21/3/2020 Metaphors of Organisation part 2

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First published in Effective Consulting Vol. 1, No. 5, November 2001 Article Options
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Metaphors of Organisation - Part 2 Add to 'Read later'

James Lawley
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Clean Language This is a two-part article:

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Metaphor Part 1 of this article explained that underlying every theory of management or
Symbolic Modelling organisation is a metaphor. It described eight commonly used metaphors and
Gareth Morgan's method for analysing and facilitating organisations to
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Emergence change.

David Grove Part 2 describes a new approach, Symbolic Modelling, which uses client-
Modelling generated metaphors to facilitate individuals to understand and change
Two
themselves and their organisations. Symbolic Modelling can be used as an
Models and Theory Clean Language &
alternative, or as a supplement to Gareth Morgan's methodology. Symbolic Modelling
The Developing Group
Workshops
Applications Symbolic Modelling developed out of a five-year study of David Grove, one of the world's most
innovative psychotherapists. Penny Tompkins and I wrote Metaphors in Mind: Transformation Melbourne,
Worldwide
through Symbolic Modelling so that Grove's use of Clean Language with client-generated Australia
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metaphors would be more widely known -- not only within the therapeutic community but also
18-21 March 2020
NLP among people who are interested in metaphor in other contexts: business, organisations,
education and health.

Article Selections When someone says "I keep running up against a wall in this company," David Grove assumes
[ Show ] All [ Hide ] the metaphor is a perfect description of their experience. Thus, what kind of wall it is, where it
Featured articles is, its size and shape, and the direction of the running will all be symbolic of what it is like to
have that person's experience.
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Most viewed articles In addition to Grove's work, Metaphors in Mind incorporates ideas from cognitive linguistics,
self-organising systems, evolutionary dynamics and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).
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Ordinary conversation is littered with (mostly unconscious) metaphors. In fact it is 'hard' to 'put Penny Tompkins
Recent Blogs together' an 'everyday' sentence which does not 'contain' a 'hidden' metaphor:
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My mind has just gone blank.
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These sentences are not obviously metaphoric until 'blank', 'gap' and 'down' are examined more
Managing client
closely. We call these and similar expressions embedded metaphors since their metaphoric
expectations and
nature is disguised in ordinariness and familiarity. Once you start to recognise embedded
coaching
confidentiality metaphors you will notice them everywhere. 1

Putting the client in Clean Language For training in Clean

charge, from the start Language and Symbolic
David Grove discovered that when we ignore another person's metaphors or introduce our own, Modelling, click here
I Want a Clean House: we unwittingly 'contaminate' their experience. This is fine in ordinary conversation, but not if
Going live with a you want to facilitate that person to become aware of their inner symbolic world that has such
desired ouctome an influence on the way they think, feel and behave. So how can we help another person
discover and develop their own metaphors without introducing our own? To solve this
Steve Andreas on
conundrum Grove devised a number of very simple questions and a way of asking them called
'What would you like
to have happen?' Clean Language. 2

View all blogs As I show in Part 1 of this article, Gareth Morgan might analyse a company and decide that it is
being run like a machine. Or he might suggest that a manger use the metaphor of a spider
plant to help re-design their organisational structure. This is in sharp contrast to Symbolic
Authors Modelling where you would use Clean Language to facilitate the manager to discover their own
metaphor for the organisation, and then use that metaphor to help them achieve their outcome.
View Authors For example:

(M = Manager. F = Facilitator. Bold is used to highlight the format of some of the

common Clean Language questions. These can be asked of any metaphor.)

M: I want to understand why our organisation is not more successful.

F: And when you want to understand why your organisation is not more
successful, your organisation is like what?

M: You could say it's like a machine.

F: And what kind of machine?

M: [Pause] It's like a combine harvester I suppose.

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F: And is there anything else about that combine harvester that your
organisation's like?

M: It's flexible with interchangeable parts depending on the type of crop.

F: And is there anything else about it being flexible with interchangeable

parts?

M: Timing is so important. Too early or too late and you miss the opportunity. It's
no good harvesting until the crop is ready.

F: And then what happens?

M: We go through the whole cycle again.

F: And where could that cycle come from?

M: It's the natural order of things. [Pause] That's right. We have to educate the
new recruits in the nature of the cycle. They try to rush things or they give up too
quickly. If they knew about the cycle ...

This short exchange demonstrates the fundamentals of Clean Language. Clean questions are
'clean' because the facilitator is careful only to ask about the client's metaphors, to use their
exact words to do so, and not to introduce any metaphors of their own. 3 Because of this, clean
questions can be used in a remarkably wide range of circumstances.

