• Home
  • About Us
    • Our People
    • Associations & Partnerships
  • Training
    • APMG International™ Certified Local Change Agent (virtual classroom)
    • APMG International Change Management™ Foundation & Practitioner (virtual classroom)
    • APMG International Change Management™ Foundation (virtual classroom)
    • APMG International Change Management™ Foundation and Practitioner (3 MTH online)
    • APMG International Change Management™ Foundation (3 MTH online)
    • APMG International Change Management™ Practitioner (3 MTH online)
  • Consultancy
    • Emotional Intelligence
      • Purchase EQ-i 2.0 Leadership Assessment
      • Purchase EQ-i 2.0 Workplace Assessment
    • Organisational Change Templates
  • Blog
    • Infographics
    • Organisational Change
    • Personal Change
    • Affirmations
  • Events
  • Help
  • Contact
  • 0 items
      • Sign-in
    Do you have a question?
    +44 208 191 7216
    info@change-consult.com
    Change Consult Ltd
    • Home
    • About Us
      • Our People
      • Associations & Partnerships
    • Training
      • APMG International™ Certified Local Change Agent (virtual classroom)
      • APMG International Change Management™ Foundation & Practitioner (virtual classroom)
      • APMG International Change Management™ Foundation (virtual classroom)
      • APMG International Change Management™ Foundation and Practitioner (3 MTH online)
      • APMG International Change Management™ Foundation (3 MTH online)
      • APMG International Change Management™ Practitioner (3 MTH online)
    • Consultancy
      • Emotional Intelligence
        • Purchase EQ-i 2.0 Leadership Assessment
        • Purchase EQ-i 2.0 Workplace Assessment
      • Organisational Change Templates
    • Blog
      • Infographics
      • Organisational Change
      • Personal Change
      • Affirmations
    • Events
    • Help
    • Contact
    • 0 items
        • Sign-in

      Activity 11 – Organisational metaphors

      Home › Forums › APMG Change Management Foundation and Practitioner › Activity 11 – Organisational metaphors

      • This topic has 7 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 2 weeks, 3 days ago by Change Consult Ltd.
      Viewing 6 reply threads
      • Author
        Posts
        • October 7, 2020 at 12:42 pm #12866
          Change Consult Ltd
          Keymaster

          Now, have a think about your organisation:

          Q1: What metaphor(s) are prevalent there?

          Q2: What implications does this have for leadership and change initiatives?

        • April 22, 2021 at 10:07 am #13136
          Brigitte Clausen
          Participant

          Q1) The Organisations as Machines metaphor is prevalent in my organisation
          Q2) Implications are the change can be slow as it takes time to set up initiatives and execute according to plans that need bureaucratic review and sign off from leadership. The benefit is that there is generally a standard to follow for landing change with a good level of control, disbenefit of this is that it it can stifle creativity and innovation in change initiatives. Employees are also not often feeling like they have been part of collaboration process, the change is ‘being done to them rather than with them’ which can make for slower adoption rates.

        • August 15, 2022 at 4:00 am #14903
          KIM YAN CHEN
          Participant

          Q1: My organization is functioning as Political System – Autocracy.

          Q2: The key implications would be that time required for initiating the change would be fast and with adequate support since it is more a top down approach to drive for any changes. However, the negative impacts would be that if the change may sometimes be not a right direction and bringing several poor consequences, then it would be very difficult to make correction due to the strong authority and power of the MD from time to time.

        • September 5, 2022 at 9:29 pm #14953
          Michael Gill
          Participant

          Q1: I’ve just changed company and its the end of Day 1. Hence, I have had very little exposure so far. However, my guess is for the Machine metaphor.

          Q2: It’s quite autocratic with the leaders planning, forecasting and exercising a lot of comamnd and control. There is autonomy but it is quite constrained. Change management appears to be system/process driven with minimal consideration for the people being changed. They get trained or get moved.

        • September 23, 2022 at 4:57 pm #14971
          Patrícia Pires
          Participant

          Q1: The company I’m currently working for had a prevalent Culture metaphor. Unfotunately over the course of last year, it has been changing into a Political Systems kind of metaphor.

          Q2: Changes were a lot easier to implement while on a culture metaphor. Since there was a vey open communication and great work relationships, everyone felt part of the organisation and would gladly change and push the change themselves. Howeve, upon the transformation, a lot of resistance has been noticed to change, which bring a lot of challenges to the leadership.

        • October 29, 2022 at 8:12 pm #14996
          Roberto Asensio
          Participant

          Q1: What metaphor(s) are prevalent there?

          Political system

          Q2: What implications does this have for leadership and change initiatives?

          Changes need to be agreed in advance with everyone in a leadership position.
          Change pace depends at anytime on the situation/context.
          It is not always clear why something is not progressing as expected

        • January 11, 2023 at 12:21 pm #15180
          Joel Osborne
          Participant

          1) In my last org, the prevalent metaphors were Political, Psychic Prison and Machine

          2) Change needs to move quickly and demonstrate small wins to secure buy-in from key leaders/ stakeholders.

          • January 11, 2023 at 8:08 pm #15184
            Change Consult Ltd
            Keymaster

            Joel,

            Thank you for your contribution!

            Organisations can have more than one metaphor in action so thank you for identifying the three in your last organisation.
            Psychic Prisons can be quite damaging to organisational life and can eventually lead to its demise so swift action is usually suggested for organisations with this metaphor.

      • Author
        Posts
      Viewing 6 reply threads

      You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login here

      Categories

      • Organisational Change (11)
      • Personal Change (3)
      • Project Management (2)

      Subscribe

      Newsletter Signup

      * indicates required
      Email Format

      Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Change Consult Ltd.:

      You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails.

      We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

      logo-eduma-the-best-lms-wordpress-theme

      +44 208 191 7216

      info@change-consult.com

      Navigation Menu

      • Home
      • About Us
      • Training
      • Blog
      • Help
      • Privacy
      • Terms and Conditions

      The APMG International Change Management and Swirl Device logo is a trademark of The APM Group Limited, used under permission of The APM Group Limited. All rights reserved.

      Copyright © 2022 Change Consult Ltd | Main Office: 200 Brook Drive, Green Park, Reading, Berkshire, RG2 6UB | Registered Company 12292090

      Login with your site account

      Lost your password?