Tribal Organizations for a New Future
Creating a new vocabulary to frame the new way of doing business
A friend recently gifted Maria and I a book by the late Daniel Quinn, the author of the famed Ismael. Our friend was not aware at the time that Ishmael is one of a small handful of books that has significantly influenced my thinking and writing over the years. This recently gifted book, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure, has been equally influential for me, lending a new language to thoughts I’ve pondered for quite some time.
And what of these new thoughts? That we need to invent a new vocabulary to usher in the kind of changes we seek that will help humanity heal and lead us toward a more egalitarian existence. Daniel Quinn offers us one significant new piece of adopted language that is crucial to the changes we seek.
But first to share a little story.
Some years back, 20 to be precise, I was working at a large corporation leading a sizable project that I had poured my soul into. For six months of every year I would forego much in the way of self-care and enjoyment to work unimaginable hours to ensure that this project came off as close to flawless as possible and engendered an enriching and enjoyable experience to literally hundreds of thousands of people.
Each year this project grew and evolved under my leadership, constantly improving, delivering incalculable intangible benefits to the company. But alas, publicly held corporations do not deal in the intangible, and hierarchical systems do not award gratitude to those working in the trenches, but instead enhance the presumed value of those higher in the chain of command via the bragging rights they crave.
For me, the constant realization that my work and sacrifice was going completely unnoticed within the hierarchy was devastating. It was naïve of me to assume it should be any different though. Corporate hierarchical systems are not designed to recognize those who sacrifice the most, who innovate the most, who care the most. They exist for one reason, which is to ensure the constant flow of profits.
But I kept at it, telling myself that my own knowing of the value I was contributing was enough. A few individuals recognized my contribution, usually those who worked on the project from outside the company. Each of my direct bosses understood the value I contributed and thus insulated me from the hierarchy so as to perpetuate the illusion that they were fully responsible for the project’s success. A couple brief encounters with the CEO illustrated perfectly that he was completely unaware that I even worked on the project at all.
Eventually I resigned and moved on to another company and in the following year the project was outsourced so that a separate company could do what I did single handedly.
I share this story not to engender sympathy. I was truly my own worst enemy, and we are always wiser in hindsight. The purpose of the story is that this period of my life in which I gave so much to an organization that didn’t appreciate it is what lead me to the kind of work I do today, which is to help organizations connect more deeply with the soul of the company — to bring their true and authentic vision to life. Which is a way of dramatically shifting the culture of a company from working to make money, to making money doing the work they love to do.
Once a company goes public they’re done for, because from that point forward any higher purpose is supplanted by the constant need to deliver short-term profit to shareholders. Venture Capital works the same way. VCs look for the payout, that point within five years when the company is either purchased or taken public and they receive a massive return on investment. Vision and purpose play only a minor role, and only insofar as it supports the profit mission.
When I was immersed in the corporate world I took it as granted that the profit model was important and correct, because (as I assumed) those at much higher paid grades continuously preached its mantra. I secretly questioned it but didn’t have a vocabulary to frame what I was feeling. Now I do.
Getting to the clearest vocabulary has been “a long and winding road,” to quote the Beatles. Around that time I read Jerry Mander’s book, In the Absence of the Sacred, in which he suggested the non-profit model could be applied to any type or size of company. But then I saw non-profit behemoths such as United Way paying their CEO a multi-million-dollar salary while he used company resources to remodel his home. I also worked with non-profits that were just as hierarchical as any for-profit, just as oriented around power and influence, and of course money in the form of donations.
Holacracy has complicated origins that several authors built upon to create the current model of decentralized leadership. It gained popularity in 2013 when Zappos.com announced it was switching to the Holacracy model. Interestingly, 18% of the staff quit following the decision, illustrating how deeply the hierarchical model of leadership is engrained.
Holacracy is great, the only problem is its adoption is painfully slow. The reason being is that we are trying to adopt a new kind of thinking to an old-style model of business. Instead, as Buckminster Fuller once said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Daniel Quinn wrote in Beyond Civilization,
“When I first described the New Tribal Revolution in My Ishmael, I was rather like an astronomer describing a planet whose existence has been deduced but which has yet to be seen by any eye. If asked, I couldn’t have furnished a single example of what I was talking about. Only after a year of vague groping did it occur to me that the circus . . . is in fact organized in a way that is authentically tribal.
