CANADIAN HR STRATEGY/19
than the workers in the company is not a leader at all, because
it's sending out a signal that he or she is that much more impor-
tant than everybody else. That's not leadership. And we're just
inundated with that kind of "leadership."
HRS: You've written about the difference between a com-
munity and a network, and how people often get those two
concepts confused. How so?
M: The opening line (of my recent blog) was "If you want to
nd out the difference between a network and a community,
ask your Facebook friends to help you paint your house." And
somebody else put it very well — they said, "Networks are for
communication, but communities are for collaboration." And I
think that sort of captures it best.
HRS: If, as you've said, "effective organizations function as
communities of human beings, not collections of human
resources," what should leaders be doing differently?
M: Listening — doing a lot of listening. Cutting their salaries
signi cantly, so sending the signal that they're all in it together.
Recognizing that the origins of strategy often come from the
base, not from executive meetings. And my favourite example
of that is Ikea — the idea that selling furniture unassembled
actually came from a worker trying to get a table in his car, and
he had to take the legs off. So somebody said, "Wait a minute, if
we have to take the legs off, so do our customers." That's where
strategic ideas come from. They don't come from people in fan-
cy of ces reading nancial reports. So you can see organizations
very differently when you accept that and respect people and
what they're doing.
FEATURE/HR strategy
