People who have made it to the top, and learned how to stay there, are the current champions in the relentless game of corporate king-of-the-mountain.

Despite their support for collaborative work, as CEOs and organizational leaders they simply have no strategic interest in helping other people get to the top. The bigger the corporation, the higher and more tortuous the path, the subtler and more treacherous the struggle to stay on top.

If I were the painter Breughel, my image of the organizational mountain would be of masses of bodies, all trying to reach the top. At the base, I'd show people helping each other climb. Further up, I'd paint groups clustering together, camping. Higher still, people tied together, walking single-file. And still higher, people laying blockades, destroying the passes. And, at the top, push comes to shove.

To the one yelling down from the top of a mountain screaming victory over all. To the one yelling in our very own hearts. To the one forming our very own thoughts. We must come up with an audible alternative.

Yes, we know, it's not easy to make mountains into molehills. We just don't have the technology. Sometimes there are no bulldozers big enough to move all that bull. Sometimes, we just can't change the mountain.

Luckily, we can always change the game.

There are, after all, other ways to play on a mountain. Even if we have to make them up. Even if it is a monumental mountain. Even if we're the one's on top.

What if, for example, we turned the game completely around? What kind of fun could we have if, instead of pushing each other down, we helped each other up? What kind of fun could we have if we were all on top together? What kind of fun could we have playing a game where the object is not only to get to the top, but also to see how many people we can take with us?

What if instead of King-of-the-Mountain we played "People-of-the-Mountain." What kind of fun would that be?

Probably just about all kinds.