MetaphorA SCiO development day special

‘Fun and practice-building; not definitive’

Niki Jobson and Benjamin Taylor

Chat notes at the end

Introduction

Nietzsche: ‘every word is a prejudice’

Every word brings with it baggage, history, associations, and an underlying model.

Systems thinker: ‘every model is a

prejudice’Every model comes from an underlying paradigm; every model uses metaphor at some level.

This goes very deep… in fact, ‘all the way down’

What is a metaphor?

• a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable."when we speak of gene maps and gene mapping, we use a cartographic metaphor"

• a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else."the amounts of money being lost by the company were enough to make it a metaphor for an industry that was teetering“

• Something (word, concept, image etc) which is standing for or indicating something else.

Analogy

• a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification."an analogy between the workings of nature and those of human societies"

• a correspondence or partial similarity."the syndrome is called deep dysgraphia because of its analogy to deep dyslexia"

• a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects.

"works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature“

We can use the concepts relatively interchangeably; formally, there is an important difference.

Paradigm

• We are not looking at the typical dictionary definitions of ‘paradigm’

• In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as: "universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners”

• We are using paradigm to mean something like this, with the meaning of a deep, underlying world view; the foundations of beliefs, structure, or thinking.

(Note that ‘world view’ is a metaphor of sight; foundations a physical metaphor)

Mary Catherine Bateson

• "Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories."

• "Metaphors are what thought is all about. We use metaphor consciously or unconsciously, all the time, so it is a matter of mental hygiene to take responsibility for these metaphors, to look at them carefully, to see how meanings slide form one to the other. Any metaphor is double-sided .. offering both new insight and new confusion. The solution is to take responsibility for the choice of metaphors, to savor them and ponder their suggestions. Above all to live with many and take no one metaphor as absolute. A metaphor goes on generating ideas and question, so that a metaphorical approach to the world is endlessly fertile and involves constant learning. A good metaphor continues to instruct.”

George Lakoff

• "Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature."

• For Lakoff, the greater the level of abstraction the more layers of metaphor are required to express it.

• People do not notice these metaphors for various reasons.

• One reason is that some metaphors become 'dead' and we no longer recognize their origin.

• Another reason is that we just don't "see" what is "going on".

Metaphors shape our thinking

• There is no escape

• You can choose to try to see, interpret, understand them

• Or by default chosen to be the victim of them

• Do you have a preference?

• Is it a difficult choice?

Activity

Metaphor wars!

Breakout session:

• What metaphors are being used in this article?

• To what purpose?

• What alternative metaphors could be explored here?

• http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/21/cleansing-stock-doublespeak-people-killing

Debrief

George Monbiot uses a comment by Lord Freud referring to disabled people as ‘stock’ to make an argument

a) that the government is treating disabled people in a dehumanising way

b) that this is actually systematic and reveals an underlying dehumanising worldview

c) that dehumanising language – metaphor – is necessary in order to dehumanise/kill people

d) by analogy, to imply that the Government would like to kill disabled people

Non-conscious use of metaphors

Metaphors are a way of seeing things, they frame how we view a situation and, therefore, set the direction of problem solving activity

We use them non-consciously

We can also use them consciously as a tool for inquiry

Non-conscious: surface and deep metaphors

Slum clearance: planners used language such as “blighted” “as though possessed of a congenital disease”

See slums as diseased

Problem setting Cure and future disease prevention Problem solution Clear and rebuild

Drug abuse: medical metaphor language of disease isn’t necessarily explicit

See drug usersas sick

Problem settingUnderlying disease that cannot be cured; treated by lifelong abstinence

Problem solution12 step treatment and recovery programmes

• See drug users as sinners• Individual is weak and lacks willpower• User needs spiritual direction or punishment

• See drug users as criminals• Society needs to be protected from criminal activity• To protect society those engaged in drug related activity need to be punished or imprisoned

Moral

Legal

Medical• See drug users as a sick people• Genetic make-up or physiology predisposes some

people to dependency• Underlying disease that cannot be cured and can only

be treated by lifelong abstinence

Public health

• See drug users as a public health issue• There will always be drug use regardless of

prohibition measures• Social environment affects both probability of

drug use ability to resistance or cope• Decrease the negative consequences of drug use

to the user and to others

Metaphors for drug abuse

• See drug users as sinners• Individual is weak and lacks willpower• User needs spiritual direction or punishment

