“The Metaphor Minute” is a brief monthly note with examples from business, media, or politics that illustrate the power of metaphors and analogies to make a point, solve a problem, and get results. Use these stories to stimulate high pay-off metaphoric thinking in your business.
The virus has called forth a variety of metaphors, demonstrating again how integral this language tool is to human understanding, illustrating again why carefully thought out metaphors belong in all your communications. See below.
Many people are in the difficult position today of figuring out where to invest in their businesses and where to cut back. What is a smart move? What is shortsighted? What will pay off? Perhaps this story that came to me recently with its underlying metaphor from forensic examiner Ann Mahony will help you evaluate your final decision.
Explaining what is happening with Covid-19, getting people to follow directions, and reassuring listeners that things will eventually turn out all right is the challenge every corporate, local, state, and national leader faces today. Though you may never be in such serious straits with your clients, it is instructive to look at how often Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, who has gotten high praise for his daily briefings, has reached for metaphors to explain and underscore his messages as well as to see how others in different contexts have dobe the same.
The coronavirus is touching everyone in every industry, not the least of all Wall Street. When extreme events happen, it isn’t surprising that describing them inevitably leads to metaphors to capture the meaning and emotion of the moment. Here is a good example of that…
In a 2018 blog post, I wrote how people shoot themselves in the foot when they fail to model what they sell, e.g., the wedding planner who shows up late for your meeting, or the dentist who starts to fill the wrong cavity in your mouth (!) This month, it is my pleasure to present the opposite: someone who perfectly models what she sells and who does it with a metaphor. Let her story inspire you to think how you can do the same in your business.
Have you ever been in a social gathering where someone starts to tell a story and it goes nowhere? Perhaps they are interrupted early in the story and they never get their listener’s attention back. Or maybe they give so much detail and take so long to tell the story that the audience dwindles; those …
Giving advice to clients who are doing something you know is not beneficial for them can be pretty tricky. On the one hand, you don’t want to insult them. On the other hand, as an experienced professional, you are obligated to saving them from making a mistake. Ginny Carter is in a field where she …
Engage Immediately with a Metaphor “A question for this moment. If the Earth’s lungs were on fire and the doctor refused to treat it, would there be cause for a third party intervention?” What do you think? Got your attention? That was the opening line of an article by columnist Kathleen Parker on the Amazon rain …
So you have what you think is a great idea to solve a major problem. Unfortunately, your idea is rather complex to explain to the people whose support you need for it. What do you do? Drown your listeners in the details of your idea? Talk v–e–r–y s–l–o–w–l–y and hope for the best? Rushthroughthedetailsanddazzlethemwithyourenthusiasm? Or, …
“Metaphor is how we nail the jelly of reality to the wall” is a quote from a new book by Joe Moran called “First, You Write a Sentence.” Moran’s characterization is one of the best descriptions I’ve seen for why metaphors belong in the skill set of anyone whose success depends on the ability to …
You are going through the feed on your favorite social media and you come across… “Getting crabby about marketing. It’s opening day of crab season here and our traps have just been set. The idea of setting traps for a bounty to come is always really exciting, especially on opening day. It’s been a long …