base metaphor

In the first Part of this series, Sonja spoke of how the current economic malaise is prompting us to engage with a new management paradigm. She also surfaced a metaphor (moving from being a builder to gardener) as an analogy for what we believe the new paradigm should be. It might have struck as a rather simple analogy, but we believe metaphors have a greater influence on our attitudes, values and behaviours than we give them credit for.

Metaphors uncover the basic assumptions driving behaviour and they assist us in making sense of the world we operate in, or in other words, metaphors surface our values. In essence a metaphor is the use of language that directly connects seemingly unrelated subjects, they allow us to “hook” a complex new idea to a simpler but similar idea we’re already familiar with.  Metaphors are also flexible enough to accommodate multiple perspectives on the world, and thus, multiple and varied applications of the lessons contained within a metaphor.

In our everyday language there are many examples of metaphors ...