• See drug users as criminals• Society needs to be protected from criminal activity• To protect society those engaged in drug related activity need to be punished or imprisoned

Moral

Legal

Medical• See drug users as a sick people• Genetic make-up or physiology predisposes some

people to dependency• Underlying disease that cannot be cured and can only

be treated by lifelong abstinence

Public health

• See drug users as a public health issue• There will always be drug use regardless of

prohibition measures• Social environment affects both probability of

drug use ability to resistance or cope• Decrease the negative consequences of drug use

to the user and to others

Metaphors for drug abuse

• See drug users as sinners• Individual is weak and lacks willpower• User needs spiritual direction or punishment

• See drug users as criminals• Society needs to be protected from criminal activity• To protect society those engaged in drug related activity need to be punished or imprisoned

Moral

Legal

Medical• See drug users as a sick people• Genetic make-up or physiology predisposes some

people to dependency• Underlying disease that cannot be cured and can only

be treated by lifelong abstinence

Public health

• See drug users as a public health issue• There will always be drug use regardless of

prohibition measures• Social environment affects both probability of

drug use ability to resistance or cope• Decrease the negative consequences of drug use

to the user and to others

Metaphors for drug abuse

• See drug users as sinners• Individual is weak and lacks willpower• User needs spiritual direction or punishment

• See drug users as criminals• Society needs to be protected from criminal activity• To protect society those engaged in drug related activity need to be punished or imprisoned

Moral

Legal

Medical• See drug users as a sick people• Genetic make-up or physiology predisposes some

people to dependency• Underlying disease that cannot be cured and can only

be treated by lifelong abstinence

Public health

• See drug users as a public health issue• There will always be drug use regardless of

prohibition measures• Social environment affects both probability of

drug use ability to resistance or cope• Decrease the negative consequences of drug use

to the user and to others

Metaphors for drug abuse

If we identify the metaphors being used and bring to the surface we can:• elaborate the assumptions which flow from it • examine their appropriateness• examine conflicting frames

Marketeers seek to understand customers more deeply through exploring the metaphors they use to “see” products

Chevy “as a rock” campaign

Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET)

Man as a lion

Metaphors may provide insights but they are partial

Man as a machine

Emphasise some details whilst suppressing others

Metaphors are paradoxical – they create ways of seeing and not seeing

Maps and territory

Metaphors and / versus ‘real thinking’

“This incident... happened during military manoeuvres in Switzerland. The young lieutenant of a small Hungarian detachment in the Alps sent a reconnaissance unit into the icy wilderness. It began to snow immediately, snowed for two days, and the unit did not return. The lieutenant suffered, fearing that he had dispatched his own people to death. But on the third day the unit came back. Where had they been? How had they made their way? Yes, they said, we considered ourselves lost and waited for the end. And then one of us found a map in his pocket. That calmed us down. We pitched camp, lasted out the snowstorm, and then with the map we discovered our bearings. And here we are.”

Sensemaking in Organizations by Karl E. Weick

“The lieutenant borrowed this remarkable map and had a good look at it. He discovered to his astonishment that it was not a map of the Alps, but a map of the Pyrenees.”

All our thinking is metaphor/analogy

Activity

How do you translate a cricket game into a football game?• Work on this in your group

• What are the challenge? What are the opportunities?

• What is the potential?

Feedback

• What are the challenge? What are the opportunities?

• What is the potential?

Metaphors as a tool for inquiry

Generative metaphors for opening perception

Metaphors when used consciously as tools for inquiry, generating new ways of seeing and reframing situations

May be used to work with groups within an organisation who are in tension and struggling to engage in effective dialogue as the conflicting frames are incommensurable

• “Generative Metaphor Intervention Process”* underpins Cooperrider’s Appreciative Inquiry

*Barrett F and Cooperider D, May 1990, Generative Metaphor Intervention: A New Approach for Working with Systems Divided by Conflict and Caught in Defensive Perception, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

Reframes the Organisation Design metaphor of seeing organisations as deficient and a problem to be solved, to a positive inquiry into what people want more of

