corporation there may be a leadership tribe, a management tribe, a research and development tribe, and a line tribe.
Companies that survive and flourish in a recession have to become smart, and fast. Quickly develop new ideas—for changes in processes, exploring new markets, revising products, and how to partner with your supply chain in new ways. Remember that companies are only as smart as their tribes. Although tribes form in your company without your effort—only 22% are strong enough to survive and thrive the predicted economic downturn. In our landmark study of 24,000 people across multiple industries over ten years, only 22 percent of corporate tribes show the hallmarks of being recession proof. No matter what happens in the economy, they will find a way to thrive.
To get to this stage, however, a leader must have a clear understanding of the tribes “stages”—of all the tribal cultures—and see which one runs the show in his company. You can do this just by observing the social groups that exist in your company, and listen to the way they talk. Is it “life stinks” (Stage One), “my life stinks” (Stage Two), “I’m great” (Stage Three), “we’re great” (Stage Four) or “life is great” (Stage Five)? The 48% of workplace tribes in the U.S. operate in Stage Three. This is where the theme is “I’m great, and you’re not.” In this culture, knowledge is power, and so people hoard it, from client contacts to gossip. People at this stage have to win, and winning is personal. They’ll out-work, think, and maneuver their competitors. The mood that results is a collection of “lone warriors,” wanting help and support and being disappointed that others don’t have their ambition or skill. Stage 3 tribes wont survive the recession, only Stage 4 tribes will.
To move your tribe to Stage 4, identify your tribe’s leverage points and use those to help your tribe transition to the next immediate stage. For example, tribal leaders intervene in Stage Three by identifying people’s individual values and then seeing which cut across the tribe. Point out the values that unite people, and then construct initiatives that bring these values to life. This is key to moving such a tribe to Stage Four, which is where a company gains that recession-proof vest.

Long ago, a slam dunk first ballot Hall of Famer got caught doing a no-no. It doesn’t even matter what he did. What does matter is that he lied about it. And, though he technically got away with it, everybody knew that he lied about it. In that moment of lying he became tainted. Nothing mattered anymore. The thousands of hits, the courageous base running, the sheer exuberance of play all disappeared. And we were left with a lie. He didn’t become tainted because he did the deed. Lots of people gamble. It was a no-no for him, but lots of people gamble, for Pete’s sake. He became tainted because he lied.

America lost a little of it’s innocence the day Charlie Hustle lied.

Well, last week, Roger ‘The Rocket’ Clemens, the greatest pitcher of all time, looked into a man’s eyes and lied. And in that moment, everything he worked and sacrificed for disappeared. In that moment, once again, a lie chipped away at the innocence that used to be the birthright of America’s youth.

No Hall of Fame for Pete. No Cooperstown for Roger. No joining the authentic heroes of the game – Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, Cy Young.

What a pity. You were great, and now you’re an asterisk.

I guess the lesson is that you can’t lie to kids and have them say, ‘I love you’. And baseball is for the kid in all of us.

Roger; there is a way out. It won’t be easy, but you’re a big ol’ tough guy and you can do it.

Roger, ‘fess up. Don’t become another Pete Rose.

We’ll get over it and understand if you just clean it up. We know you would like to reel it all back in and start over, but it’s too late for that. You’re going to have to man up and tell the truth. Some people will be holier-than-thou jerks, but most of us will understand. After all, we’ve ALL lied ourselves. Most of us lie every day. It’s just that the stakes aren’t as high as they are with you.

This is the highest stakes game you’ve ever played in. Don’t blow it.

You’re going to have to take your medicine. But it’s either take it now, or, a lifetime of people pointing at you and talking behind your back. Don’t put yourself through that. Don’t put your family though that. I promise you, if you get straight, even your kids will get over it. And in this matter, kids are the only thing that counts.

We’re still on your side and we’re still pulling for you – hope dies hard, but time is running out – next week someone else will dominate the headlines and you will be old news. Let’s work together to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat. Please, Roger, it’s too late for Pete, but there’s still time for you.

Of all the great things you’ve ever done, telling the truth could be your all-time Humanity Hall of Fame greatest accomplishment.

Just Do It!

A few Sundays ago, we gathered as a nation of tribes—groups of family, friends, work buddies, neighbors, fellow Giants or Patriots fans—to watch the big game and experience the Super Bowl ads. Since our founding days as a nation, people made all important decisions in these groups, including choosing leaders. George Washington wasn’t the brightest or best-spoken in the tribes of his day, but he listened best to what people wanted. When he spoke, he reflected their aspirations. People said, “he speaks for me!” That is how he became the Father of Our Country, and how the Democrats and Republicans will pick their winners on Super Tuesday.

Today, you can spot who is in your tribe because they’re programmed in your cell phone, which made gathering for Super Bowl parties much easier than organizing the Boston Tea Party. But the result is the same—“tribal councils” getting together to talk, laugh, debate, drink, and, in the end, decide who speaks for them.

A great candidate has to find the perfect combination of poignancy and memorability, reflecting the values of people huddled around their televisions.

Watch how people surrounded by their tribe look at a Super Bowl ad, and we see the same process they use to evaluate a candidate. They watch intently (albeit while reaching for another beer), giggling or booing as they talk about the game. Then, in the two seconds after the ad, in unison, they do one of three things: clap, boo, or—in the worst nightmare of advertisers—simply reach for the chicken wings. People don’t judge the ads in the solitude of their own reflections, they do so out loud, in groups of people they know. The tribe shapes the opinion, and decisions emerge from the group—for whether an ad will drive business for the advertiser, or how they’ll vote in a state primary.

