Communicating Your New Metaphor
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.
—Peter Drucker
As I mentioned in the introduction, this book was written for leaders or those aspiring to be leaders. The main function of leadership is to communicate and inspire followers. This is no easy task. There are many books written about leadership communication but none that I’ve seen talk about or understand the power of using metaphors for strategizing, planning, branding, and communicating a new direction for an organization.
Metaphors, if chosen correctly, have the potential to inject new energy into organizations in ways no other tool or method can. Metaphors are self-explanatory; they are simple; they communicate a lot in a compact way; they add action; they describe ways to respond to the environment and challenges; they can identify new products and services; and they define ways to achieve goals and objectives. Metaphors can be the saving grace for an organization and its leaders if the process is followed correctly and these new metaphors are applied in a systematic manner.
See Your Metaphor
Metaphors house their power in the form of mental images. Visual representations are some of the most powerful ways to convey ideas. Remember the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words?” It is possible to capture numerous ideas and concepts in the form of a picture. The interpretation, however, can be varied particularly if it is an abstract picture. That is why I always recommend metaphors that contain vehicles that are easy to understand.
When you’ve chosen a metaphor and taken the time to metamine or deconstruct it, you will have discovered many layers of attributes and concepts that will require you to choose which ones you want to apply to your target. As you consider these chosen attributes, it is important to think deeply about them so that you can gain as much understanding and as much power from the metaphor as possible. Let’s consider the metaphor, “Our organization will fly with the eagles.” The target is “organization” and the vehicle is “eagles.” The word “fly” is a modifier that helps us understand what aspect of the eagles is the most important one in terms of the metaphor. As you start to “picturesque” the mental image of flying with the eagles you may come across some of the following visual impressions:
1.Eagles tend to fly alone.
2.If you were able to ride the back of an eagle, you might see their eyes scanning to and fro hunting for game, looking for potential predators (although there are few in the air), wings outstretched and supported by prevailing wind streams.
3.Their feathers are smoothed back, white on the head, trailing back to the wings, and white tail.
4.They are majestic, with sharp, clear eyes.
5.They are confident flyers and have a posture of confidence.
6.When they see prey, they swoop down with claws outstretched ready to grab.
7.After they grab their prey, they immediately begin to flap their powerful wings and begin a sharp climb into the heavens and back to their nest.
8.Their wing and chest muscles are prominent, which depicts great strength.
9.They cast a magnificent shadow as they pass overhead.
10.Perched eagles seem calm, self-assured, and aware.
You can see, there are many visual representations that can be derived from the mental pictures of a flying eagle. Let’s take the same mental images and see how you might picture the vision of the organization:
1.Eagles tend to fly alone; the organization is alone in the industry sector in which it competes.
2.If you were able to ride the back of an eagle, you might see their eyes scanning to and fro hunting for game, looking for potential predators (although there are few in the air), wings outstretched, and supported by prevailing wind streams; as the organization depicts a constant awareness of the competitive climate, riding the course of product demand with its core competencies carrying them.
3.Their feathers are smoothed back, white on the head, and trailing back to the wings and white tail; as the organizational structure is balanced and beautiful, the culture is not easily ruffled.
4.They are majestic, with sharp, clear eyes, as the vision of the organization is clear, easy to understand, and held in high regard by its employees.
5.They are confident flyers and have a posture of confidence, as the organization is confident because it has done its homework. It remains confident in the face of competition.
6.When they see prey, they swoop down with claws outstretched ready to grab, as the organization is ready to jump on opportunities and into markets that reveal a demand for its products.
7.After they grab their prey, they immediately begin to flap their powerful wings and begin a sharp climb into the heavens and back to their nest, as the organization is quick to provide good service and support from its headquarters.
8.Their wing and chest muscles are prominent, which depict great strength, as the organization’s branding represents strength.
9.They cast a magnificent shadow as they pass overhead, as the organization is easily known in its industry and one that other organizations aspire to be like.
10.Perched eagles seem calm, self-assured, and aware, as the organization is settled, organized, and understands the marketplace.
In each case, it is possible to apply “flying with eagles” to organizational concepts that are easily seen in a mental picture. You must be able to capture the nuances of the picture in order to squeeze out every drop of power the metaphor depicts. This can take time but it can be very rewarding when you discover many layers of comparisons that you can apply to various aspects of the target, in this case the organization. However, seeing the metaphor is not sufficient. You must also conduct yourself in accordance with the metaphor. One way to do this is to prepare your mind each day before you go to work. Take some time in the morning to find a quiet room in your house our somewhere in your backyard or property, and close your eyes and see in your mind the metaphor. Imagine living in the metaphor. In this case, it is an organization; but you are a vital part of that organization and your professional life should emulate the metaphor as well. That is where walking the metaphor comes in.
Walk Your Metaphor
Seeing your metaphor is important and must be done before you can walk out the metaphor in your daily life. You must learn to live within your metaphor. It should become like a comfortable winter coat that protects you from the wind and cold. Just normal walking seems like a fairly simple activity for someone who is physically capable. However, the act of walking requires you to choose a direction, exert energy, lean in the direction of the walk, and put one foot in front of the other. Walking out your metaphor requires similar actions.