The best way to give you a sense of how Symbolic Modelling works is through examples. So the
rest of the article describes how Symbolic Modelling has been used in three organisational
contexts: executive coaching, new product development, and creating a corporate metaphor. It
should be easy enough to extract the process from these examples and apply it to yourself or
your clients.

From Bombs to Batons

The initial coaching session with a manager in a multinational company revealed he wanted "to
be able to hold the line against aggressive senior managers." As I listened to him describe his
work, I noted down some of his metaphors: "I have to defend my people, "I blew up," "I was in
a Catch 22 situation," "His method is to drill you and then attack," "The troops are falling by the
wayside," "His lieutenant had a word with me," "I can lose it in the heat of the battle." When
these expressions are taken together it is easy to identify the manager's underlying metaphor:
Work is a battle.

When I repeated his exact words back to him he said he was "shell-shocked," and we laughed. I
asked "And where does being in 'the heat of the battle' come from?". He replied immediately,
"You must defend your territory to be on the winning side." Then I enquired, "And when you
must defend your territory to be on the winning side, what would you like to have happen?"
Traces of emotion flickered across his face before he shook his head and said "Not to have to
defend myself." I asked him what metaphor he would prefer instead. After trying on and
rejecting the idea of a sports team, he settled on an orchestra -- which I then helped him
explore by using Clean Language. Later, he used this metaphor to gauge his, and others'
behaviour: Am I participating like a member of an orchestra? When am I the first violinist and
when am I playing the triangle? When I chair a meeting, are we all playing the same tune and
am I conducting appropriately?

The manager recognised that seeing his work as a battle had significantly influenced the way he
responded to his colleagues, and in particular those "higher up the command chain." Over the
next few months he gradually altered his behaviour to more closely fit his orchestra metaphor.
And surprise surprise, senior managers started acting differently towards him.

Launching New Balloons

I recently worked with a Director of a company who was about to launch a new product which
needed a high degree of autonomy. He was unsure how the product could be seen to be an
integral part of the existing company. Through the process of Symbolic Modelling he devised a
metaphor of a central launch pad from which a hot air balloon could rise and descend. The
balloon was navigated by its own captain and yet was always connected to the launch pad by a
cable which both defined its scope and provided safety. This arrangement allowed for other
balloons to be launched, and the possibility that when a balloon became large enough the cable
could be severed and replaced with a looser, even more autonomous form of organisation.
Clean Language facilitated the Director to explore a multitude of aspects of the metaphor: the
balloon, the qualities of the captain, the launch and landing gear, the relationship with outside
observers, the round table strategic plans, the effect on the public looking at the balloon as it
was flying, etc.

One interesting feature of this approach is that I had no idea of the product in the Director's
mind because I was working entirely within the logic of the metaphor. Also, one of his
colleagues who was observing the process felt compelled to join in saying she had never had
such a clear insight into his thinking. She added suggestions to the way the balloon
arrangement could work and was able to voice her concerns by questioning the metaphor. They
later noted how staying within the metaphor eliminated the defensiveness which often occurs in
such situations.

Creating a Corporate Metaphor

Many companies have created

corporate mission and vision
statements, but few have created a

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corporate metaphor. New Information
Paradigms (NIP), a niche software
development company specialising in
knowledge management systems, is
one that has. Assisted by consultant
Caitlin Walker, 4 each of the 16 staff
identified a number of metaphors for
'the company and where it is going',
for 'me as a member of NIP', and for
'my relationship to NIP and the way I
would like it to become'. As a result,
an entire wall next to the coffee
machine became adorned with
symbolic drawings and metaphor
maps.

The staff were taught Clean Language

so they could respectfully investigate
each other's metaphors. Next, each of
the company's four teams was
facilitated to incorporate their
personal maps into a group metaphor.
With this accomplished, the teams
paired up to discuss areas of overlap,
disagreement and synergy, and to
produce an integrated metaphor.
Finally, all four teams combined to
produce a single composite corporate
metaphor.

And the result? A far better

understanding of what they were
collectively trying to achieve and how
they could work together. NIP found
that "meetings are shorter, more
constructive and we reach a common
understanding quicker. We are more
able to remain objective and yet it
allows people to access their emotions
without having to be overt about it."
Caitlin Walker adds that the process
gives them another perspective from
which to find agreement and uncover
problems: one group metaphor
contained a river, and when they saw
there was no way for people to cross
the river, they realised "there it is,
that's the problem!"