Morgan’s 8 metaphors of organisation

MachineA series of connected parts

arranged in a logical order in order to produce a repeatable output

OrganismA collective response to its

environment and, to survive, must adapt as the environment changes

BrainA set of functions designed to process information and

learn over time

Cultural SystemA mini-society, with its own culture

& subcultures defined by their values, norms, beliefs & rituals

Emphasizes closed systems, efficiency and mechanical features of organizations

Emphasises openness, growth, adaptation and environmental relations

Emphasises cognitive features of organizations including information processing, collective intelligence and learning

Emphasises emphasizes the creation of shared meanings among actors, the ‘social glue’ that holds everything together: language, norms, values, rituals, myths, stories and daily routines

Morgan’s 8 metaphors of organisation

Political SystemA game of gaining, influencing, and

coordinating power

Psychic PrisonA collection of myths and

stories that restrict people’s thoughts, ideas, and actions

Instrument of DominationA means to impose one’s will on others and exploit resources for

personal gains

Flux and TransformationAn ever-changing system indivisible

from its environment

Emphasizes patterns of competing interests, rights conflicts and power play

Emphasises how organisations get trapped in webs of their own making, confined by images, ideas thoughts and actions

Emphasises ethical and social dimensions including exploitation of employees, environment, control and unequal distribution of power

Emphasises the processes of continual change, systemic connections between the organisation and environment that give rise to patterns

Generative metaphors for opening perception – simple example

Meeting as

Needs to be productive – take inputs and transform into outputs

Need attendees to work together in pursuit of a clear and compelling goal. Can only be achieved through effective teamwork and problem-solving. People driven by reward of achieving goal

Needs to grab attention and keep people glued to their seat. If done particularly well, we will continue thinking and talking about it for days

Attendees are going to fight or compete with others within the room to maximise their chances of achieving their own personal objectives. Take no prisoners, no holds barred.

Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech:• "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the

Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity"

• "America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice"

• "The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges"

• "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred"

Metaphors can be used to create connections and tap into emotions

Because in defence it is too tempting to use the shield of sentimentality to protect previously battle-winning but now outdated capabilities. Such sentimentality, when coupled with over-ambition and under-resourcing leads to even harder consequences down the line. It risks the lives of our people, who are truly our finest asset.

It would, of course, similarly endanger our people if we simply wielded a sword of cuts, slicing away the battle-proven on the promise of novelty, without regard for what is left behind.*

*Defence Secretary Ben Wallace describing Defence's contribution to the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/defence-secretary-oral-statement-on-the-defence-command-paper

Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech:• "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the

Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity"

• "America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice"

• "The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges"

• "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred"

Metaphors can be used to create connections and tap into emotions

Because in defence it is too tempting to use the shield of sentimentality to protect previously battle-winning but now outdated capabilities. Such sentimentality, when coupled with over-ambition and under-resourcing leads to even harder consequences down the line. It risks the lives of our people, who are truly our finest asset.

It would, of course, similarly endanger our people if we simply wielded a sword of cuts, slicing away the battle-proven on the promise of novelty, without regard for what is left behind.*

*Defence Secretary Ben Wallace describing Defence's contribution to the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/defence-secretary-oral-statement-on-the-defence-command-paper

Rich picture sessions can tap into deep metaphors that indicate strong emotions

and feelings

36

A keystone arch

Example used with clients:What does this picture offer us when thinking about service transformation? Whole systems change?

Activity

Activity

Take a current situation, identify metaphors in use and play with other metaphors

• What are the metaphors, paradigms, and analogies?

• AND what other metaphors could you apply, and what would it suggest?

DebriefRemember, a metaphor is like a leaky bucket…

…you can only carry it so far!

So, Where does it all go wrong? Or why?

What is this a metaphor for?

Chat notes

Please ‘check in’ in the chat:• One bit of data (where you are from or what you do etc)• One comment about why you are here, what you want to get from it,

or a favourite metaphor• Hi everyone! Miguel from Barcelona, happy to see you again. Always

with the aim of learning and sharing Good insights with all of you!• Tony Korycki - SCiO UK chair - interested in metaphors as a general

linguistic and cognitive mechanism, also what specific methods can be used to used metaphor within systemic inquiry.

• Hi. Ed from the Netherlands. Use all kinds of systems thinking stuff, both professionally and as a weird sort of hobby.

• Gav - sharper crayons• Simon Berkeley, freelance business transformation programme

manager. My metaphor from a recent project: brilliant KPI reports that don’t get used to drive performance are like a Ferrari parked in the driveway, used to show off, but not to drive anywhere.

