Before I can talk meaningfully about harnessing tribal behavior in software engineering, I need to explain Immelman's basic framework. So today's post is merely passing on a few details. The thesis of Great Boss, Dead Boss is based on notion of the five tribal dimensions
- Individuals are socially, emotionally and psychologically defined by their tribal membership
- Individuals act to reinforce their security when under threat (Individual Security or IS)
- Individuals act to reinforce their self-worth when not under threat (Individual Value or IV)
- Tribes act to secure their self-preservation when under threat (Tribal Security or TS)
- Tribes act to reinforce their self-worth when their security is not under threat (Tribal Value or TV)
Note that self-worth or individual value is measured purely in the tribal context. Individual value only increases if the fellow members of the tribe recognize the contribution and ascribe higher value to it. For example, praise from a non-tribal member would not count and would not increase self-worth. This is the critical premise of the first dimension - everything is tribal.
So here is a list of some of my tribal affiliations which may be weaker or stronger but they are all entities to which I feel an affiliation
- Anderson family
- Anderson clan
- Scotland (Scottish)
- Britain (British)
- Europe (European)
- Software Engineering Profession
- Manager
- Microsoftie
- Feature Driven Development
- Coad / Color Modelers
- UML Users
- Agile Community
- Ballard residents
- Seattle residents
- Western Washington Residents
- Mountain Bikers
- Skiers
- Strathclyde University Alumni
- IEE Members
- Kansas City Wizards
- MSF Champions
- TOC (Theory of Constraints) community
- Lean Design Community (CFD user)
- Real Ale drinkers
- Sprintpcs.com Mobile Portal (former leader)
- and on and on...
Have a think about it and make your own list? What threatens your security and how do you react? Then ask yourself, how do you increase your self worth? What makes you feel good or worse? If someone insults you, why does it hurt more or less depending on who it is? How strong are your tribes? What threatens their security? How do you feel about it when their security is threatened? How valuable is your tribe? What can be done to increase or decrease its value?
