Tom Peters said: Unless you walk out into the unknown, the odds of making a profound difference in your life are pretty low. We stumbled on a very interesting website recently while searching for a video that described the value of the first follower. In actuality, the video was seeking to answer the question of which was most critical to building a community, the leader or first follower. It was also dealing with walking out into the unknown.
More to learn: Secrets to Becoming a Remarkably Mindful Leader
The video was created by Derek Sivers and it was his him and his website that was so interesting. Just a little about Derek before we discuss the video and then the website.
Originally a professional musician and circus clown, Derek Sivers created CD Baby in 1998. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians.
In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby for $22M, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Says a ton about Derek, doesn’t it?
He is a frequent speaker at the TED Conference, with over 5 million views of his talks.
In 2011, he moved to Singapore and published a book which shot to #1 on all of its Amazon categories.
His new company is Wood Egg, publishing annual guides to 16 countries in Asia.
Now let’s get back to what Derek’s video has to say about the first follower. We’ll use the script of the video for most of the following content.
If you are interested in leadership and making a movement, then let’s watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons:
The leader
A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he’s doing is so simple, it’s almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow.
Related: How to Create the Best Leadership Accountability
The first follower
Now comes the first follower with a crucial role: he publicly shows everyone how to follow. Notice the leader embraces him as an equal, so it’s not about the leader anymore – it’s about them, plural. Notice he’s calling to his friends to join in. It takes guts to be a first follower. You stand out and brave ridicule, yourself.
Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire.
The second follower
The second follower is a turning point: it’s proof the first follower has done well. Now it’s not a lone nut, and it’s not two nuts. Three is the beginning of the community and the community is news.
Leader or first follower … the tipping point
The community must be public. It makes sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers because new followers emulate followers – not the leader.
Now here come 2 more, then 3 more. Now we’ve got momentum. This is the tipping point! Now we’ve got a real community movement.
Risk is reduced
As more people jump in, it’s no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there’s no reason not to join now. They won’t be ridiculed, they won’t stand out, and they will be part of the in-crowd if they hurry. Over the next minute, you’ll see the rest who prefer to be part of the crowd, because eventually they’d be ridiculed for not joining.
Conclusion
And that is how a community movement is made.
Recap
Let’s recap what we learned:
If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.
Be public. Be easy to follow.
But the biggest lesson here – did you catch it?
Leadership is over-glorified.
Yes it started with the shirtless guy, and he’ll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened:
It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader.
There is no community movement without the first follower.
We’re told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.
The best way to make a community movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.
When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.
Our view
There are many articles out there that talk about leadership. Far fewer on being the first follower. They all have different theories, and all of them are probably right in some way. But the backbone to being successful in either role is courage. Call it what you want, but courage inspires action. Courage to take action can change your life.
Courage can mean challenging conventional wisdom, or doing what others are not doing, or attempting to break a record, or risking going broke over a crazy idea. It can mean speaking in public, trying new things, challenging your boss, starting a family, or being the leader or first follower. Courage is the ability to overcome something that frightens you. Learn to build your courage for new things and walking out into the unknown … you won’t regret it.
Key takeaways
There’s a school of thought that says we overemphasize individual leader traits when trying to understand leadership effectiveness. Another angle says leaders are only leaders because they are recognized by others as such: it’s a social process.
What lessons does it give you about around leading innovation and change? For me, it’s about improving your courage … making it easier and more desirable for people to join movements and communities.
Have a look at the Sivers Ted Talk video on this topic.
https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement
Here is the Sivers website:
http://sivers.org/
As you have seen, Derek is a very creative guy who has many valuable things to offer on his website. Take a look around.
What do you think?
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of collaborative innovation and the first follower. And put them to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.
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