Consider the Wisdom of Building Your Own Tribe(s)

I enjoy engaging with people, but I also value my alone time. I am selectively involved in groups I care about, but I have never been a very good joiner or follower. Maybe, it is because of my high-functioning introvert personality or stubborn independence which I have been self-aware about since I was a teenager. This has long had a significant influence on how I choose to interact with people in all areas of my life. My personality style was on my mind this morning as I reflected on conversations with professionals in my network over the last few months about building relationships.

Many of these conversations touched on similar challenges with growing networks outside of their companies, building key relationships inside their organizations and feeling like they were not in the right groups or connected to the “right” people. I found it interesting that similar challenges were to be found among introverts and extroverts alike and ran the spectrum generationally from Gen Z to Gen X. One of these leaders framed up his challenges as struggling to find his “tribe” at work and in his personal life, which gave me the idea for this post.

The post you are about to read is a more detailed version of the advice I gave most of these professionals and I hope you find it helpful.

Reframing our thinking

Building the right relationships at work and in life is critical for personal thriving and long-term career growth. I hope this is something we can all agree on, even if we may approach it differently based on our unique personalities. I did a deep dive into best practices for building professional relationships in a February post on LinkedIn titled Doing This One Thing Well Can Help You and Your Team Thrive and I encourage you to read it for helpful best practices.

What I would like to address in this post is something a little different. Sometimes we may try too hard to fit into groups and be accepted. Sometimes we can be overly pushy in our pursuit of new work (and personal) relationships and make a poor impression. We may feel pressure to sacrifice our authenticity, values or beliefs in order to be part of a group or community which is always a bad idea and something we should have the confidence to reject. We may find that we have plenty of surface relationships, but not enough substantive ones. Perhaps, the whole idea of building new relationships or finding a tribe to join is so daunting, we don’t even try. If you identify with any of this, it may be time to reframe your thinking and try something different.

Consider the wisdom of building your own tribe

I purposely shared a bit about my personality at the beginning of the post, but there is something I omitted that I will share with you now. I have long believed in and practiced the concept of building my own personal and professional tribes. Rather than exclusively pursuing other tribes, it is possible to plant yourself where you are and attract people to your tribe. This strategy works for introverts, extroverts, ambiverts and every generation. When done consistently well, you can have an abundance of healthy personal and work relationships, strategic partnerships to help you succeed at work and you will wield more positive influence in all areas of your life. What is required to build tribes?

• It takes self-awareness to identify if this is the right approach for you. Be honest with yourself. Do you identify with any of the challenges shared in this post? Is your gut telling you it is time to try another approach?
• Patience and courage is required. Building your own tribe can often be a long, difficult and lonely endeavor at first…but absolutely worth the effort. You are essentially re-programming your brain and doing something that will feel countercultural as you observe others continue to aspire to join existing tribes as you bravely go in a different direction that may be better suited for you.
• Recognize that compromise can be a good thing, conformity usually is not. Great relationships and teams thrive on healthy compromise in order to achieve a greater good. Conformity is often defined as the tendency for an individual to align their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors with those of the people around them. You should never be asked to sacrifice who you really are or what you believe on the altar of political expediency in order to fit in.
• Be authentic. As I shared earlier, it can be a lonely road at first as you build your tribe(s), but this allows you time to be true to yourself and what you believe. Your authenticity will be irresistible for some and will be one of the key reasons people will want to spend time with you and be part of what you are doing. Authenticity, when lived with discernment and in the service of what is good, is a positive thing.
• Be a role model for the virtuous behavior and values that are hopefully important to you. Stand up for your beliefs. This will also attract the kinds of people to you that share your values and like you, want to do the right things at work and in life.
• Identify shared interests in others and be vulnerable enough to discuss them. This has worked well for me over the years as I have built my various tribes. I have a child with autism and am grateful for a supportive tribe of parents who do as well. I am a Christian and practicing Catholic with a strong network and tribe of people who share my faith. I have built a strong tribe of friends who share my values and have a desire to serve others. I even have a small and mighty tribe of avid readers and history buffs that I absolutely treasure! Anything that matters to you likely also matters to someone else and they are probably seeking you out as you read this post. How do you find people who share your interests? Be curious and ask insightful questions. Listen. Follow up. If you are really paying attention, tribe members who share your interests are not difficult to find.
• It is OK to start small. I have an introverted friend who is an expert in his industry and well-respected. Most social activities fill him with dread, but he does love pickleball. He has built a small tribe of avid pickleballers from co-workers and his neighborhood, and he is quite content with the company of this small group that all share the same passion.
• If you are a leader, your team and organization is a tribe. Foster a great culture. Earn a reputation for excellence, fairness and passionately developing your people and others will eagerly want to be part of your tribe. Build it, and they will come. ?

You may read this and feel the message and the encouragement to build your own tribes is not for you. I respect that. You may also have joined other tribes that are working for you and check all the important boxes in your life. That is fantastic and I recommend you stay the course. But you may just be seeking an alternative to the chase…the never-ending pursuit…of joining other tribes. You may not feel a meaningful connection to those other tribes or sense they may require something of you that you are not comfortable giving or compromises you are not comfortable making. You may want to start attracting friends who share a passion for what really matters. You may just want to relax into an ongoing and deeply satisfying state of authenticity that allows you to be yourself and be with others who value this as much as you do. You may seek to build a tribe around a noble purpose and mission that will make a really positive difference in the world.

If any of this resonates, than I strongly encourage you to think about building your own tribe(s). Take your time and be patient, build one tribe, savor the fruits of your efforts…and then build another one. Express appreciation and sincere gratitude to the members of your tribe(s). How do you get started? As soon as you identify someone who would make a good tribe member for all the reasons stated in this post, invite them to have coffee or lunch with you and the foundation of the new tribe has begun. You will absolutely be happy you did.

Good luck!

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Randy Hain is the president of Serviam Partners, the award-winning author of 12 books, an executive coach, leadership consultant and thought leader on candor, clarity, time management and business relationships. He is also the co-founder of The Leadership Foundry.