A review of 'Tribes' by Seth Godin

I was sorting out some of the books on my book shelf at work this week and had put a couple aside on my desk to take home. My colleague, the brilliant copy-writer Tanja Gardner, remarked on walking past my desk that I was reading Seth Godin. My response was more “huh?’ rather than “oh yeah, Seth Godin”. Apparently he’s quite big in the blogging world. So I have quite obviously been hiding under a blogging rock. I had started reading this book some time ago and never actually finished it. So I set myself a mission this week, to finish the book and write a blog review about it. So here goes.

Structurally speaking the book is written very much like a blog. It’s a whole lot of little stories, descriptions and anecdotes loosely woven together, with no standard intro, body, conclusion, or chapters to it. But it’s rather fitting considering the context of the book, challenging the status quo, and is by no means hard or lengthy to read.

The book centers on leadership with the encouragement to break new ground and to innovate. It is about inciting a movement that challenges how things are done, and doing what others say is impossible.  It bought to mind a poem my grandfather used to have stuck to the wall in his office, a poem that has been ingrained in my head for years now. One of the verses goes like this:

Somebody said that it couldn't be done
but he with a chuckle replied,

That "maybe it couldn't,"

But he would be one
who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
on his face,

If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing


That couldn't be done, and he did it.

I value this philosophy. A project that has been one of the highlights of my career so far, a management training program aligned to NZQA unit standards was met with a lot of “you can’t do that”, “it’s impossible” comments early on. My response was “bugger you lot” and I went ahead and did it anyway. It was a great success in the end, well received by participants and my peers. Proves the point really.

‘Tribes’ appeals to me as a learning and development specialist. In my interpretation of the book, innovative movements are created through a vision, connections and no-limits. I see parallels with learning and development in the sense that the face of learning is changing. Learning is no longer about a trainer in a classroom dictating information. It is the sharing of a vision, and mutual collaboration of ideas, the breaking of new ground and learning better ways of doing things. Learning is not static, and the way we learn is not either. ‘Tribes’ illustrates a mantra for breaking the traditional L&D mold.

Seth’s final request in this book is to spread the word. So here is me spreading the word. “Life is too short to be mediocre”. If there is even a shred in you that wants to be something more than mediocre then read this book, because you’re a leader, and we need you.