Birds flock, Fish school, People “Tribe”

David Logan from Tribal Leadership

This post is about that mysterious chemistry that creates high performing teams.

I have owned 4 small to medium-sized businesses that ranged from 10 million to 45 million in revenue.? I sold three of them and one died after Covid.??

MY FIRST COACH

In 1980, I was a volunteer on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Northwest Montana.??

One day, a very tall, lanky hippie looking visitor rode in on his Harley to pay us a visit. Apparently he lived nearby and did this every year.

Phil Jackson had just retired as a player and was taking the summer off.? I remember they called him Coat Hanger Jackson because his shoulders were so square you could drape your coat over them.

I was a big basketball fan and my hero at the time was Walt Frazier, Phil's teammate on the Knicks.?? Phil hadn't coached his first game yet.

Phil was a very spiritual guy.? He talked to us about mindfulness and team chemistry which he learned when playing for the New York Knicks that won a championship in the 1970's.??

He became one of the greatest coaches of all time, leading the Chicago Bulls to 6 titles and the Los Angeles Lakers to five titles.

• He managed Michael Jordan and got him to embrace selflessness, even if it cost him a scoring title
• He forged successful teams out of idiosyncratic personalities with varying abilities by getting them to trust one another, and perform in sync as a team.
• He inspired Dennis Rodman and other “uncoachable” personalities to devote themselves to something larger than themselves
• He transformed Kobe Bryant from a rebellious teenager into a mature leader of a championship team.

THE SECRET SAUCE

In his book, Eleven Rings, Phil said the secret sauce to high performing teams was LOVE.?

Not romantic love or even brotherly love. He was referring to the emotional connection that ties warriors together in the heat of battle.

While you need talent, intelligence, toughness, and even luck, without love, none of those factors matter.??

My companies have always felt more like a tribe than a “company”? to me.? We were smaller and had limited resources.? We needed to bond together to get results.??

I learned that the mysterious alchemy that allows divergent people to join together in a small business, and work for a higher cause is the intense emotional connection that great warriors experience in the heart of battle.? Like a basketball team.?

It's a bond, a brotherhood, or sisterhood which is virtually impossible to replicate in normal life, but can be done by creating a bond with the team within the organization.

THE FIVE STAGES OF TRIBAL LEADERSHIP

In a small company it is equivalent to Dave Logan’s five stages of Tribal Leadership.

Stage 1 – This is shared by most street gangs. It is characterized by despair, hostility and the collective belief that? “life sucks”

Stage 2 – Apathy. These are people who perceive themselves as victims. They are passively antagonistic. Their belief is “my life sucks”.

Stage 3 – Individual achievement. “I’m great, you’re not”. People in organizations at this stage “have to win”. Winning becomes personal. These teams outwork and out-think the competition on an individual basis. They are a collection of lone warriors.?

Stage 4 – At this stage the team needs a strong opponent to push against. The bigger the foe,the more powerful the tribe.? Tribal pride and conviction that say “we’re great and they’re not”.? This type of team needs an external adversary, or they will create one.

Stage 5 – A rare stage characterized by a sense of innocent wonder and the strong belief that “life is great”. This is the stage of gratefulness.

The key to high performing teams is to get a critical mass of the staff to buy into a more selfless approach to a strategic plan and the game of work.

Transforming a group of ambitious individuals into an integrated, high performing team is not a mechanistic process.? It is a heartfelt one.

High performance leadership is a mysterious juggling act that requires not only a thorough knowledge of the time-honored laws of life,? but also an open heart, a clear mind, and a deep curiosity about the ways of the human spirit.

#innovation, #entrepreneurship, #fundraising, #management, #leadership, #smbgrowth, #peeradvisory, #startups