Guiding leaders to advance firms' tribes to higher values

Leveraging Natural Groups
to Build a Thriving Organization

By Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright; Collins, 320 pp. $26.95

Reviewed by Cecil Johnson

In light of the intense focus these days on athletes who have used performance-enhancing chemicals, management consultants Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright might have chosen a better way to describe Gallup Organization chief executive officer Jim Clifton than "a Tribal Leader on steroids."

Obviously, they do not mean to suggest in their book,

Tribal Leadership

, that Clifton uses steroids. But the hyperbolic statement could be wrenched out of context for mirthful purposes. The authors' intent is to underscore how Clifton has guided the Gallup Organization to the highest stage of corporate or organizational culture.

Logan, King and Fischer-Wright designate that cultural level as "Stage 5," or the "Life is great" stage, which is a plateau beyond "We are great" (Stage 4) and even further up on the scale of cultural improvement than "I'm great" (Stage 3), "My life sucks" (Stage 2), and "Life sucks" (Stage 1).

Clifton, say the authors, had been referring to the Gallup Organization as a tribe long before the authors and their concept of tribes. They quote Clifton:

"The kind of people we attract to our organization are the kind of people who are driven by mission and purpose - that sets our tribe apart."

Under Clifton's tribal leadership, they write, the organization established the "Gallup Path," a management approach that links the bottom line with individual performance. In Clifton's words:

"We believe any individual can be extremely valuable or even has a shot at being a world leader if they will pull it off using their own strengths instead of trying to become a Jack Welch or a Ted Turner."

A tribe, according to Logan, King and Fischer-Wright, consists of 20 to 150 people. They are similar to small towns in which everyone knows everyone else by name. A large corporation may consist of several tribes in competition and cooperation with one another. A small company may contain only one tribe.

"We call these small towns tribes, and they form so naturally, it's as though our tribe is part of our genetic code. Tribes helped humans survive the last ice age, build farming communities, and later, cities. Birds flock, fish school, people 'tribe,' " they write.

The authors offer guidance to leaders helping rid organizations of the total negativity and destructiveness of Stage 1 tribal thinking and behavior, pull tribes and individuals within tribes out of the sloughs of apathy and passivity that characterize Stage 2 tribal cultures, overcome the arrogance and self-centeredness that pits ambitious individuals within tribes against one another, and transcend the group pride that focuses primarily on beating the competition.

Based on their research of two dozen companies, the authors estimate that 22 percent of workplace tribes are in Stage 4.

"A 'we're great' tribe always has an adversary - the need for it is hardwired into the DNA of this cultural stage. In fact, the full expression of the theme is 'We're great, and they're not.' For USC football, the 'you're not' is usually UCLA. . . . For Apple's operating systems engineers, it's Microsoft," write the authors.

Only 2 percent of workplaces are in Stage 5 tribal culture. At that level, the tribe gets into the realm of higher values than merely outstripping the competition, although it has to move back and forth from Stage 4 to Stage 5 mode to remain viable.

The biotechnology company Amgen Inc. is cited as a sterling example of an organization with a Stage 5 tribal culture. Some Amgen employees are quoted as having said:

"We're in competition with cancer. . . . Maybe [our competitor] is inflammatory disease, such as arthritis. Obesity . . . Parkinson's . . . we might be in competition with untimely death - human disease."

Leaders of for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including politicians, can benefit from perusing

Tribal Leadership

.

Peruse

is the appropriate word because the authors have fashioned it so that the reader has to focus only on the stage at which he or his tribe happen to be to find the keys to move to the next level.

Some readers may conclude that this is a rehash of the current conventional wisdom on leadership using novel nomenclature. Others may find it to be a leadership book on steroids.