Fun Metaphors of "My Company"

"Doing research here is like playing stud poker. The company will put money into your project just as long as your hand shows promise or the next card doesn't cost too much to buy." —Creative Think seminar participant.

I love metaphors! When they're fresh, they ignite our imaginations and stimulate our creativity. One exercise I do with my workshop participants is have them make metaphors for their companies. I've found that the metaphors this exercise produces give me a lot of insight into the nature and morale of each company. They also provide me with a pretty good sense of how well that company will do in the near term. Here are a few of them. You might even be able to guess their names. As you read along, ask yourself, "What's a good metaphor for my organization?"

• Our company is like a supertanker. It's large and powerful, but moves slowly. Also, once the course is set, it's tough to change.

• Our company is like a winery. We have different products and some vintages are better than others. We also have two kinds of users: on the one hand we have connoisseurs who greatly appreciate what we've done; on the other hand, there are "Ripple drinkers" who take our software and manipulate to their own ends.

• Our company is like the sun shedding light on the computer world.

• Working here is like a nightmare. You'd like to get out of it but you need the sleep.

• Our company is like Peter Pan. It's childlike and wishes to retain the good parts of being a small company even as its grows larger. Being able to fly is a kind of fantasy as is making the best product. Our president is like Tinkerbell -- the spirit and imaginative force of the company. Our chief financial officer is like Wendy -- he's practical, has both feet on the ground, but he's also pulled along in the magic. Our chief competitor is like Captain Hook -- but we'll overcome him with imagination rather than "guns and knives."

• Our company is like a galley ship without a drummer. We've got some people rowing at full beat, some at one-half beat, some at one-quarter beat, and some dead beats. Also, the captain is steering by the wake.

• Our company is like a three-ring circus with marketing, R&D, and manufacturing each trying to occupy the center ring. The president is the ring master. Marketing has the high wire act, R&D has the magic act, and manufacturing are the elephants. Advertising is in charge of tickets sales; customer support are the peanut vendors; the customers are the audience; the field engineers are the clowns between the rings; and the grand finale is when we successfully install a system that works!

• Working here is like urinating in a dark suit. It's warm and it feels good, but it doesn't show.

• Our company is like a maze looking for a mouse.

• Our company is like a giant human body. Administration is the guts. Sales and marketing are the mouth. Corporate management is the mind making decisions. R&D is the reproductive system. And the secretaries and technicians are the skeleton that supports the body.

Here's a challenge to you: What is your company like? What metaphors would you use to describe your organization? By all means, please share!

Comments

[Paul Ligget]

Aren't those all metaphors...

[mindblob]

Hello Roger... Incredible to read your post today. My last one is "Open the tank" (posted on the same day!) and I use a fish tank metaphor. I love metaphors as well and think they do help to visualize a situation from/as an outsider perspective.
I like the Peter Pan one... very nice perspective! ; )

[Innovation Zen]

Wonderful post.

Since I just quit my job I tried to come up with a metaphor for large organizations in general.

Corporations are like old, gray-haired fat men. Sure, they have a lot of experience, lots of money and they live in a beautiful house. But they can not run as fast as some young guys out there (even though they used to). And in our fast-paced economy being able to run fast is all it takes.

[Liz Strauss]

My blog is the country store, the local saloon . . . the place where folks gather to play cards and checkers and see what the news is around town.

[Joyce Wycoff]

Hi Roger ... love the metaphors. The InnovationIgniter was born as a metaphor ... a way to ignite innovative thinking. It's also built around the metaphor of a color wheel with primary, secondary and tertiary colors ... in this case actions, competencies and tools.

But I was trying to think of others ... Igniter is like a fast food restaurant where you order what you want when you want it and it shows up in a flash ... but doesn't clog your arteries!

Igniter is MTV for your brain.

Igniter is an innovation variety show where you get to hear from 13 top innovation leaders giving you their best in 15-minute "acts."

[dave]

I used this as a vision for a website we launched in the late nineties:

She travels at speeds beyond human comprehension. Her size fluctuates according to occupants. Her structure is metamorphic, ever-changing as it incorporates the new technology and business ideas of those on board. The Starship Cruiser is a vehicle built to vaporize boundaries and limitations. She will take us to the very brink of our imaginations. And with but a glimpse of visions to be, she engages the afterburners…………….blasting us forward, screaming to shatter the barriers of conventional thinking and complacency. How can a ship accomplish such noble tasks you ask? Because her fuel is the collective passion of those on board. The passion to learn, share knowledge, information and ideas. Through this collaborative effort she reaches destinations impossible for one human being or……………..alien.

The name of our site was AREA51HVAC.COM...a community for air conditioning professionals to gather and exchange information, knowledge and ideas.

I love metaphors Roger! They are puppy dog.

[Shirley]

My company is like a child. It's full of adventure and wonder; letting the growing happen but frustrated that the big kids don't know his name...

Thanks for the web site, blogs, and books. They help more than you'll ever know.

Shirley

[Jacob Paul Breeze]

At our company, encouragement for hard work is like urinating in your tuxedo. No one notices, but you alone get to enjoy that warm fuzzy feeling!

[Michael Wagner]

Great post! Metaphors are so powerful.

We named our business "the White Rabbit Group" because we felt the people we want to serve are like Alice in need a white rabbit to take them a world of new experience and perspective.

Thanks for offering up this conversation!

[Jake the Bhard]

Ahh hate to say it but all of these are not metaphors but similies.

[The Guy Who Did Your Mom]

My company is like your mom. It sucks, and I spend a lot of time inside it.

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[Johan]

Our Company is like a caged lion some day it's going to get out.

[Johan]

Cool

[maddie]

Those aren't metaphors at all.
Metaphor- the comparison of two or more things without using like or as.
Ask Language Arts teachers and they'll tell you the same thing.

[Scrollwork]

In a speech I once drafted for a CEO, I said, "Our common vision will be the storm windows that will see us through this turbulent economy." Didn't go over well with the bean-counting administrators.

When I blogged about the company recently (having parted ways a year ago), the perfect metaphor for the experience of working there was the bacterium at the bottom of Mono Lake, CA, that had been force-fed arsenic in place of phosphorus. Read more:
www.scrollwork.blogspot.com - Are you too adaptable to be authentic?

[vehicle insurance companies]

You are right when they are good companies could even make a name for themselves. To insure that it represents your company calture and motos you need to think carefully on metaphors.

[AED responder]

Great analogies. So many big companies sound just like this. Great work.

[custom writing]

Our Company is like a caged lion some day it's going to get out.