Bill Gallagher argues that leaders should build community, not just culture, by intentionally seeking diverse perspectives. A community model keeps organizations adaptive and prevents stagnation as business conditions change.
I did a lot of investigation to culture versus community and I think when we use the term culture we're actually talking more about community and the collective values. I think traditional organizations or traditionally have been taught what are the values you as a leader have and then emanate that throughout the organization expecting people to comply. If you replicate the values you're a fit. If you don't, you're outside. But that mentality is I am therefore we are. I believe community is actually now the stronger model which says we are, therefore we are where leaders are intentionally seeking diversity. We're seeking people with different backgrounds, different experiences who actually may have different values. They have a common goal. They're trying to move the business forward in a way that's serving the client, also satisfying our individual goals. But they bring in different perspectives. Inevitably that collective perspective causes or builds a stronger morphic changing organization and it doesn't cause an organization to get stale.
