Metaphor Mania

Reasons That Metaphors Promote Creativity

by Larry Raymond on Dec 20, 2012 • Comments Closed •

Just thinking of a metaphor can get those creative rivers running, albeit some longer than others and some others deeper than most. Nevertheless, let us consider that almost every facet of our ability to understand concepts and ideas come in the form of metaphors. Reread this paragraph and you will begin to understand how metaphors promote creativity . There is no person on the planet that is not accustomed to this language pattern. However, there are people who are not aware of what a metaphor is. Nonetheless, these same individuals grasp general concepts of everyday living and task performance. When one begins to fathom the depth to which their own language slants with references to how metaphors promote creativity it becomes astounding. However, when we need to become creative the human mind becomes a playground, as it were, not just for ideas, but also for the words used to convey these ideas. In business terms, if we were to think of a change management situation, where a manager is beginning to build a team to lead the rest of the company through a specific set of manufacturing alterations that need to result in improved production. One of the first steps [...] Read More

Metaphors for creativity and clarifying roles in a successful start-up company

by Larry Raymond on Nov 1, 2012 • Comments Closed •

A start up is a company that intends to grow quickly. There’s no map for growth, and one of the common pitfalls of this typical acceleration towards success is a loss of identity among the leaders in the organization. Facilitating growth in a company begins with adopting a culture of creativity among the thought leaders in the organization. Once you’ve recruited the right people to propel your company to your next benchmark, you need to implement a set of values that everyone agrees on. It becomes necessary to have a series of conversations about who will fill which role in the company. Confusion in this particular area is common. It’s also deadly. If you understand that patience is required to achieve your company’s goals, you may find yourself in a situation that many start ups face during their otherwise successful first years. No one knows who is supposed to be doing the next important thing. Company culture that facilitates creativity is vital to the entity that is the fragile, mysterious, amazing start up. Don’t let it be damaged by your team’s confusion about what their individual roles are within the framework of growth. It’s hard to read the label when you are [...] Read More

Testimonial – Six Sigma related

by Larry Raymond on Jul 17, 2012 • Comments Closed •

Last month I facilitated a Village Mapping exercise at the major global engineering/construction company that employs me. The objective was to develop a plan for implementing a knowledge transfer program in our biggest division. The division is facing the loss of a great deal of engineering knowledge because of retirements in the next few years. The mapping exercise helped the team look beyond immediate tactical concerns and understand the nature of relationships among the many organizational functions with a stake in knowledge transfer. One major ‘aha’ was how many functions the knowledge transfer process touches that have not been involved in the program heretofore. The result of the exercise was the creation of a basis for a longer range plan to ensure the success of the program. This was not strictly speaking a Six Sigma initiative, but the mapping model does incorporate many of the concepts employed by the Six Sigma methodology. It deploys a systematic, team-based approach to defining the current process, identifying problems and opportunities embedded in the process, and visualizing creative solutions to streamline the process. It also highlights the importance of quality communication and control measures that satisfy the requirements of critical internal customer and stakeholder [...] Read More

Collaboration – The 21st Century Master Skill

by Larry Raymond on May 8, 2012 • Comments Closed •

Since you need to specialize to be a leader in any area today, you need a team to accomplish just about anything. So, if you don’t work well with others, you’ll finish in the also-ran category. Same for your functional group if it doesn’t work well with other groups. Sounds like kindergarten moralizing but a real issue for highly focused individuals. Personal characteristics that help. If getting along with others was a high value during your childhood, your collaboration skills may be well developed. If your empathy for others is very high, that helps too. If you’re not a compulsive direction-setter but are pleased to support the ideas of others, you’re likely a good collaborator. But, if you are just “normal” in these ways, you have to build skills. The same applies if your functional group doesn’t include a super-star collaborator to lead the way. Core skills, but continuing challenge.. Effective collaboration is based on mutual understanding of views and needs, appreciation of and response to time constraints and aligning objectives of participants. Communication skills aid can be of help. But, much personal and team development literature emphasizes building on your strengths, rather worrying about your weaknesses. So what to [...] Read More