People loved the Charlie Brown and Coke ad. People are saying it expresses the essence of the Super Bowl, and the United States—positive, simple, not taking itself too seriously. When the Budweiser Clydesdale came from behind, people cheered—it was the American story of the underdog. People said, “that ad speaks for us!” It was the Madison Avenue version of George Washington.

It’s the same with McCain. All across the Super Tuesday states, tribal councils held in sports clubs, banquet halls, and living rooms kicked around the candidacies. They discussed the latest polls, the sound bites from debates, and their views of issues. People giggled, objected, made their points as they reached for more beer during dull commercials. In the end, Republicans said, “he speaks for me,” or at least “he speaks for me better than Romney or Huckabee.” Like the Charlie Brown ad, they love the underdog who doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously. They like the fact he’d appear on Jon Stewart, laughing even with liberals from New York. They like the fact that his position on the war held constant even during unrelenting criticism. Like the Clydesdale commercial imitating Rocky, he presents the American image of consistency, simplicity, and leadership.

For the Democrats, the question conjures up different ads. Will tribes say, “Hillary speaks for us,” or “she’s too abrasive, too unlikable, too unelectable”? Will they perceive her as an opportunist who hasn’t owned up to her record on Iraq? Tribal leaders rarely survive an image of indecision or lack of integrity. Worst of all are potential leaders who seem to be saying “me, me, me!”—and that was a big point of discussion in this weekend’s tribal councils about Clinton. If she came across as GoDaddy.com or Planter’s Nuts—both of which left American tribes scratching their heads—it’s over.

Did Obama get the right combination of underdog, optimism, and change? As the outside candidate (until the last few days showing an upswing in polls), it takes perfect resonance with tribal values to get over America’s fear of voting for the loser. We think has found that resonance. His consistency on Iraq, his Reaganesque optimism, and his version of “change” swayed the tribes we were in over the last couple of weeks.

In the end, America will vote. Obama or Clinton will emerge as the person who speaks for the Democrats, with the loser having come across like the Pepsi Max commercial that was a parody of Night at the Roxbury—over-the-top, not original, too much. People said, “Clever, interesting, but that doesn’t speak for us.” It conjures distant memories of Giuliani and Edwards.

The decision about Clinton vs. Obama has already been made in tribes across Texas—we just don’t know the results yet. If American tribes say, “Obama speaks for us!”, it will be an upset of Truman-vs.-Dewey significance.

After the democrats select a candidate, and the tribes we’re in are saying it’s Obama, then America’s tribal councils will reconvene with the same question—“who speaks for us?” Will it be McCain or Clinton/Obama?

Hopefully, people won’t just reach for more chicken wings.

Tribal Leadership’s been in stores for a little over a week, and the response has been beyond encouraging. One group of people is responding to the business case for Stage Four tribes—higher profits, increased productivity, greater shareholder value. B school stuff.

Another group, smaller and more reflective says that the chapter on the epiphany of Tribal Leadership haunts them. They literally can’t stop thinking about it, feeling it. It’s as though it’s working on them.

Last week, for only the second time, I presented our research on the epiphany. This audience—or rather peer group, because the epiphany has no experts—the Sierra Health Foundation leadership program alumni group. Here it is in a nutshell: the more you develop yourself as a leader, the less a leader you are. Repeat that a few times and you’ll feel its impact. As a group, we mulled it over, looked at it from the viewpoints of psychology, business, sociology, even spirituality, and here’s what we came to.

What takes someone to Stage Three is development of self—education, skills, networking, success. But everything they want, at a deep level, seems ever out of grasp. Loyalty, deep respect, even love (from the tribe), are unattainable at Stage Three. The more I develop myself so I can get these things, the more elude me.

The real divide between Stage Three and Four is to see that leadership makes the leader catalytic, almost invisible. Gandhi, Mandela, and King spoke for tribes they represented. What they saw was the embodiment of the values of the groups they represented. Many people don’t know Gandhi’s profession before he worked to free India from the British, because the messenger didn’t matter. (He was a barrister, an attorney.)

It was the same with people we interviewed for Tribal Leadership—Gordon Binder, former CEO of Amgen, Bob Tobias, former leader of a union for federal employees, and Frank Jordan, former mayor and police chief of San Francisco. In asking to speak with them, all said the same thing: “why do you want to talk to me, I didn’t do anything.”

That’s how it looks from the other side of the epiphany. In moving to Stage Four, all that matters is the tribe, and the person no longer says “I did it,” but rather “they did—at best, I got out of the way.” In fairness, they did much more, as any member of the tribe will say. In fact, here’s an almost foolproof way to see if someone has had the epiphany: ask them how much they had to do with their tribe’s success. If they say anything more than what Binder, Tobias, and Jordan said, there’s a good chance the epiphany hasn’t broken in them yet.

Our thanks to the Sierra Health Foundation, and to USC’s Executive Master of Leadership program—the only two times we’ve had the opportunity to discuss the epiphany. In both cases, we walked away inspired by what these tribes knew and had to contribute. Even when you write about the epiphany, you are still its student.

On behalf of the authors, we would like to welcome you to the making of a new tribe. A tribe that has not yet met itself, as such. In this awareness and at this cyber meeting ground we are looking forward to meeting you, listening (reading) to what you have to say, to share, to question, to propose. We want to discover what is on your mind, and dialogue about what is on our minds, re: Tribes, Leadership, Effectiveness, Values, Tribal Dialogues and Conversations and their impact on us and others. All of us will be checking in on what is going on here, that is, responding, proposing, speculating, ideating together. Somewhere in the mix of it all, an emergence of a synthesized thought or idea will appear and we will be experiencing the power of the tribe, of tribal thinking. In this test lab of thought, we look forward to what it is you take to your tribes and what it is you are discovering. More to follow.