Additional Insights for Myth2
Organizations have tops, middles, and (therefore) bottoms

Working like a Cow by Walking like a Cow

(Adapted from mintzberg.org/blog, 5 February 2015, and16 February 2019)

Physiologists tell us how cows work, but who tells us how organizations work? Cows.

This is not a cow.

An ad appeared some years ago with a diagram similar to that above (this one courtesy of Socket Software), under the heading “This is not a cow.” That’s because this is a chart of a cow, not a cow itself. In a healthy cow, the parts don’t know that they are parts; they just work together harmoniously. So, would you like your organization to work like a chart? Or like a cow?

This is a serious question. Ponder it. Healthy cows have no trouble working like cows. Nor, for that matter, does each of us, at least physiologically, when healthy. So why do we have so much trouble working together socially? Do the charts get in the way? Even make us unhealthy?

I use this example in our masters program for managers (described in the text). One time, in a module held in India, while the class was touring together, they had to cross a bustling street with no traffic light. How to do that? It’s simple, they were told by their guide: “Just walk like a cow”: stay together, and move steadily and slowly across the street, like a cow. So they did, and the traffic went around them. Most importantly, by bonding physically, they bonded, socially, in their own community.

Picture it: a mass of people, all as one, advancing steadily and cooperatively through what looks like confusion. Now imagine the people of your organization advancing steadily and cooperatively through what looks like its own confusion.

In walking like a cow, we have an answer to working like a cow: it’s about walking and working together. Beyond the sacred cow of leadership lies communityship.