METAPHOR MAPS OF THREE TEAMS

Recognising a good thing, the company has devised its own applications for Symbolic Modelling.
When a NIP customer has difficulty specifying their requirements, the sales team use Clean
Language to help them create a metaphor for what they want. When the metaphor is translated
into traditional business-speak, the customer feels understood and NIP knows it has high-
quality information. For example, take the company that considered its information system as
like a series of interconnecting reservoirs where water levels dynamically changed depending on
the amount of rain, evaporation and usage. The customer wanted to more closely monitor water
levels, predict when new reservoirs are needed, and not get caught out in a severe drought.
Once explored, the metaphor was converted into the language of demand forecasting,
contingency planning and quality control. Back at the office, the sales people relayed this
information and the customer's metaphor to the software designers.

NIP says metaphors provide a 'common definition language' with which to discuss a project and
to get to the underlying reasons why something is the way it is. The software developers create
their own metaphors to help explain the technical design features to the sales and marketing
teams, who in turn use these in their presentation to customers. In the process the software
developers have found unexpected uses for their systems.

New Information Paradigms has identified three main advantages of using metaphor. In their
words:

"Metaphors work because they transmit enormous amounts of information and

richness."

"Presenting ideas and situations as metaphors gives the receiver the opportunity
to understand the message being communicated to them, in their own terms.
Perhaps more importantly, any points raised, or criticisms voiced about the
metaphor (with its inherent gaps, flaws etc.) isn't personal -- the scope for taking
offence is greatly reduced ... there is 'room to manoeuvre' without being 'pinned
down' ... to get all metaphorical."

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"Encouraging participants, in a group, to come up with their own metaphors for
(apparently) the same thing -- a product, a customer situation etc. -- often creates
a mental or virtual 'shared space'. In this 'shared space', it becomes possible to
explore individual metaphors, there is scope to merge or use them as stepping
stones towards a metaphor that everyone has contributed to, or at least that can
be subscribed to."

Concluding Remarks

Facilitating an individual or group to recognise the unconscious metaphors that shape their
worldview, that guide their decisions, and that constrain their choices, encourages insight and
heightens self-awareness. To facilitate without suggesting, presupposing or imposing your own
metaphors requires the skilled use of Clean Language.

And the whole process can be taken to a deeper level by facilitating an individual or group to
symbolically self-model the way their system works. Then, rather than trying to make change
happen, new learning occurs, problems get solved and creativity is stimulated organically, as a
by-product of the self-modelling process.

References

Morgan, Gareth, Images of Organisation, Sage, 1986/1997.

Morgan, Gareth, Imaginization, Sage, 1997.
Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark, Metaphors we Live By, University of Chicago
Press, 1980.
Lawley, James & Tompkins, Penny, Metaphors in Mind: Transformation through
Symbolic Modelling, 2000

Notes

1 Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors we Live By, was the first and is still the best introduction to
the significance of metaphor in everyday language.

2 For the 'Nine Basic Clean Language Questions' and further examples of their use see Less is
More ... The Art of Clean Language

3 Of course Clean Language introduces metaphors and directs attention -- all language does
that. Clean language is 'clean' because it only uses 'universal' metaphors (of space, time and
form) which leave clients free to process, respond and answer with whatever information they
consider relevant.

4 Caitlin Walker's work with NIP has been presented in a video entitled "Working with Imagery
and Metaphor in Creativity"; produced in 1999 by the Open University for their MBA course. See
also the web sites of NIP, www.nipltd.com and Training Attention, www.trainingattention.co.uk

James Lawley

James Lawley offers psychotherapiy to individuals and couples, and

coaching, research and consultancy to organisations. He is a co-developer of
Symbolic Modelling and co-author (with Penny Tompkins) of Metaphors in
Mind: Transformation through Symbolic Modelling, (with Marian Way)
Insights in Space: How to use Clean Space to solve problems, generate
ideas and spark creativity and an Online training in Clean Language and
Symbolic Modelling. For a more detailed biography see about us and his blog.

View all articles by James Lawley

Article Series

This article is part 2 of a 2 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:

1. Metaphors of Organisation part 1

2. Metaphors of Organisation part 2

» Home » Applications » Business & Organisations » Metaphors of Organisation part 2

» Home » Symbolic Modelling » Advanced SyM » Metaphors of Organisation part 2
» Home » Metaphor » Advanced metaphor » Metaphors of Organisation part 2

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