Sunday, February 1, 2009

Inside Nan: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us or Nan Comes to Another Fork in the Road

The concepts in this book have been rattling around in my head -- well clanging against the walls and yanging at me in frequent situations -- and although it is NOT a kid's book I am going to post it because I want to rant, I mean, tell you about it. My supervisor put it on my desk with a note "interesting book..." That's all she wrote (it was a small post-it note). Thing is, she is retiring after a long successful career in our library system and our head reference librarian also just retired. So there is at work this undercurrent. This is my perspective, remember its an Inside Nan post. Hmmm, this book is all about leadership. And then there is the whole Obama transition --- so I am crazed by Godin's straightforward, conversational, passionate message. I had never heard of this guy but now that I have he is everywhere. His blog is an irritant - in a GOOD way. I mean it is a constant encouragement to take hold of the situations. Of course you can imagine what that leads to...
Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
Here's the summary blurb: According to Godin, Tribes are groups of people aligned around an idea, connected to a leader and to each other. Tribes make our world work, and always have. The new opportunity is that it's easier than ever to find, organize, and lead a tribe. The Web has enabled an explosion of all kinds of tribes and created a shortage of people to lead them. This is the growth industry of our time.
Now that pasted, here are a few quotes:
"...A tribe is a group of people connected to one
another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea...some tribes are stuck. They embrace the status quo and drown out any tribe member who dares to question authority and the accepted order..."

"...Heretics are the new leaders...troublemakers and change agents are the keys to success...Growth comes from change and light and noise...skill and attitude are essential. Authority is not. In fact, authority can get in the way."

"...Life is too short to be mediocre..."

So here's the sum. I read the book, a couple of times and took about 10 pages of notes. It's about my own life of course and it's about my life in the daily library and the library system. And the blogging life. This was part of the inspiration to add the Annotated to the Anokaberry. I have to return the book to the library and now I can file the notes, the ideas, however, are let loose.

"...one person with a persistent vision can make change happen..."

"...Are there thousands of reasons why you, of all people, aren't the right one to lead? Why you don't have the authority...So what? Go."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

ah, the fork in the road! thanks for posting it:>)
EJS

James Preller said...

Nan, I'd follow you anywhere.

Thanks for the tip on the book -- I'll check it out.

JP

Jen Robinson said...

I think I'm going to have to read this one, too, Nan. There seems to be a bit of a tribe forming on the blogs, and on Facebook, around encouraging people to read-aloud with kids, and this book could be quite timely. Thanks!