Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

“Tribes need leadership. Sometimes one person leads, sometimes more. People want connection and growth and something new. They want change.”

Godin emphasizes the need for individuals to take charge and incite movements. He believes most people want to see change and that many are just waiting for a person to inspire their passion. With this quotation, the author sets the stage for the text’s recurrent calls to action.

“Human beings can’t help it: we need to belong. One of the most powerful of our survival mechanisms is to be part of a tribe, to contribute to (and take from) a group of like-minded people. We are drawn to leaders and to their ideas, and we can’t resist the rush of belonging and the thrill of the new.”

A yearning to belong is human nature. Since antiquity, the species has interacted in groups and unified through shared beliefs. Tribes claims it as a law that people will always tend toward coalescence.

“Now, the Internet eliminates geography. This means that existing tribes are bigger, but more important, it means that there are now more tribes, smaller tribes, influential tribes, horizontal and vertical tribes, and tribes that could never have existed before.”

The Internet of Everything has connected people globally. Niche interest groups can grow through direct communication without ever meeting in person. As personal communication devices become more accessible and affordable, there will be more members of every tribe.