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Ducks in a Row: Don’t Metaphor Your Culture

by Miki Saxon

Do metaphors fly free at your workplace? Do you find yourself using them in order to be heard?

According to Ceri Roderick, emeritus partner at business psychologists Pearn Kandola, while metaphors can be a kind of expressive shortcut, they can also have a detrimental effect.

“The language you use can affect your corporate culture.” Thus, if you spend long enough talking about “cutting the competition off at knees”, he says you are going to have a workplace where a kind of Nietzschean ethic rules and the weak are meat for bullies.”

I admit to using metaphors, although far less than I did a few decades ago. I find some are good ways to achieve focus, such as “the elephant in the room;” I may be guilty of the occasional 500 pound canary, but not of 800 pound gorillas. (Science writer Richard Conniff notes that “gorillas are vegetarians, not predators and the average alpha male spends most of his time passing gas, picking his nose and yawning; not the image a hard-charging executive wants to present to the public,” but actually a valid description of many executives.)

And while I know good culture fosters innovation, thinking outside the box has little to do with it, since it’s not possible.

The biggest problem with metaphors is that they are boring and limit people’s ability to effectively communicate.

If you don’t believe me play the metaphor game at your next meeting as follows:

  • choose a scorekeeper;
  • explain that the point of the game is to NOT use any metaphors;
  • attendees listen for metaphors and call the speaker on them by shouting ‘metaphor’;
  • the person who used the metaphor then restates their comment/point;
  • using a metaphor scores one point;
  • the person with the lowest score wins and
  • gets the prize (candy bar, lunch coupon, etc.)

It’s surprising how difficult it is for many people to discuss anything sans metaphors.

Jamie Jauncey, a business language trainer and author, says, “Business is ultimately about people and connecting and relationships. It should be using the real language of human exchange, not some Orwellian bizpeak.”

This is true whether you are in sales, engineering, finance or whatever. You and your people need to connect with each other and with ‘them’, wherever and whomever ‘them’ may be.

Flickr image credit: ZedBee | Zoë Power

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