From a factory model of business to a mass marketing model and now to a model based on tribes, Seth Godin points out that our society today, particularly with the dawn of the Internet era, no longer facilitates mass marketing but rather has revived a human social unit from our ancient past which we call tribes. It’s a concept about leading and connecting people and ideas, may it be based on hobbies, professional interests, political persuasion, community projects and the likes. More of companies nowadays form tribes like individual teams work on specific work packages or even group of professionals who formed an institution or even a group of writers who shares their expertise. There is so much more to promote the model of tribes as a firm idea, deliberately forming a tribe by locating people with many different skills and experience levels, dedicating them to the tribe, pairing all tasks to share professional knowledge, get to know how to work together and encouraging the most knowledgeable people to mentor those less skilled. Networking business or multi-level marketing is one sample of forming tribes nowadays, recruiting business minded people into an organization.

“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.”- Seth Godin.

One thing we as humans all crave is a feeling of belonging and connecting with other people. Tribes are founded on shared ideas and values which give people the power to lead and innovate. It’s not about a mass thing wherein everyone must be reached out, but rather having just a thousand few true believers is enough to create a movement and make a change. Creating a movement is setting out to make a change. Change is inevitable especially in our fast pacing environment. And if you will not embrace change chances are you will stagnate and be left out.

Successful tribes have passionate and committed leaders who improve the world by heading tribes that can challenge the status quo, build a culture (that is, defining who’s in or out) and pioneer new ways of thinking. Leaders who have curiosity and charisma that connects to people (and the community) and are committed to a cause. One common factor of great leaders who have had great impacts on our society is that they were heretics. To become a great leader is to be an advocate of change who won’t settle for a mere status quo. That instead of being a sheepwalker (half asleep and half following along),they realized that they want to be connected, that someone has to step up and lead a movement, to do something that matters. But how can we change things? Godin pointed out that in looking to affect change one must ask three questions. The first one is, who exactly are you upsetting? For if you’re not upsetting anyone, you’re not changing the status quo. Second is, who are you connecting? Because a lot of people are just in it for the connections being made, one to another. And third, who are you leading? Focus on the “who”, for without a clear focus, change won’t come.

Also, Godin relays four steps to pioneer a change where we can relate to pioneering a business. First is to tell a story to those people who want to hear it, second is to connect a tribe, third is to lead a movement and fourth is to make a change. Like what has Seth Godin mentioned, “And around and around and around it goes”. With these properly heaved, you will be left with a product or service that has a story to tell. That is, a story which the consumers of the product or service will love to tell for you as people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it and they are drawn to other’s belief and passions.

In order to make a change and impact to the society it is important to challenge the status quo, develop a culture, connect to people and lead the tribe. As what Godin has urges us to do: create a movement. Find something worth changing and assemble tribes to spread the ideas until it becomes a movement. Find a thousand or even just a hundred people who care enough to find more people who care. We can start small to find our true believers.