Just finished listening to the free audio of Tribal Leadership, I picked it up after listening to the live streaming of Zappos’ quarterly all-hands meeting where Dave Logan (the author) spoke. Excellent, excellent, excellent read…highly recommend it for leaders who want to “see it as it is”…in terms of how they show up as well as how their organization shows up…and then learn the steps to make it even better.

One of the core concepts in the book is that people within an organization, and therefore the organization itself, predominantly operate at one of 5 tribal stages, each characterizing the underlying nature of the organization’s culture.

You can determine which stage people are at by listening to what they say:

[list class=”bullet-minus”] [li]Stage 1 – “Life Sucks”[/li] [li]Stage 2 – “My Life Sucks”[/li] [li]Stage 3 – “I’m Great”[/li] [li]Stage 4 – “We’re Great”[/li] [li]Stage 5 – “Life’s Great”[/li] [/list]

Stage 2 is typified by Scott Adams’ “dilbert” cartoons, my life sucks and my manager is an idiot.

Stage 3 is the “go getter” culture typified by the majority of companies today and interestingly, that by its very nature, fosters a stage 2 counter-culture of “my life sucks” within an organization.

Stage 4  is where people transcend “I” to become “we”, we’re great together. This is the stage at which tribal leaders emerge and core values get enshrined. This is where organizations transition from being good to being great as compared to their competition, “we’re better than they are”.

Stage 5 is where an organization no longer measures itself against an external foe and instead is guided by its higher purpose.

Dave’s insight is that people need to transition through each stage. If you want to affect change in an organization you can’t suddenly jump people from “my life sucks” to “we’re great”, without first passing through and owning “I’m great”.

Another great insight is that what it takes to transition from “my life sucks” to “I’m great” is very different when going from “I’m great” to “we’re great”. The same level of thinking that got you to stage 3 is an anathema to getting you to stage 4.

I encourage you to read this book, even if it only helps you understand why the culture of the organization you work at is the way it is…

Had the opportunity to listen to BJ Fogg talk about his work at Stanford on Behavior Design at a recent Startup2Startup event. Really interesting research if you are in the business of engaging users…I’ve included one of his presentations below to whet your appetite.

His focus is on how computing products…from websites to mobile phone software…can be designed to change people’s beliefs and behaviors. For those of us looking to engage users, his work provides a great framework to understand the type of behaviors we want to influence and how to go about it.

Core to his model is the idea that we take action when three things align, there is a trigger at a point where we have the ability and motivation to take action. If we can make taking an action easy to do then a trigger is going to activate a higher percentage of people…and this is where he advises you focus before trying to optimize motivation (where most of us tend to focus).

To this end, he has 3 steps for forming a new habit:

[list class=”bullet-minus”] [li]Make it Tiny – find something easy to do that is fast[/li] [li]Find a Spot – put it after an existing behavior[/li] [li]Train the Cycle – focus on doing the tiny behavior[/li] [/list]

I came across this animated video of a talk by Dan Pink on the science of motivation and wrote down its 3 principles on the whiteboard in my home office and have been staring at them on and off now for a good few months. Since the talk really resonated with me I thought I’d pass it on…plus, love the animation.

Don’t think it’s going to spoil anything for you, but…big shock…beyond a certain point money is not the main motivator. And certainly, in my experience, not if your goal is to motivate people sustainably.

Keith Cunningham, one of my business mentors, says “you don’t just want to achieve success, you want to sustain success”. I think likewise for motivation, you don’t just want to motivate in the moment, you want to motivate for the long term.

So whether you are looking at what might motivate you sustainably or you are looking to sustainably motivate others, research shows there are three ingredients you need to add to the mix:

[list class=”bullet-minus”] [li]Autonomy – our desire to be self directed[/li] [li]Mastery – our urge to get better at stuff[/li] [li]Purpose – our need to be driven by something outside ourselves[/li] [/list]

Hope you enjoy the video…

As a first time entrepreneur you face a daunting task when it comes to actually getting your new venture of the ground. You might have a great idea, but you know that it takes a whole lot more than that to be successful.

In those very formative times you need to be patient, idea gestation and team formation just take time, rush it and you’ll risk betting your future on a half-baked idea or a half-committed team. It’s hard to emphasize how important both of these aspects are for a startup, a great idea without a committed team will remain just a great idea. A great team with a half-baked idea, arguably may still be successful long term, but will waste a lot of time an energy and jeopardize their success by heading off in the wrong direction.

[contentheading]Kitchen Cabinet[/contentheading]

I give all credit for this process to Manish Chandra, my business partner and then CEO of Kaboodle. You see when Manish had the initial inspiration for Kaboodle back in early 2004 he didn’t just sit on it, after he kicked it around and bounced it off a few friends over a month or two he built enough internal belief in the idea that he decided to take it a step further and importantly took action. As a first time entrepreneur he decided the best way to vet the idea and begin to form a team was to pull together a dozen or so people over the ensuing months who were intrigued enough by the idea to meet each week for a few hours on a Saturday morning at his house, in what he called his ‘Kitchen Cabinet’.

[contentheading]Co-Creation[/contentheading]

While drinking chai tea on a Saturday morning, open discussions led to many viewpoints and insights being shared, the idea was vetted and refined so that it was no longer just Manish championing it. Going back to the 6 needs of a startup, Manish was addressing the first need, the need for co-creation.

[contentheading]Team Formation[/contentheading]

Different people came and went, not everyone turned up every Saturday, not everyone shared the same passion or interest in the idea, but as time evolved Manish was able to identify not just his potential co-founders (myself included), but also those who were willing to commit time and energy to get the venture moving, even if they couldn’t ultimately join fulltime.

Appropriate NDAs, IP assignment and advisor agreements protected the business and also ensured that should the venture have a successful outcome, which it did, those individuals that put-out at that early stage were rewarded for their energy.

[contentheading]Decision Making[/contentheading]

Finally, going back to the second need of a startup, it came down to Manish to have the courage and conviction that the idea was viable, the team was viable and ultimately to make the decision to start Kaboodle with myself and Chetan Pungalyia…and that’s when Kaboodle, or Chaboodle Labs as it was back then, became real.

It took over nine months from initial idea to the point when all three of us had quit our jobs and were committed full-time. From a dozen or more people who had been involved in the process it had been whittled down to three. So as you see, it takes time, but time well spent!