Tribal Economics 103

I have been told many times I should write a book, or books even. On average, I am told around once a month.

The thing is, I already know I am better off giving away and sharing with you and others what I know. I am much better sharing it with you, and building a tribe around it rather than packaging and selling it as a book. By making it a commodity of financial exchange, I taint the knowledge I have just that little bit. (I believe in capitalism as well, just to keep this in perspective!) I know there is much more value in the trust and reputation I gain by sharing it with you.

If you are by some shocking account unfamiliar with the blogosphere, let me share something with you. There is a staggering array of knowledge freely shared by high profile economists, sociologists, anthropologists, physicists, and so on. There is also essentially 95% useless or trivial information. Systems thinking and by extension of the systems I am developing for my organizations are a way of separating the signal (pertinent knowledge and wisdom) from the noise (trivia, propoganda, etc).
These people can freely share their knowledge because they are also secure in knowing that they can add additional  value in order to create a living around their acquired knowledge.

There is a tremendous amount of knowledge out there. Being open minded to exploring new innovative ways to make that knowledge and wisdom useful for you or your organization is up to you. AND up to me.

Put up your hand if you are starting to 'get' it!

Tribe Economics 101

"...ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
John F. Kennedy 

Yesterday I was asked, "How does this work? What do I  get out of this?"

Awesome! Feedback!

I will try to answer as clearly as I can with as few words as possible.

The shortest answer possible is you get what you give to your tribe. Or this tribe. Or any tribe that is worth your association. And the more you give in, the more you get out. That is how Tribe Economics expands in shared value for the entire tribe. Hundreds of people giving more than they get. That dynamic builds value very quickly.

What do you get? Trust and Reputation.
 Trust and reputation around whatever it is you choose to give freely to the tribe. That could be your knowledge or expertise on any number of things. It could be your ideas. It could be your plan for trying something new in your life. The possibilities are many.

What you get, what you develop, is a trust and reputation around whatever it is you're willing to give within an ever expanding network of people and organizations that also share and develop trust and reputation around what they are willing to give.

When you belong to a tribe--and better yet!!--a network of such tribes, you are creating and developing the social bonds, the social glue that allowed our ancient ancestors to survive often incredibly harsh conditions for hundreds of thousands of years.

Developed and shared trust and reputation were the cornerstones of success, winning, and thriving under any economic conditions of the past, and will be in the future.

These are the cornerstones for the core values of Transforming Organizations and Transforming people. (Think of these as tribes of tribes!)

This will be the theme of the week.