This comic was a collaboration between Dr Nick Barter (Griffith Business School) and Stuart McMillen (stuartmcmillen.com). Metaphors is based on Nick’s 2011 conference paper Metaphors that facilitate Organisational Understanding (mirrored copy).
A full support note is included in the PDF version of the comic, available for US $0.50.
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When I read Gareth Morgan’s “Images of Organzation” what I took from it is that different lenses produce different questions and answers and that the real danger was being unaware that one was perhaps using only one metaphor to describe the world. Looking at an organization as a tool helps you push particular points, but that doesn’t mean other metaphors are necessarily inappropriate or even more untrue than the one you seem to push. Using only a metaphor that is about “real people” or “organisms” may for instance ascribe intentionality to some things that are in fact impersonal, and thus it can be appropriate to use a “dehumanizing” metaphor because it is in fact not an intentional being producing the effects we observe.
Nice one Stuart – well articulated and drawn… although I would argue that it’s probably impossible to remove all the ‘lenses’ through which we see the world… however we see the world, it is going to be of necessity a simplification of reality. I do agree though at the very least it’s good to be aware of the fact that we do in fact view the world through multiple lenses and to to try to incorporate this understanding into, and with a view to de-warping, our worldview…
you might like this:
http://www.tinyurl.com/trsl-e