[Blogs, 5 February 2015, 16 February 2019]
If you are confounded by communityship, these stories about cows will clear that up.
Physiologists tell us how cows work, but who tells us how organizations work? Cows.
This is not a cow.
An ad that appeared some years ago with a diagram similar to that above, under the heading “This is not a cow.” That’s because this is a chart of a cow, not a cow itself. [EN-said OK to use, but not to attribute because they had changed their promotion]. 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, physiologically at least, when healthy. So why do we have so much trouble working together socially? Do the charts get in the way?
I used to discuss this cow in our masters program for managers. 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: Just walk like a cow”: stay together, and move steadily and slowly, like a cow. So they did, and the traffic went around them. Most importantly, by bonding physically, they bonded, socially, and 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 the world of communityship.