Quarterly Oil Change

• Encourage projects that are too big to be done alone.
• Point out that the next level of success is going to require a different style than going at it alone.
• When they complain that they (1) don’t have time and (2) other people aren’t as good, show them that they’ve crafted th...

Stage Two has an ineffective relationship with values that comes across as cynicism, sarcasm, or resignation.

They accept obstacles as the way it is and the way it always will be. They give up, and they band together in a sort of support group for the oppressed.

They spend a lot of ti...

• This stage is the dominant culture seen in most workplaces (49%).
• “I’m great, and you’re not” is their slogan.
• Doctors, professors, attorneys, and salespeople are prone to operate at this level.
• Knowledge is power, and so people hoard information.
• They complai...

Tribal Leaders focus their efforts on building the tribe – or, more precisely, upgrading the tribal culture.

Tribal Leadership works when the leader upgrades the tribe as the tribe embraces the leader. Tribes and leaders create each other.

• A tribe is any group of people between a...

• Ask: "What do we have?"
• Core assets are so central to the tribe that they may be invisible to the people inside. Ask, “What do we have a knack for doing better than anyone else?”
• Common ground is another asset that answers the question, “How are we seen by those with whom we ...

• Ask: "What should we do to accomplish the outcomes?"
• Don’t write down behaviours people are already doing. Focus on behaviours that will bring the outcomes to life.
• Don’t assume everything will go perfectly according to plan. It won’t.

• Keep asking, “In service of what?”
• Ask the Big Four Questions

1. What’s working well?
2. What’s not working?
3. What can we do to make the things that aren’t working, work?
4. Is there anything else?

Rules for Brainstorming:

• Stay focused
• One conversation at a time
• Be visual
• Go for quantity
• Defer judgment
• Encourage wild ideas

• “Life is great” is the T-shirt slogan for this level.
• Less than 2% of workforces operate at this level.
• Their language revolves around infinite potential and how the group is going to make history – not to beat a competitor, but because doing so will make a global impact.

About 75% of workplace tribes operate at Stage Three or below. The goal of this book is to upgrade your tribe to Stage Four.

You determine what stage your tribe is at by listening to how most people talk and noticing how most people structure their work relationships.

• Each cultur...

• Nothing that matters is personal.
• Stage Three has no legacy.
• To win at Stage Three is to win small.
• I now see I have been a manipulator, not a leader.
• I’m tired; isn’t there some other game to play?
• I see myself through others’ eyes, and I don’t like w...

• Stage Three is the zone of personal accomplishment.
• It’s also an area where people tend to feel let down by others.
• There’s a perception that people are where they are because they worked for it, and others aren’t there because they gave up.
• People in the middle of st...

• A goal is off in the future. It implies failure in the present. “when we achieve the goal, we will have stopped failing” is how many people relate to the goal-setting process.
• In contrast, an outcome is a present state of success that becomes an even bigger victory over time. An outc...

1. A Tribal Leader tells a value-laden story, which triggers others to tell similar stories about their values.
2. Ask open-ended questions such as, “What are you proud of?”

• Empower others to resolve conflict by reminding them of their shared values.
• Stable triads resolve incidents and free the time of Tribal Leaders to focus on strategy.
• Stage Four organizations actively pull in resources, approaches, consultants, ideas, or anything else that wi...

25 percent of workplace tribes display Stage Two as their dominant culture.

“My life sucks” is the adopted attitude.

People are passively antagonistic, no passion, laughter is quiet, sarcastic and resigned. They expect failure.

There is little to no innovation and almost no sens...

There’s a big gap between Stage Three and Stage Four culture.

Stage Four is characterized by “we’re great, and they’re not” and represents 22% of the workforce.

People feel free to be fully themselves. Everyone seems happy, inspired, and genuine.

The bigger the foe, the more pow...

• A key point for companies that want to attain Stage Four is to go for values now.
• Almost without exception, we found that wildly successful organizations talked about values when it appeared they could least afford to do so.
• In every case, “we’re great” cultures rested on cor...

• Without the leaders building the tribe, a culture of mediocrity will prevail. Without an inspired tribe, leaders are impotent.
• You can predict the performance of the tribe by counting the number of people who speak the language of each stage, and noticing who is in positions of leade...

• Very few professionals operate in Stage One, less than 2 percent.
• If Stage One were a t-shirt, it would read “life sucks.”
• People in this stage are despairingly hostile, and they band together to get ahead in a violent and unfair world.

• Get to know the values and current projects of every person in your network.
• Before facilitating an introduction between two people, you have to have the credibility to pull it off. Build credibility through “the theory of small gifts.” Do little things for people, like sending them ...

• Encourage the team member to make a friend. To establish dyadic (two-person) relationships.
• Encourage the team member to establish relationships with people who are at late Stage Three – people who are eager to mentor others into becoming mini-versions of themselves.
• In one-o...

When people at this stage cluster together, their behaviour expresses despairing hostility.

Leveraging Points:

• If the person is willing to move forward, encourage him to go where the action is. This means having lunch with coworkers, attending social functions, a...

• Values
• Noble cause
• Outcomes
• Assets
• Behaviors

• People don’t use their words, they are used by their words.
• Upgrade the culture. Tribal Leadership focuses on language and behaviour to upgrade the culture.
• Together is better. We start to overcome Stage Three by recognizing that there is no legacy in going at it alone.