Brain Rules (John Medina, 2008) 8.0/10
How We Decide (Jonah Lehrer, 2009) 8.2/10
How The Mighty Fall (Jim Collins, 2009) 6.7/10
World Wide Rave (David Meerman Scott, 2009) 7.2/10
The Element (Sir Ken Robinson, 2009) 8.2/10
Jeff Immelt and the New GE Way (David Magee, 2009) 5.0/10
The Talent Code (Daniel Coyle, 2009) 6.5/10
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert B. Cialdini, 2007) 7.0/10
The Ten Commandments for Business Failure (Donald R. Keough, 2008) 7.3/10
The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets (Peter D. Schiff, 2008) 5.2/10
The Brand Bubble (John Gerzema and Ed Lebar, 2008) 6.0/10
A Sense Of Urgency (John P. Kotter, 2008) 6.5/10
Who (Geoff Smart and Randy Street, 2008) 6.8/10
Reality Check (Guy Kawasaki, 2008) 7.2/10
Talent (Edward E. Lawler III, 2008) 5.8/10
Business Stripped Bare (Richard Branson, 2008) 7.8/10
Call Me Ted (Ted Turner with Bill Burke, 2008)
Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell, 2008) 6.0/10
Winning (Jack Welch with Suzy Welch, 2005) 8.0/10
Tuned In (Craig Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott, 2008) 7.2/10
Inside Steve's Brain (Leander Kahney, 2008) 6.0/10
Yes! (Robert Cialdini, et al, 2008) 6.7/10
The Answer (John Assaraf & Murray Smith, 2008) 7.2/10
Six Disciplines Execution Revolution (Gary Harpst, 2008) 4.0/10
The Future of Management (Gary Hamel and Bill Breen, 2008) 7.3/10
Meatball Sundae (Seth Godin, 2007) 7.0/10
“Everything I did was for us, not for me, I didn’t manage; I led”
Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us, a latest book by Seth Godin, again, amazes readers in many aspects. “Tribes” is a concept by Seth Godin denoting “leadership and technology”. “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and conncected to an idea.” And undoubtedly, this book is essentially for the tribe of Seth Godin.
I’ll compare, in my honest opinion, this book, Tribes, to the ideal business book that is “easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience”
Ease of Understanding: 7/10: Tribes is a typical Seth Godin’s work, easy language, no mind-numbing models or data, and short. However, the lack of structure is quite frustrating. There is no chapter, no storyline; this book is a cluster of blog posts.
Distinction: 6/10: The outstanding distinction of this book is how Seth Godin made this book feels more like printed blog posts rather than a typical book. He said he cherishes change and heretics; but I believe it has gone too far (or too tiny within his tribe). As for the contents of the book, it is nothing new. It is about leadership (things like communication, passion, or everyone-can-be-a-leader-if-you-want-to) and technology (twitter, facebook, (his) squidoo, yahoo, etc.).
Practicality: 1/10: From his second to last topic (or post), “You made it to the end. And it’s posible you missed the checklists, the detailed how-to lists, and the For Dummies-style introduction manual that shows you exactly what to do to find a tribe and lead it.” he continues “I think that was the point.” This book might inspire and motivate you to change but it does not tell you how. That is Seth’s point, and one point in practicality is fair.
Credibility: 4/10: The words from the marketing guru should be credible and I believe him but I do not believe what he wrote. This book, unlike his previous books, seems like a quick composition. His idea of tribe is not truly refined and he labeled it onto every possible thing, music concert, philanthropy, Barack Obama, Toyota Prius, Wikipedia, Twitter, a restaurant, Steve Jobs, fitness website, rock climbing, or the X prize. We all know that they are succesful but labelling them “this is an Apple tribe”, “this is an Obama tribe”, “this tribe, that tribe” without enough justification is not convincing.
Insightful: 4/10: I would like to state once more that they are a series of blog posts (126 altogether). This book has no in-depth finding or groundbreaking research. However, they are full of intelligent, clever, and somewhat inspring phases like
“This is a book for anyone who chooses to lead a tribe. Inside or out, the possibilities are huge”,
“Leaders have followers, Managers have employees. Managers make widgets. Leaders make change.”,
“…most organizations are waiting for someone like you to lead them.”
“Fans, true fans, are hard to find and precious. Just a few can change everything, What they demand, though, is generosity and bravery.”
“If you’re not over the top, you’re not going to have any chance at all of making things happen.”
Reading Experience: 5/10: If you are in Seth Godin’s tribe, make it 10/10. If you are not, don’t bother. Reading “Tribes” is like reading Seth’s blog, the difference is that it is in a book and it costs money. The contents are very random (surrounding the idea of leadership and technology) and you might be amazed by new and unrelated topics every a couple of pages or you might by annoyed by them.
Overall: 4.7/10: On the criticism of this book, Seth Godin wrote “People might say that it’s too disorganized or not practical enough or that I require you to do too much work to actually accomplish anything. That’s okay. In fact, criticism like that almost always accompanies change.” I feel that this book is useless and then, I am branded change-resistant. I admire lots of Godin’s previous books, his presentations, and continuously read his blog. However, I think this book is way below his standard and the quote from “Tribes” that sums everything up is on page 85
“Boy, are you in trouble. Better get rid of this book.“
January 26th, 2009 at 11:10 am
The giant flaw in the analysis is the self-referential nature of “seth godin’s tribe”. More people have read this book than my other books, so a large number of happy readers are people who weren’t converts when they started. Thus, the idea that the only people who will like it are people who set out to like it is untrue.
Different books try to achieve different things. Clearly, in this case, with you, I failed. That’s a side affect of pushing hard with a different kind of person.
Maybe next time.
January 26th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Dear Seth,
With all due respect, I try to make this brief. The surge in blog reading is growing exponentially. You are a leading business blogger and I strongly believe that you have grown your tribe mainly through your blog, not your previous book. Hence, “More people have read this book than my other books, so a large number of happy readers are people who weren’t converts when they started” might not be true. My self-referential nature of “seth godin’s tribe” might stand correct.
Your books made you an excellent author but your blog made you the most outstanding blogger. Obviously, I love your blog but I expect more from a book. You have surely raised my expectation through the roof.
Maybe next time.