Organizational metaphors Ship metaphor - welcome newcomers on board. As in running a "tight ship" But a ship knows its direction before it sets sail. Ships have a clear direction from start to finish because their destination is not a moving target, unlike business today where direction cannot be fully decided in advance and it can change constantly.

Is your organization a ...machine? ...organism? ...person? ...group? ...family? ...dynasty?

Organizations as machines

• The machine metaphor appeals to minds that like orderliness - such as engineers.
• It also ties in with business process re-engineering.
• Any business requiring a high level of efficiency is essentially a machine.
• MacDonald's and similar service businesses are examples - they offer the same product
  everywhere all the time at minimum cost and maximum quality - this is machine-like.
• Machines can only be repaired or replaced, they cannot evolve or develop.
• We cannot dispense with this metaphor - contrary to the advocates of adaptiveness.
• All businesses need to deliver today's products efficiently as well as adapt to the future.
• So, all businesses will have a relatively machine-like part.
• Those that compete solely on cost, service and quality, not on innovation, need to be machine-like in their efficiency.
• Problems arise when managers insist on employing only one fundamental metaphor.
• Even fast evolving businesses need to be machine-like if they are to be profitable.

Organizations as organisms

• Organisms, like businesses, compete for survival and evolve to gain an edge.
• An organism is responsive to its environment, it can learn and adapt.
• Like organisms, businesses are born, grow and die.
• Organisms are more receptive to environmental feedback than machines.
• Businesses also operate within a delicate ecology with a lot of interdependencies.
• It's not as clear who's in charge of an organism as it is with a ship, however.
• Do businesses have no more control over their fate than animals facing evolutionary pressure?
• Entrepreneurial organizations grow more by evolution than rational planning.
• Perhaps businesses have both machine-like and organism-like characteristics.
• Thinking of your business as an organism may encourage a stronger external focus.
• Organisms look to their environments while being a machine encourages internal tinkering.

Organizations as persons

• This metaphor captures the idea that organizations have brains.
• Senior management consitutes the brain of the organization.
• This idea is O.K. in businesses where all the thinking is done only at the top.
• Like other organisms, persons grow and develop, learn and adapt.
• But they also get old and set in their ways!
• It makes sense to talk of persons forming partnerships and cooperating with other firms.
• We like to think of organizations as having a personality, character or moods.
• We attribute personality traits to organizations - like integrity or openness.
• Organizations can also be neurotic, immature or unfit - just like people.

Organizations as groups

• This metaphor sheds light on the reality of competing factions and stakeholders.
• But, we run the risk of excessive internal focus again - as with machines.
• Only groups can be teams and this is a major benefit of this metaphor.
• What's less inspiring is just the fact that "group" is not really a metaphor.
• An organization IS a group in a way that it can never be a machine or an organism
• You could substitute the metaphor of an army or beehive - both types of groups;
• How about a group of pirates or explorers? The latter ties in with entrepreneurship.
• Explorers are discoverers who need to improvise, adapt and break new ground.
• What happens to routine execution, administration and efficiency in such a culture, however?

Organizations as families

• Conflicts in organizations are a lot like family conflicts.
• This metaphor can shed light on otherwise confusing dynamics.
• It also ties in with the paternalistic character of some organizations.
• Authority in organizations is a lot like the authority in families.
• We often want to rebel against organizational authority for the same reason.
• We refer to hiring people as ''getting into bed with them''.
• Our relationship to our employer is often thought of as a marriage.
• Like marriage, joining an organization used to be a lifetime commitment.
• Talking to other prospective employers is seen as disloyal - like having an affair!
• Manager - subordinate relationships are very much like parent - child relationships.
• Executives often want their favourite ''son'' to follow in their footsteps.
• We often like to work somewhere that has a family atmosphere.
• It is hard to rejoin an organization if you leave - as with divorce you are a traitor!

Organizations as family dynasties

• The family dynasty metaphor makes sense of decentralized conglomerates.
• The parent organization acquires offspring or spins them off as new divisions.
• It is also conducive to images of successions of generations taking control.
• And of decentralized divisions wanting the independence to run their own lives.
• Viewing divisions as children in need of support is also quite paternalistic, however.
• As if a business has to be protected until sufficiently mature to be let to run itself.
• Often it is "parental" interference that destroys an "offspring's" chances of success.
• This metaphor suggests a certain rigidity and resistance to change.
• What counts in a family dynasty is tradition, maintaining links with the past, respect for elders, continuity - everything but dynamic change to meet future challenges.

All pages written by Mitch McCrimmon, Ph.D. and copyright © Self Renewal Group 1996-2008