Changing Habits in Organizations

by Larry Raymond on May 5, 2012 • Comments Closed •

The Power of Habit Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business Charles Duhigg. Random House. 2012 377 pages Charles Duhigg, a New York Times investigative reporter, has written an easy to read book about a topic most people consider mundane but its core messages are worth serious reflection: Habits can be observed everywhere—in personal, social and business environments and we are often unknowingly slaves to them They have a profound effect on our lives We should learn how to change them when needed to become more effective business people, more aware consumers and more understanding of the broad social forces around us The author starts by showing small personal habits and how they are formed. He explains how habits give advertisers, such as P&G, an opportunity to influence our buying behaviors at an unconscious level. He also shows how businesses, have dramatically improved their bottom lines by changing their habits. Alcoa, for example dramatically improved its bottom line by focusing on habits related to worker safety rather than profit. Readers may react that this is simply analyzing and improving high-leverage areas, but moving away from business term “leverage” to the more personal term “habit” brings with [...] Read More

Metaphors in U.S. Politics

by Larry Raymond on May 4, 2012 • Comments Closed •

In the introduction to his May 2 column, David Books shows the breadth and impact of metaphors in the U.S. presidential campaign: “What sort of thing is a presidential campaign? Maybe a campaign is like a courtship. A candidate’s job is to woo the electorate, to win the people’s affection with charm, familiarity and compassion. Maybe a campaign is like a big version of “American Idol.” It is a contest over who is the most talented. In this mode, a candidate’s job is to endear himself to the people in the audience with likability and then wow them with his gifts. Maybe, on the other hand, hiring a president is like hiring a plumber. Voters aren’t really looking to fall in love with the guy; they just want someone who will fix the pipes. The candidate’s job is to list the three or four things he would do if elected and then to hammer home those deliverables again and again. You could make a case that most campaigns are a little of all three, though the proportions vary from year to year. In 2008, Obama ran an uplifting campaign that was part courtship and part “American Idol.” Richard Nixon, who [...] Read More

Metaphors from a bass guitarist

by Larry Raymond on Apr 15, 2012 • Comments Closed •

I had the good fortune this week to speak with Abraham Laboriel, perhaps the greatest bass guitar player on the planet. He’s an engaging person and music is the love of his life. He’s also an extremely thoughtful guy and his conversation is full of metaphors: “In contrast to many people in business, most musicians are not competing with each other. They do what they do and they get along in harmony. Just think about your head. Are your ears angry they don’t have the leading role your nose has? Does your chin think it can do better than your eyebrows?” After thinking about his remarks, I realized that Metaphor Mapping directly addresses his point of how can people in a business get along as constructively and creatively as musicians. First, Village Mapping helps people think out and see how they interact as part of a business operation. It shows the overall context of their activities, what information is passed between them and what weaknesses they need to work on. Of course, it’s also a great tool for creating a vision of how they should work together in the future, where their values are put into operation and they develop [...] Read More

Metaphors and Wisdom

by Larry Raymond on Apr 10, 2012 • Comments Closed •

The April 7 issue of The Economist contained an interesting article on page 91, “Age and wisdom”. It mainly reports on the efforts of Dr. Igor Grossmann from the University of Waterloo Canada to compare accumulated wisdom between different countries and age groups. The article defines what “psychologists agree” are five crucial aspects of wise reasoning: 1. Awareness that more than one perspective on a problem can exist 2. Recognition of the limits of personal knowledge 3. Appreciation of the fact that things may get worse before they get better 4. Willingness to seek opportunities to resolve conflict 5. Willingness to search for compromise If those five points are accurate, gaining wisdom may be why participants feel so good at the end of Metaphor Mapping sessions. Map building, particularly in cross-function groups, addresses: 1. The differences in each person’s perspective on a situation. They become clear when made graphically visible in Village Maps. 2. Each person always has at least a nuance of difference from colleagues and sometimes great chasms 3. The incompleteness of any one individual’s knowledge is of a process or activity also is revealed when building Village Maps and leads to requests for colleagues to help 4. [...] Read More

M4. Metaphor Mapping Mind Meld

by Larry Raymond on Apr 5, 2012 • Comments Closed •

Some people have remarked that building their first metaphor map is an astonishing experience: “I never thought I’d get anything out of working with those guys. We’d been on different sides of most issues for as long as I can remember. Sometimes it was pretty intense. But we got put together in the workshop and right off the bat things changed. The four of us had to build a map of today’s situation and we had some trouble figuring out where to start. The other groups had to build the same map but they looked like they knew what they were doing. We finally got the idea of it and developed a great map we were proud to present. I didn’t realize it at first, but we had agreed on what all the problems were. A bit of tough discussion but in the end we saw things the same way. We didn’t work together on the later maps but we talked at breaks and things are different between us now, better.” There is most likely a scientific basis for this type reaction. For example, neuroscience is discovering more about how and why human conversation works http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/mind-meld-enables-good-conversat.html. Perhaps the shared [...] Read More