“But even so: only a single example?
“After more months of vague groping, I realized I was preoccupied by the ethnic tribal model, designed to make a group of sixty or seventy individuals totally self-sufficient. I was looking at size and structure and forgetting benefits.” (Beyond Civilization, page 139)
Quinn did as I did, groped to find the vocabulary and a way of framing what he was feeling into simple to understand language. And what pray tell is this new language? As the title of this post reveals, “Tribal Organizations.” The huge awareness that Quinn arrived at and shares with us in Beyond Civilization is that if we only view a “Tribe” as an ethnic group of people, then we are missing the point of tribes.
The reason ethnic tribes have worked so effectively for literally millions of years is not because of ethnicity, but rather a shared value system of interdependence, cooperation, and mutual benefit — “one for all and all for one,” to quote Dumas.
Many people who seek to shed the constructs of modern society think that means moving to the country and joining a commune or becoming a prepper or homesteader, as Maria and I are doing (homesteading that is). But Quinn’s point is that the kind of tribalism that carried humanity and our genetic predecessors through millions of years of evolution is about small groups working together to make a living.
There are many examples of Tribal Organizations working cooperatively and effectively. In some, but not in all cases, the classic family business is one. The culture of the traveling circus is another. Some acting troupes. The fictional troupe in HBO’s Station Eleven series is exactly a tribal organization — everyone working together, no hierarchy, no dominant egos or unequal distribution of benefits.
And there is no reason this model cannot be applied to any type of business, but most definitely will not work in very large organizations. This works effectively in small to medium scale businesses, which can collectively take over the landscape of the realm of business over time, much the same as the system of cooperatives have taken over the Mondragon region of Spain.
The Mondragon system illustrates how Cooperatives can be small or medium sized and still retain their value system of democratic governance and be successful, and (to use one of those corporate-speak terms) “competitive.”
What Does It Require?
A willingness to let go of the belief that hierarchical systems of governance are the only way
A willingness to let go of the need to be over people — to have authority over
A willingness to let go of the need to make gobs of money — that we seek to make what we need and most everyone makes the same amount
A willingness to govern democratically — that we trust the group to make the best decisions, and decisions that don’t pan out are taken as learning experiences
A wiliness to remain small, or medium-ish — that we don’t seek to go public or sell out for piles of cash, that the business is the people holding a shared vision, not the equity or cash potential
It’s worked for thousands of years, millions even if we trace back to our genetic hunter gatherer predecessors. Most likely the reason 18% of Zappos.com people walked out when Holacracy was announced is that hierarchy is so engrained that it’s difficult to see how an organization can function effectively without it.
Alcoholics Anonymous has functioned effectively for 88 years without hierarchy. The second of the 12 traditions of AA says, “Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.” Then tradition nine, “A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.” 88 years and it’s still going strong helping those who want the help to live sober lives.
The Mondragon region of Spain has accomplished amazing things over the past 60+ years. How many young people have “run away to join the circus” and never left because of its tribal culture? How many lives have been positively impacted, even saved, from the work of Alcoholic Anonymous?
Daniel Quinn is suggesting that we can apply the tribal model to the generation of income, that when a group of people pool their experience, expertise, and passions seeking to launch new businesses based on an entirely different (non-hierarchical) model, that great things can be accomplished. It's not about making piles of cash, but merely doing work we love doing. Call it a cooperative, call it decentralized governance, or democratic leadership. It’s about forming tribes to work together to make a living. One for all and all for one.
If you haven’t read any of Quinn’s books I highly recommend them. Begin with Ismael and go from there. He’s not saying that tribal organizations are the only way. Instead he shares that this is part of our collective problem, that we think there is only one right way to live and work. What he is saying is that a tribal cultural approach to income generation is pretty hard to improve upon, and most definitely capable of being one of many ways for us to move away from the current system that exploits Mother Earth to no end, which is leading us toward inevitable extinction — unless of course we can shift to new models, and quickly I might add.
If you’ve enjoyed this post please like, share, and subscribe. The way the DEEPER side of things reaches a wider audience is through word of mouth. Thank you for your support.