Looking for a metaphor for business? As our A-to-Z compendium of similes and analogies will show, any metaphor you can think of has probably been used before.
I never metaphor I didn't like.
Poets use metaphor to help readers see familiar objects in new and provocative ways. Business authors use metaphor to help themselves sell books in new and provocative ways. Ever since Sun Tzu stoked fires in the well-padded bellies of corporate leaders with The Art of War (which for 2,500 years wasn't marketed as a business book, Tzu's original publishers having missed a trick), metaphor-laden books have sold briskly. Managers look to battle, sport, science, the arts, and -- sadly -- cheese to reveal truths not present in more literal-minded texts. The best way to understand what business is really like is to study things that aren't really like business.
The following A-to-Z rundown of business metaphors is by no means exhaustive: in the interest of limiting ourselves to 26 examples we've left out many items, from football to rocket science. But compiling any kind of alphabetical primer requires making trade-offs. In that sense, it's a lot like business.
A is for Antarctic exploration
In the eat-or-be-eaten world of business you'd expect the Donner Party to win the Most Admired Explorers title hands down. Instead, business readers are devouring the exploits of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the intrepid commander who used a rowboat, penguin meat, and benchmarkable management practices to save 27 men from freezing to death in the Ant-arctic. Yes, there is an I in ice, but that didn't stop Shackleton from forming effective teams and exhorting the personal best from each individual. Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons From the Great Antarctic Explorer, by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell, has been embraced by everyone from Fortune 500 to the CEOs of Internet start-ups, who presumably see in the disintegration of the floes beneath Shackleton's feet a situation analogous to their own. Except Shackleton got his people out in one piece.
B is for baseball
You couldn't ask for a better turnaround artist than Billy Martin, the baseball manager and longtime George Steinbrenner nemesis who spun into gold a succession of hapless teams. With his ferocious temper and penchant for infuriating people, Martin comes off like the Al Dunlap of professional athletics. But Michael DeMarco, author of Dugout Days: Untold Tales and Leadership Lessons From the Extraordinary Career of Billy Martin, considers his subject closer in style to Jack Welch. DeMarco also compares Martin to General Patton, who was famous for his boldness, discipline, and embrace of the warrior spirit. And who wrote the preface to Patton on Leadership: Strategic Lessons for Corporate Warfare? Why, George Steinbrenner, of course.
C is for commando
War is hell. Business is war. Ergo, business is hell. And into the fray where lesser men hesitate and are lost drops Richard Marcinko, presumably lowering himself on a rope made of hair hacked from his enemies' scalps. Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior: A Commando's Guide to Success is no sedate screed on the elegance of well-wrought strategy. Marcinko, who earned his tough-bastard stripes as a Navy SEAL and burnished them as a consultant, barks and swears and talks about killing the competition. He means that metaphorically, of course. Probably. Perhaps.
D is for dance
Dance is about timing; business is about timing. Dance is about movement; business is about movement. Dance is about rhythm; business is about rhythm. That's about as far as the metaphor extends in Jeffrey C. Shuman's The Rhythm of Business: The Key to Building and Running Successful Companies. Despite dance-instruction diagrams plastered across the cover and occasional references in subject headers ("The Cash Flow Tango," "Leveling the Dance Floor"), Shuman's terpsichorean allusions are superficial at best. We ache for the lost chance to explore the graceful waltz of a well-formed alliance, the jig of an animated brainstorming session, the minuet of thoughtful process design, and the tap of fast, flawless execution. Bring in da noise, Mr. Shuman. Bring in da funk.
E is for Elizabeth I
You're out of cash. Your competitors are hungrily eyeing your assets. And although you've broken through the glass ceiling, your followers doubt that a woman can handle the job. You're ... Queen Elizabeth I, leader of one of the most dysfunctional family businesses in history. Elizabeth's life is a thoroughly modern managerial-success story. The new queen triumphed by mastering the facts of a situation, assembling a brilliant advisory board, tracking every penny, and rigorously controlling her image, explains Alan Axelrod in Elizabeth I, CEO: Strategic Lessons From the Leader Who Built an Empire. By definition, the personal affairs of the "Virgin Queen" were less satisfactory. Those desiring a role model for work-life balance should look elsewhere.
F is for fractals
At first glance, the illustrations in Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization From an Orderly Universe look like psychedelic gift wrap. But they are, in fact, fractals -- which Margaret J. Wheatley defines as objects that repeat "a similar pattern or design at ever-smaller levels of scale." In other words (and other words are very, very helpful here), fractals result when a shape or an equation or an organization's values are processed repeatedly in an endless feedback loop with each iteration producing similarities but also new levels of complexity. Something like that. Anyway, fractals are ubiquitous in nature, but they also characterize companies whose employees "trust in the power of guiding principles or values, knowing that they are strong enough influencers of behavior to shape every employee into a desired representation of the organization," writes Wheatley. So having a fractal organization is good. We think.
G is for geese
Forget the eagle. Yes, Donald H. Weiss knows that entrepreneurs like to imagine themselves as spiritual kin to the Great Bald: independent, fierce, soaring. But greatness "doesn't come to people perched in an aerie high above the world they seek to conquer," argues Weiss in Secrets of the Wild Goose: The Self-Management Way to Increase Your Personal Power and Inspire Productive Teamwork. Rather, Weiss is smitten with the collegial Canadian wild goose who "flies alone in full command of its own wing power ... individually contributing to the flock's progress, while relying on the other geese to do their share." Geese are like successful business leaders in that they manage resources well, effectively motivate their troops, and apparently practice a primitive form of succession planning. Sadly, geese score lower on planning and "visioning." And the book makes no allusion to their core competency, which blankets lawns and golf courses everywhere.
