Connecting

This morning I read Seth Godin's post and it struck a cord with me...

...What works is leading. Leading a (relatively) small group of people. Taking them somewhere they'd like to go. Connecting them to one another...

...It's enough if the tribe you lead knows about you and cares about you and wants to follow you. It's enough if your leadership changes things, galvanizes the audience and puts the status quo under stress. And it's enough if the leadership you provide makes a difference...

As leader we must be challenging the status quo, but it must be done in a way you respect where your group is coming from (their tradition.) It also seems to me that so often we shun being "commited to each other" in our culture (i.e. divorce rates.) Do you find that true? In what ways would you be willing to say you are connected to your "tribe" and what does that look like?

Go down the list of online success stories. The big winners are organizations that give tribes of people a platform to connect.

Go down the list of fashion businesses or business to business organizations. Same thing. Charities, too. Churches, certainly.

It's so tempting to believe that we are merely broadcasters, putting together a play list and hurtling it out to the rest of the world. Louder is better. But we're not. Now we're leaders.

People want to connect. They want you to do the connecting.

So, who do you need to connect. Yesterday K mentioned that she was excited about fall and Halloween. Why, because there was going to be a great opportunity for connection. Chances to connect our tribe with the "unconnected." It will give us a platform to listen to others stories and to tell our story. And who (deep down) doesn't what to be connected? (The Cheers theme song just started playing in the back of my head.