This month’s Far Reads book club pick was "Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us" bySeth Godin. Here’s our recap.
Who Selected It
Kate WashutWhy She Selected It
"I feel like the book has a lot of powerful messages—most importantly, to me, that people who want to make a difference can do so by finding and leading a tribe. I think this idea brings focus to what we try to do everyday, and I thought the team could benefit from Seth’s insights into the process.”What It’s About
The central theme in “Tribes”: You’re a leader, and we need you. In other words, if you think leadership is for other people, think again.
Anyone who wants to make a difference can, Godin says. You no longer have to be in management to make things happen.
Godin explores:
- What holds us back from being a leader (fear)
- What we’re really afraid of (blame and criticism)
- How to overcome that fear (the world is now demanding that we change, and fast)
- The benefit of being a leader (initiative = happiness)
He also shares:
- What happens if you ignore the opportunity to lead (you risk turning into a sheepwalker)
- What leadership is about (creating change your tribe can believe in)
- The key elements to creating a movement (hey, we can’t give everything away!)
Our Favorite Quotes
“Leaders have followers. Managers have employees. Managers make widgets. Leaders make change.”
“The one path that never works is the most common one: doing nothing at all.”
How We’re Applying What We Learned
“Tribes” made us stop and ask ourselves:
- Who is our tribe?
- What else do they need?
- How can we better serve them?
Here’s what we discovered in our discussion.
Our brand has evolved from a very tech-focused development shop to a full-service interactive agency that helps people build and market software solutions from beginning to end.
We realized this evolution needs to be better reflected in our proposals and marketing. We’ve lost out on some great projects lately because the prospects weren’t aware we could help them with their branding and marketing, too.
More and more, we’re finding most clients don’t realize everything they need for their software to be successful. For instance, a logo and branding to establish their identity, a website to market the software, Internet marketing to drive traffic to the website, and a clear message that helps convert leads to sales.
We realized we could do a better job educating people about this before they start their project using things like resources and blog posts on our website.
Now it’s time to tackle next month’s book: "Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding the Three Fears that Sabotage Client Loyalty."