by Lindsay Collier

Created on: December 14, 2009

A Metaphor for Organizational Innovation and Change

I admit it - I'm a sucker for metaphors. I use them constantly to help my clients, and me, think more creatively about problems and opportunities. The stranger the metaphor is the better. Metaphors have the capability of providing you with complete shift in your thinking. Often the best metaphors are staring you right in the face or may even be closer than that. They may be a part of you. For example, why is an organization similar to a human body? And, since the body is a rather neat design, what are some ideas we might steal from it to better design an organization? Every organ and system within a body has within it the potential for a great metaphorical dialogue about new organizational possibilities. They need to be held together by skeletal systems, they need to be nourished, they must grow and reproduce, they need to learn, and their life systems need to be sustained. Why not enhance our learning about these functions by using our own bodily functions as metaphors? 

The cardio-thoracic system has a tremendous number of commonalities to the process of pumping life into organizations. This system, very simply, involves the heart, lungs, arteries, and veins and works constantly to provide life to the body. Oxygenated blood is pumped by the heart through the arteries to the entire body and provides nourishment to cells. It is returned to the lungs to pick up more oxygen and then back to the heart to start the cycle over again. Sounds pretty simple doesn't it? Well, it is when everything is working right. What is the organizational equivalent of the heart, the arteries, the lungs, the oxygen, and the cells? Organizations also need to have life sustaining knowledge and creative ideas pumped through their bodies if they are to survive and prosper. So why not just emulate the way the cardio-thoracic system works and create its organizational equivalent? 

The system doesn’t always work perfectly. Somewhere this thing called time creeps in. Our bodies, and our organizations, tend to wear out over time. In the cardio-thoracic system the most common problem is the build-up of blockages in the arteries. The arteries transferring blood become narrowed with cholesterol deposits and may even become totally blocked. The body is designed so well that, in many cases, small detour arteries are created around the obstruction. Organizations also do a pretty good job building new roads around blockages.

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