Activity 11 – Organisational metaphors

[Change Consult Ltd]

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?

[Brigitte Clausen]

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.

[KIM YAN CHEN]

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.

[Michael Gill]

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.

[Patrícia Pires]

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.

[Roberto Asensio]

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

[Joel Osborne]

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.

[Change Consult Ltd]

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.

[Alan Dunlop]

Q1: What metaphor(s) are prevalent there? Machine & Train

Q2: What implications does this have for leadership and change initiatives? Emphasis on process & learning but challenge on adapting.

[Change Consult Ltd]

Thank you for your contribution Alan!

Adapting will be difficult indeed! Having leaders bought into the change is of the utmost importance and that should be the focus. Change agents can also help but for the machines metaphor, the leaders need to steer the change.

[Joly Babu]

Q1. The metaphors most prevalent in my last company going through Change were Flux and Transformation, with some aspect of Brain. Mainly because there was an emphasis on data being the driver for change – which makes sense. And with new leaders coming in Change was expected, however, there was a disconnect between drivers and management of Change, hence a lot of anxiety or abdication of support from managers due to loss of leveraging the strengths of a Brains organisation.

Q1. Implications therefore are to support the management with understanding the benefits and purpose of Change, understand and mitigate any anxiety, so that there is alignment and buy-in from the people those Managers lead.

[Change Consult Ltd]

Thank you for your contribution Joly!
The drivers for change (the WHY?) should be at the forefront of all comms and the change strategy.
Supporting management and reminding them of the ‘WHY’ of the change is important as you so rightly pointed out and has far reaching effects throughout the organisation.

[Maggie Elstob]

1) The metaphors most prevalent in my organisations are somewhere between machines and brains.
2) We use information to make decisions, and are often led by goals and objectives. We do also function fairly democratically, so when a change is made, the opportunity is usually given by leadership to be consulted on the matter and feel that their voice is being heard.

[Change Consult Ltd]

Thank you for your contribution Maggie!
The Brains metaphor may be slightly stronger in your organisation as there is a level of democracy and consultation. Many organisations today are drifting towards this setup where there is a structure in place (machines) but staff who are experts (brains) have a say in matters.

[Author]

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