SPA Conference session: Tribal Leadership

One-line description:Create the place where you long to belong
 
Session format: Workshop (75 mins) [read about the different session types]
 
Abstract:Do you dream that one day all the office politics will be replaced by a common and worthwhile cause? Do you wish to be part of a winning team working in a place where you long to belong?

Join us to learn about Tribal Leadership, a model for leveraging natural groups to create organisations that thrive. Learn how to transform your work experience into what you want it to be by focusing on language and behaviour through different stages: from Despairing Hostility (“Life sucks”) to Tribal Pride (“We’re great they’re not”) and finally to Innocent Wonderment (“We’re great and so are they”).

OBJECTIVES
Learn about the Tribal Leadership Model
Get ideas of how the model can be used to articulate an Agile team's journey
Give people ideas for becoming more effective in terms of sharing and teamwork
 
Audience background:No prior knowledge required
Only a desire for continuous improvement - for yourself and the teams with whom you work
 
Benefits of participating:Introduction to Tribal Dynamics through the Tribal Leadership model
Increased self-awareness and understanding of your workplace
Hands-on experience of applying the Tribal Leadership model to a tribe
Hands-on experience of applying the Tribal Leadership model to yourself
A personal Tribal Leadership roadmap to move yourself towards “Innocent Wonderment” because Tribal Leadership begins with the individual
 
Materials provided:Origami paper, paper folding instructions, stationery exercises, chocolates
 
Process:About the exercises This session is made up of two kinds exercises.

The Origami Exercise
This consists of 3 rounds. Each round is made up of PLAY (folding of cranes) followed by a DEBRIEF (identify the stage of your tribe/yourself based on what you saw, heard and experienced during Play section). Note: The choice of the peace crane is deliberate. It is sufficiently advanced as to be quite challenging for many people. This creates the pressure necessary to bring out an individuals’s preferred language and behaviour in real life, thus enriching the learning experience by making it more meaningful and relevant.

Round 1 - Represents the tribe forming stage. People are set the goal of producing as many peace cranes as possible to exchange with other tribes for goods. They playback the language they heard during play in order to identify the tribe’s current stage. The tribe has the opportunity to brainstorm and select improvement actions to upgrade their tribe to be applied in the next round.

Round 2 - The goal of producing as many cranes remains the same. They playback the behaviour they saw during play in order to identify the tribe’s current stage. This may or not be different to the finding from the first round. The tribe has the opportunity to brainstorm and select improvement actions to upgrade their tribe to be applied in the next round.

Round 3 - The goal of producing as many cranes remains the same. This time, each tribe member considers their personal language and behaviour to identify their personal stage. This may or may not differ from that of the tribe.

Personal Assessment Exercise
This follows on from the last round of the Origami exercise in which each tribe member has the opportunity to apply the theory of upgrading themselves from the current stage to the next. During this activity, participants are likely to see and draw parallels between their personal stage in the Origami Exercise in comparison to their personal stage at work and increase their awareness of their current stage is in real life at work.

Storytelling and real-life examples During this session, I will also tell stories of individuals and teams (Agile and non-Agile) undergoing change and how using this model has helped us make sense of those experiences.
 
Detailed timetable:SESSION MECHANICS
10 mins - Introduction to session and concept of “tribes”
08 mins - Origami Exercise: Tribal Experiment Round 1
05 mins - The Five Stages of Tribal Leadership
10 mins - Exercise: Assess the stage of your tribe based on language Round 1 Debrief
08 mins - Origami Exercise: Tribal Experiment Round 2
10 mins - Exercise: Assess the stage of your tribe based on behaviour Round 2 Debrief
08 mins - Origami Exercise: Tribal Experiment Round 3
10 mins - Personal Assessment Exercise: Personal stage upgrade
06 mins - Session summary and resources
 
Outputs:Picture gallery of event like this:
https://picasaweb.google.com/103024906983851754740/TribalLeadershipAtXPDaysBenelux2011

Blog session writeup like this:
http://www.selfishprogramming.com/2011/12/06/tribal-leadership-create-the-place-where-you-long-to-belong/

Session available under Creative Commons Share-Alike-By-Attribution licence:
http://www.slideshare.net/portiatung/tribal-leadership-create-the-place-where-you-long-to-belong
 
History:SESSION FEEDBACK FROM CO-AUTHOR OF “Tribal Leadership”
Dave Logan, co-author of “Tribal Leadership” the book says: “Amazing work! Would you be open to our posting this on our website? It’s really outstanding!” Having seen the pictures from the session at XP Days, Dave adds, “This is really fun! Love the pictures. Looks like you get people really involved.”

SESSION HISTORY
This session has been run at XP Days Benelux. See the participant feedback here: http://www.xpday.be/Xpday2011/sessions/Tribal%20Leadership/Feedback.html

It has also been submitted for Agile 2012 as a 90-minute session and has received positive feedback to date:
http://submit2012.agilealliance.org/node/13131

I also apply this model and use versions of the presentation material with my community and teams at work.
 
Presenters
1. Portia Tung
UBS
2. 3.