• I do not have a favorite metaphor, but if I end the evening with one, it would make me very happy.

• SCiO slack; think this is it https://app.slack.com/client/T0141S3RTU0/C01359K3EES/user_profile/U0141S6B5R6

• Hi everyone.. Mark from London.....interested in metaphor as a unconscious container for beliefs, and values

• in sunny / snowy Cheshire. favourite metaphor(s) sailing ones -steering, battening down the hatches, weathering the storm etc.

• Hola! This is Miguel from SCiO Esp, Looking for learning a lot today!• Every word is a model• Hi, this is Aga Becler from Warsaw in Poland, „systemic

anthropologist” serving as team dynamics specialist. Recently interested in how metaphors and patterns are interconnected and how the language _without_ metaphors would look like ;).

• Malcolm Cawood from London. Use of metaphors as "rhetorical strategies" or, i Kenneth Burke's phrase, "equipment for living"

• Hi I'm Lesley from Somerset (but spent many years in Scotland). I'm a SCiO Director, interested in Systems and community action. I find metaphors practically useful.

• Hi Pete here, from Colchester, Essex; OU systems student, just starting out on TB871 module (formerly TU811), a whole block on metaphors; looking to get some expert metaphorical insight or ideas,

and just to hear systems language used by active systems practitioners

• Hi there Chris here - I am studying for my PhD in design and systems thinking and the relationship with metaphor so very excited to join this! Don’t have a favourite metaphor - will have to think about that one…

• humpty dumpty in alice in wonderland• Favourite metaphor "Twins are Birds" (used by African people The

Nuer - and favourite because after 40 years since hearing it, I haven't a clue what it means)!

Monbiot article• http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/21/cleansing

-stock-doublespeak-people-killing• Adam Curtis’ “Century of the Self”, and his critique of Freud, Bernays,

and other 20th c. psychologists, is a great exploration of how metaphor is used to manipulate.

• Tony has already made some comments on this session in the SCiO Slack channel: https://bit.ly/scioslack

• We use in Spain drug addiction or drug dependent instead of drug abuse/abusers. this swift the agency of the act of taking drugs

• a quote I like from McLuhan: "every extension is an amputation"• see also Co-ordinated Management of Meaning for much more:

‘people construct meaning on the basis of exchanging rules’• Interesting - Mcluhan’s medium as a language, linguistic medium

(being a message). Definitely about the limits (or possibility, or impossibility) of translation.

• 'agreement about what to see (what is relevant), and what not to see (what is not relevant)'

• my linkedin update with (so far) 9,000 views:• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_presentation-on-

metaphor-concepts-activity-6787263257741787137-rU8a/• One of my favourite metaphors is from Gil Scott Heron; “the

revolution will not be televised”Generative metaphors from the ‘bridge and water’• „Visual metaphors” (both linguistic and literary visual).• Water under the bridge! Forget the past…• White water rafting ("trouble ahead")• bridge over troubled water

• build a bridge to save the water, transforming the environment• old stone bridge that looks on verge of collapse (looking backwards,

fragility)• bend in the river...• using the image of the stream to explain tranformation• a torrent that feels chaotic and threatening ?Further discussion• for VSM-inclined people, it can be interesting to think of metaphor as

variety amplification and attenuation• Exactly, ben, said the same thing myself earlier: it simplifies reality and

can also creatively expand understanding through recombination of existing ideas

• And metaphor as abduction, perhaps?• "Ask not what's inside your head but what your head is inside of"

(from field of ecological [metaphor] psychology) - so, too, metaphors are not stored inside your head, but are all around you as systems of belief (or attitudes or frames or scripts or "common-sense")

Donkey and cart/checking out and final comments• This is a metaphor for cricket.• very good Ed• Ed so you do understand cricket!• Yes, cricket is like a flying donkey.• A few folk have suggested the currently England team have been

playing like donkeys• sorry have to go...fantastic session. Thank you to all• https://www.google.com/search?q=auxiliary+verbs&rlz=1C1DIMC_en

GB905GB905&sxsrf=ALeKk00TjbOMiPyd12ysQwcy24mwYKrMjA:1618257696725&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwji46vZv_nvAhWMHXcKHS2bAIAQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=866&bih=910