Principles Behind These Metaphor Languages
Metaphor Mapping is made up of four languages that together provide a robust tool set that engages participation of the full organization when group creativity and change are needed. The following paragraphs briefly describe the design objectives of each of the languages.
Village Mapping
A village can be a metaphor for an interpersonal situation, a work process or any ongoing state of affairs. Creating a map of your village helps you to see the overall structure of the situation and focus on the essential.
The visual focus of the map you build is unavoidably the roads that represent relationships. They’re the glue and they tell the tale of whether things are working well or not. Assuming you’ve already read a bit about building Village maps on the site, you know that obstacles and opportunities can be shown with symbols like swamps or gold nuggets and they do draw your attention. But, its the ongoing relationships that are the heart of the map.
It’s the repetitive, habitual behavior that goes on between two people or groups. When you’ve built the village map or your situation, you’ve makes it physical, its there! The structure of the situation is open for discussion but it’s reality is undeniable.
Maps often tell a story of problems– one end of the road may act in total disregard for the other– as though the road type doesn’t matter– that something going on inside the building is far more important. You intuitively sense this state of affairs when you show a relationship as a curvy, straight, rocky road between two buildings. The people are wrapped up in what’s going on in their buildings and if the road is rocky it means that they are consumed with what’s going on in the building and not on the relationship. If the map-builders have shown a granite bridge between them, they have formed a relationship that will stand as long or longer than the building on either side– meaning the relationship can be of value even if the buildings are renovated or reconstructed.
If the map contains pyramids, it’s showing the big, timeless ideas that dominate the environment. See more about our Village Mapping workshop tool.
River Mapping
A river flows through your life or project or any sequence of actions needed to achieve an objective. The core focus is identifying, avoiding and or overcoming obstacles. Planning and getting things done is more than just bringing together a string of activities and accomplishing them one at a time. It includes anticipating obstacles and building-in resilience that comes from focusing on what can go wrong and how to react quickly and effectively when the anticipated problem or its relative occurs
The best plans include both rigorous logic and intuition about what might go wrong. They anticipate potentially negative outcomes as well as goals. See more about our River Mapping workshop tool.
The Zoo
You’re surrounded by a menagerie of creatures driven attitudes you can’t get. How to get beneath the surface and directly address attitudes and mindsets? Our answer is caricatures. Animal symbols. Avoid words & – they’re sure to be misinterpreted.
Interpersonal and inter-organizational problems very often have their roots in perception of their role and at other times their focus and priorities. If you “change languages” to The Zoo, you will gain new perspective and find it easier to see how others perceive you or your group. Animal caricatures will help you identify or express positive or negative emotions and discuss with others. Learn more about the Zoo.
Facecards
Who is really in charge? This is a question best asked early, not after things have gone wrong. If you can be perfectly clear who shoulders the burden of an activity, who has the right to be heard and the responsibility to help, and who has to take direction to achieve a result, your chances of success go way up.
The most clear way we could think of to show such a hierarchy that could be universally understood, was to borrow the relationships in the Jack, Queen and King in a deck of playing cards. It takes all the complexity out of assigning responsibilities. Explore Facecards.
Read more about us:
Metaphor Mapping Manifesto
How we design visual languages
About Larry Raymond, the Founder