Choosing the direction to walk out your metaphor requires a level of commitment, just as does walking. You have to be in a place of total agreement with your metaphor in order to comply with it and choose a direction consistent with the metaphor. This is not a difficult thing since you should have already derived principles from your chosen attributes of the metaphor. These principles become your guiding principles. They define the direction you and your organization will go. At this point, you need to lean into it.
Leaning into the direction to walk out your metaphor requires a shift of weight. You must first commit, then lean or shift your organizational weight, such as your financial resources, in the direction of your metaphor. Your lean can be easily identified by your actions. They demonstrate your commitment and your willingness to follow the direction of the metaphor. However, you must activate your energy to catapult your organization in the direction of the metaphor in order to begin your actual walk.
Your organization has kinetic or stored energy in the motivation and desires of your people. They are your greatest asset and essential to the launch of the new metaphor. Just as it takes an initial push to activate your energy when you walk, you must also activate your energy to launch the new metaphor. When you walk, you rock forward in the direction of your goal by shifting weight into your lean and pushing off the ball of your trailing foot. From an organizational perspective, you must be the first to roll off your current position or current metaphor in the direction of your new metaphor. This can be seen as you take actions in support of the metaphor. If you must get lean, you need to rock off your present size by assessing your workforce and making cuts or reassignments. This action demonstrates your willingness to activate the metaphor. It is your first step in this particular example. All subsequent steps should demonstrate your commitment to your new metaphor. This is walking out your metaphor. In addition to walking it out, you must also talk your metaphor.
Talk Your Metaphor
Introducing your new metaphors to your audience, be it your family, friends, colleagues, or employees, requires you to begin to make use of the metaphor in your daily conversations. This ensures that you have done your homework well, analyzed where your organization is, where it wants to go, and the attributes that will catapult it in the desired direction. Metaphors also affirm your choice of vehicle(s) and can create new conversations with regard to rebranding and new products, processes, and services.
The act of talking requires certain things to happen. You must have some air in your lungs, compress your lungs by beginning to breathe out, think about what you are going to say, use your mouth and lips to shape the words coming out, and control the amount of air by opening or constricting the throat to regulate your volume. When you talk your metaphor, you must take similar actions.
Before you talk your metaphor, be sure you are prepared to talk it. You must understand your metaphor through many levels. You should have taken considerable time metamining or deconstructing your metaphor in order to have a solid understanding of its depth, breadth, and power. This is like having your lungs full of air, ready to talk.
As you begin to exhale, or construct your conversations, you will be connecting your references to your metaphor. This will require you to say it in different ways, referring to it from many different perspectives. It should become the focus of most every conversation in the workplace for you and your leadership team. They should all be talking the metaphor on a regular basis. This may sound odd at first, but as you talk your metaphor on a daily basis it will get easier and easier. We tend to talk most about things we are interested in or things that we know something about. As I mentioned earlier, your metaphor will become like a warm, comfortable winter coat.
The first time you refer to the new metaphor, you may get blank stares unless the person or persons you are talking to have been involved in choosing the metaphor. Although we use metaphors in our daily language every day, we seldom talk about the structure of language and how we put sentences together. It is a natural part of learning a basic language either through imitation or structured training.
As I mentioned earlier, similes and metaphors are related but different. They are like language cousins. They have the same family blood but have distinctions as well. Metaphors carry stronger action and are more effective as a tool for transformation. When you say, “He is an ox,” you are saying something much more powerful than, “He is like an ox.” Being an ox implies that he has all the characteristics of an ox versus being, “like an ox,” which implies he may have some characteristics and may not have others. Depending on whether you use a simile or metaphor will determine the degree of acceptance or confusion you may encounter. This is where you must be clear about what you are implying. Sometimes, you can use a simile in place of the metaphor, particularly if you deliberately want to soften the comparison. Nevertheless, the more you understand and talk your metaphor, the more comfortable you will become with it, and the more ways you will find to express your metaphor.
Learning Reinforcement Exercise
1.Ligering is combining two vehicles into one. One example previously described was that of a lion and a tiger, or liger. Create a different combination based upon an attribute of your choosing.
___________________________________________
2.What is the attribute you started with? ______________________
3.Does the ligering combination that you created represent this attribute?
Circle: Yes No
4.The three aspects of communicating your new metaphor are (Circle the best answer):
a. Seeing your metaphor
b. Walking your metaphor
c. Talking your metaphor
d. All of the above
Numbers 1–3 are of your choosing. The answer for number 4 is italicized:
1.Ligering is a combining two vehicles into one. One example previously described was that of a lion and a tiger, or liger. Create a different combination based upon an attribute of your choosing.___
2.What is the attribute you started with? ______________________
3.Does the ligering combination that you created represent this attribute?
Circle: Yes No
4.The three aspects of communicating your new metaphor are:
a. Seeing your metaphor
b. Walking your metaphor
c. Talking your metaphor
d. All of the above