This issue: working with metaphor – the See What We Mean model. Maggie Grieve reports
Working with metaphors can help clients describe the indescribable, and get to the crux of what matters.
I developed the metaphor-based See What We Mean model to support teams and groups to explore and understand complex situations, helping everyone to reach the nub of the issue. Usually, once this is achieved, the ‘fix’ becomes comparatively easy!
Coaching groups and teams including boards, we see leaders, managers and team members wrestling with issues and challenges they’d all like to solve, sometimes with a clear and stated common goal, sometimes not. Often the biggest challenge is unpicking, articulating and reaching consensus on the nature of the challenge.
It’s common in these sessions to hear interesting metaphors, similes or analogies emerge as individuals try to describe an obstacle, goal, issue or circumstance.
Exploring metaphors
In ancient Greek, the word metapherō means ‘to carry across’. This is exactly what a metaphor does: it carries a shared characteristic across two things or concepts of different natures.
Metaphors allow us to create new connections, by showing us that something is a symbol of something else. They convey additional meaning and help us understand an idea more clearly.
The theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to understanding how we think and express our thoughts in language, articulating our unconscious or otherwise indescribable perspective.
Jung (1968) explains that by analysing the symbols emerging from our connection with the unconscious, we gain access to a broader and more profound comprehension of ourselves, our relationships, and the broader world.
Lakoff and Johnson (1981) suggest metaphor is a fundamental cognitive mechanism, enabling us to draw on our knowledge of the physical and social realms to gain insight into various other domains, ie, to understand more abstract things like work, time, mental activities and feelings.
Great communication and improved understanding are important in coaching but sometimes there are no literal words to create that better understanding. In coaching, a client’s metaphors give an insight into their unique perception of the situation and can make explaining ‘it’ seem magically possible. For example, when the client tells you they can ‘see light at the end of the tunnel’, that’s what they are experiencing. There is light for them, and they’re in a tunnel. They’ll unconsciously ‘know’ much more about their situation from this metaphoric viewpoint – how far away it is, where the light is coming from, what the tunnel is made of, how it feels and looks, how wide or narrow and where they and others are in relation to the tunnel. Add a systemic perspective by engaging others in the metaphor, and you further build the picture.
The model
The framework that underpins See What We Mean can be used in a number of ways and contexts including:
- To help understand and increase awareness about the current situation and the group/team’s perception of it.
- To unpick problems, minimising conflict and improving relationships.
- And not only when a metaphor has emerged in discussion but as a way for the coach to prompt the generation of a metaphor, offering a challenging question around a topic, then inviting the group to create a drawing from that.
Often clients will use an interesting metaphor, simile or analogy for something when trying to describe an obstacle, goal issue or circumstance, using a word or phrase to suggest a likeness or analogy. Or, they simply find themselves stuck in describing a situation at all.
Engaging team or group members in describing and then drawing in large scale the metaphor they used, or suggesting they pick and draw a metaphor for what they’d like to describe, will often create even richer conversation and comprehension.
The metaphor picture they create provides a way of communicating complex information.
Drawing it, engaging others in the drawing, and making it large scale, pulls out what’s under the surface of the metaphor and facilitates engagement and perspectives from across the group.
Exploring current ‘reality’
I sometimes ask, “If you had to use a metaphor to describe your current situation, what comes to you?”
The answers have been revealing and useful. One leader described his team’s current situation as feeling like being “an oily cloth, there for people to wipe their hands on when they’ve finished their ‘important’ work”.
Another senior leader described and then drew his company’s departments as being “like three masts on the same yacht” which led to a very healthy discussion about replacing what was described as ‘siloed’ activity with unified team behaviour, to harness the power of the wind in their sails. The picture drawn started a conversation about gaps in internal communication and effort, creating the start of a set of plans to address this, which have since drawn the company much closer together.
Other responses have included “like pushing a boulder up a hill” or “walking through treacle” where a drawing generated a much fuller picture of the thoughts, reasons and feelings behind it, the varying experiences and perceptions of it. This was followed by a group discussion about how to manage the issue – in this case, exhaustion/burn out – as well as understand and tackle what was creating that ‘force of gravity’, so they could get their momentum back.
By revealing their situation using metaphor-based, visual imagery, these clients were able to create a clear, shared and fulsome picture, where we could jointly explore the situation further, understand its impact and create a plan for how to handle it in the future.
Desired outcomes
The technique is just as useful when encouraging a group/team to look at the end desired stage – the goal or better imagined future. For example, when I asked the group which talked about the silos and the separate masts of a yacht, they were able to imagine themselves as a leadership team, together atop the single strong central mast of the new yacht, able to see what was coming, steer the boat accordingly and capable of powering through the water, working with a happy crew singing and enjoying the journey with them. What followed was a set of targeted discussions around what needed to change to address and reach this desired state.
Using the model: Step by step
1. Replay the metaphor used by a team or team member to the group, or
2. Ask the group or an individual in the group to suggest a metaphor that describes the situation.
3. Using a large piece of paper or a whiteboard, ask the person who used the metaphor to draw what they just described. Explain why.
4. The large piece of paper is used to encourage the client and the group to create an overview and then create or co-create further detail as it’s explored further. Allow plenty of time for this.
5. Stop from time to time to check the picture represents what they intended to draw and then use the image to discuss what it represents, and the options and possibilities related to it. A good way to start more detailed questioning is to use questions like, ‘I’m wondering what/why/how…?’ and ‘explain a little more about this element of the drawing…?’ to encourage further discussion.
6. Encourage the group to draw any other aspects of the metaphor outside the system they’ve already described through the drawing.
7. Later in the session, or in subsequent sessions, perhaps refer to this image, and its metaphor, to develop it further and to demonstrate any developments by asking how it now fits with their view. This will help reinforce progress made.
Although it’s best to use this technique when there’s plenty of time, it can also be a tension breaker in a group session.
Conclusion
Metaphors can provide us with a rich and varied vocabulary for describing and understanding our professional experiences. Whether we’re describing the challenges of a difficult project, the thrill of a new opportunity, or the monotony of daily tasks, they help us make sense of the complex and often unpredictable world of work.
In a team or group setting, this technique creates and supports an opportunity for multiple people to share potentially different views about the same situation, creating clarity and consensus around the issue.
- This series showcases a range of coaching tools, drawing from the books Coaching Tools: 101 coaching tools and techniques for executive coaches, team coaches, mentors and supervisors – volumes 1, 2 and 3.
About the author
- Maggie Grieve, co-editor of Coaching Tools, Volumes 1, 2 and 3, and founder of Ping Thinking, is an accredited leadership and team coach with senior experience in business and strategy development in the global IT sector.
References and further info
- Jung, C. G. (1968). Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell Publishing Co. Chicago
- Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1981). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press
- See What We Mean is included in the newly released Coaching Tools: A further 123 coaching tools and techniques for executive coaches, team coaches, mentors and supervisors: Volume 3 (Libri)