Metaphors and Business Strategy

Early in my career as a strategist, someone remarked that many of my metaphors for strategy came from warfare.

On reflection, that was not surprising. Strategy, as a discipline, has roots in warfare. The word “strategy” itself comes from the Greek for “the art of the general”, and foundational texts such as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War reinforce that link.

But does it matter? And do we need better metaphors for strategy?

Why metaphors?

The word “metaphor” derives from words meaning “carry” and “across”.

Metaphors enable us to carry ideas from one familiar field of knowledge to another that may be less familiar.

Strategy, and the strategies organisations develop, can be complex. Metaphors help us explain them in simpler, more memorable terms.

How do we use them?

We use metaphors in many different ways.

Sometimes we use them explicitly. For example: strategy is like a game, with winners and losers.

• At other times, we allude to them through the words we use. For example: “We need to be the fittest to survive” implies that the principles of evolution apply to business strategy.
• At other times, we use them negatively. For example: “There is no referee in business strategy.”

We can also use metaphors:

• to create familiarity and explain a difficult concept; or
• to juxtapose contrasting ideas in a surprising way and stimulate creativity.

However, metaphors can become clichés and lose their impact.

The Art of War

Warfare is a metaphor frequently used in business strategy.

This is hardly surprising:

• The word “strategy” itself derives from the Greek for “the art of the general” (source).
• Some of the oldest works on strategy are books about military strategy. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War dates back to the 5th century BC. Carl von Clausewitz, known by some as the father of Western strategic study, wrote On War in the 19th century.
• Business strategy as a discipline in its own right was probably first written about in the 1950s and 1960s. (Source)

Military language can be useful when it helps people think clearly about focus, positioning, capability and action. Yet it also carries assumptions that may be unhelpful in many organisations: that every interaction has an enemy, that success requires conquest, and that one party’s gain must be another’s loss.

Business does sometimes involve intense competition. But it also depends on customers, partners, employees, communities and ecosystems. The metaphor you choose shapes what people notice, value and decide to do.

Alternative metaphors

There are many alternatives:

• Sports: See 5 things running taught me about strategy
• Games: See 3 chess principles that make you a better business owner
• Politics: See The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
• Animals: See The Mind of a Fox by Clem Sunter (a personal favourite), or, from a previous StratChat, The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
• Evolution: See Evolutionary Metaphors
• A river: See The River Metaphor for Strategic Management
• An expedition: See Using the power of resonant metaphor to increase leadership effectiveness
• Music: See Music as a metaphor for organisational change 
• Dance: See Strategy is a ballroom dance

The metaphors we use have a significant impact. Some lead you to see business strategy as difficult, adversarial and a zero-sum game. Others lead you to see it as creative, adaptive, collaborative or exploratory.

None is universally right. The important question is: what assumptions does this metaphor invite your team to make?

Know your audience

It is important to consider your audience when choosing metaphors.

It has been said that, if you start using sports metaphors, you immediately lose half your audience. People do not necessarily understand or care about the sport you are using.

Some sports metaphors have become so entrenched that it may not matter whether the audience understands or cares about the sport. For example, most people will understand “home run” even if they know little about baseball.

Sports analogies can add real value. For many people, they offer an accessible step away from military strategy. They can convey the desire to win, goal orientation, overcoming adversity, teamwork, strategy and tactics. Yet they avoid military connotations of death, suffering, destruction, hostility, and good and evil, which are far less appealing to most people.

Sports and sportsmanship are also deeply embedded in many countries’ education systems, so many people are primed for sports analogies.

However, some people may have difficult memories of school sports. Think, for example, of people who were particularly bad at sport for whatever reason, and perhaps bullied because of it. They may be primed against those metaphors rather than inspired by them.

Before using a metaphor, ask yourself whether it will help your audience understand the point, or merely signal your own preferences and experiences.

Cultural roots

Many metaphors have strong cultural roots.

Who does not know the story of the hare and the tortoise? This, along with many other metaphors we take for granted, was established some 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece through Aesop’s Fables.

But widespread does not mean universal. Other cultures may use different metaphors, leading to different perspectives.

Why, for example, do we not see more metaphors based on “family” in business strategy? Is it because, in the West, we tend to see family and business as separate realms of life? Indeed, confusing the two may lead to accusations of nepotism. In the Middle East, however, family relationships have often been recognised as much more important in business.

Marshall McLuhan argued that, since the invention of the printing press, the Western world has become better at dealing with detail but has lost some ability to see the big picture compared with more oral societies.

The militaristic roots of strategic thinking can easily create a paradigm based on strength and power. We overcome competitors. We conquer markets.

But if, instead of taking Sun Tzu as our starting point, we begin with Lao Tzu, we might reach a different conclusion. Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching, argues that force is self-defeating. He observes that strong trees may break in a storm, while grass bends and survives. He also suggests that the value of a pot lies in its emptiness, and that while water is soft and formless, it can erode rock.

How might your strategies differ if you began from these premises rather than from The Art of War?

Getting to the nub of things

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying: “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” (Source)

Metaphors help us distil the essence of long, complicated explanations into shorter, simpler ones that convey meaning to more people.

Films provide powerful examples. Alien is “Jaws in space”. Those three words convey not only the basic premise of the film, but also its sense of terror. A dozen paragraphs might provide more detail, but probably less meaning.

Your strategy needs to convey its big idea, or ideas, in similarly brief and compelling ways. If your people cannot explain the strategy clearly, it will be difficult for them to use it to guide everyday decisions.

Metaphors for processes

It is not just strategies that benefit from metaphors. Tools and processes benefit too.

Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, popularised the Jobs to Be Done framework. It uses the metaphor that, when someone buys your product or service, they are hiring it to do a job for them. By understanding the job they need done, you can improve and market your product or service more effectively.

The Jobs to Be Done metaphor opens up a new way of thinking about products and services. It neatly captures the idea that no one wants a drill; they want a hole.

Another example is Blue Ocean Strategy. This metaphor contrasts blue oceans with red oceans. Red oceans have been churned up and bloodied by the sharks of competition. Blue oceans are free from direct competition and offer better prospects. The Blue Ocean Strategy approach brought us, amongst other things, the Strategy Canvas.

A good process metaphor does more than make a framework easier to remember. It helps people see the choices, relationships and actions that the framework is designed to reveal.

Metaphors and storytelling

In some respects, metaphors are a simple way of telling a story. As such, they are deeply ingrained in what it means to be human. Stories convey ideas, embody simple truths and help move people from one level of understanding to another. They are engaging and memorable. Stories are how we communicate.

As business strategists, we therefore need to become better storytellers and use metaphors deliberately.

Choose metaphors that fit the strategic challenge, respect your audience and encourage the behaviours you need. The right metaphor can turn an abstract strategy into an idea that people can understand, remember and act on.