A to Z of Business Storytelling -13

Metaphors

Many a times, audience remember less than 50–60 % of what the speaker tells them. This is especially true, when the speaker just shares info and data points without taking any extra effort to make the message memorable. If you want the audience to remember your speech and implement the message in their life one sure way is to use metaphors.

Metaphor is a word or phrase that is used in an imaginative way to show that somebody/something has the same qualities as another thing.

Before we discuss about the power of metaphors in business storytelling, let us try to understand the applicability of it in other spaces.

Many popular best selling authors have liberally used metaphors in their books including the titles. If you see the above titles, all of them are best-sellers and the readers are able to recall what the authors want to say. Dr.Spencer Johnson in his book “Who moved my cheese?” did not mention cheese as a dairy product, but as pursuits in a metaphorical way. Though Dr.Johnson never tried to explain this, readers are able to connect with what he is trying to say.

Most of the popular speeches by political leaders too used metaphors in their speeches. When Martin Luther King, mentioned “dream” in his most memorable speech he never literally meant the actual dream what we get in our sleep. He mentioned about the future status of black in the USA. Similarly Steve Jobs in his convocation address “Connecting the Dots”, he persuaded the students to connect their past experience to figure out the future.

In Toastmasters, most of the time the World Champions of Public Speaking have never failed to leverage the power of metaphors.

In 1993, I attended a conference by Indian Institution of Industrial Engineers at Hyderabad. As usual, there were several speakers and several topics lined up over three days. I could not recollect any of them, except one particular session by one professor by name Harinarayana Sharma. His topic was “While Rome is burning, why are you playing a second fiddle, Mr.Industrial Engineer?”. An industrial engineer’s prime task is to improve efficiency, productivity and safety in any organization. If it not happening in an organization, then he/she has to be blamed. That was the crux of that session. Just because he appropriately used a powerful metaphor, I am able to remember this presentation even after 29 years.

Ok. Enough of speaking about the power of metaphor. Let us now see how metaphors play significant role in business storytelling.

Metaphors are added for two major purposes. First embellishing your speech by using metaphoric phrases. Generally we use them by hearing frequently from the top leaders who use them frequently. The examples for this type would be:-

• Ladder to success
• You cant boil the ocean
• Maze of challenges
• Rock star of the team
• Value chain
• What we want to bring to table
• Let us take it offline
• Deliverables in wave 1
• Whistle Blower policy
• We need to address the elephant in the room

One has to be careful in using these corporate metaphors. They may sound cliched and boring, as they are over-used or abused.

The second type of metaphors are conceptual metaphors, which are not only to embellish the language, but also to reiterate the message in a powerful manner. The business storyteller needs to proactively think of a new metaphors that is unheard of. Then it would sound a refreshing one and create curiosity amongst the audience. If used appropriately, the memorability of the message is greatly enhanced. One of the popular metaphors in business storytelling is the visual metaphor in sales and marketing. Automobile manufactures typically use a metaphor for highlighting the signature theme of the model of their car.

Nissan Navara is one of the most versatile pickup cars. Instead explaining the features with so many words, Nissan has used a visual metaphor of a swiss army knife to demonstrate the car’s versatile pickup features.

Here’s an example of a cactus and a balloon. You know what happens next when both things are kept in close proximity to each other. UNO created awareness of social distancing in COVID times by using this simple visual metaphor.

In the recent times, I was talking amidst the members of a non-profit organization. This organization is nearly four years old, but had lot compliance issues. Most of the executive committee members were not keen addressing the statutory compliance issues. Rather they were keen in bringing more and more new initiatives, that can bring them some visibility. While talking about it in the council, I mentioned that the association has been built brick by brick for the past four years, without cement or any other binding material. Hence the organization is now so fragile and at anytime it can collapse. To make things worse, some are keen in building a penthouse on top of this fragile structure. When these metaphors were used, without much elaboration, the members could understand the gravity of the situation.

Last year by this same time (Mar 2021), I was speaking to a team called “Delivery Excellence” in a leading Indian IT company. This team was a support team, who played a key role in the success of the delivery team, but never got adequate appreciations and motivation. I was supposed to motivate them and make them understand their relevance at the times of crisis.

Just a week before my meeting with them, a sensational incident had happened that got global attention.

On 23 March 2021 (Tuesday), at around 05:40 am GMT an important event happened which had global implications. It was neither a bombing of a city, nor was not an outbreak of another pandemic, but it was an incident involving global trade. The Suez Canal was blocked in both directions due to a freak incident. The canal was blocked by the ultra-large Golden-class container ship Ever Given (224,000-tonne) owned by the company EverGreen. The ship is as long as a skyscraper is tall. At 1,312 feet, it is comparable to the Empire State Building, which is 1,454 feet tall, including its spire and antenna. The ship was en route from Malaysia to the Netherlands when it ran aground after strong winds allegedly blew the ship off course. Upon running aground, Ever Given turned sideways, completely blocking the canal.

At the outset of the incident, trade experts and economists have commented on significance of Suez canal on global trade and elaborated the effects of the obstruction, if not resolved quickly. Among the products, oil shipments are the most affected in the immediate aftermath, due to a significant amount of them remaining blocked with no way to reach their destination. Even Boston Consulting Group and other similar consulting groups have expressed that that traffic has slowed down and that this might impact sectors with existing shortages such as the semiconductor industry. International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) estimated that up to $3 billion worth of cargo passes through the Suez Canal every day and hence the blockage would have an impact on cargo schedules around the world.

On the very next day (24th March), as many as 10 tugboats were put in to operation. They struggled to free the 400-metre, 224,000-tonne ‘Ever Given’. Tugboats nudged the vessel alongside it, trying to gain momentum. On 28th March, two additional tugboats — the Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno — sped to the Suez Canal to aid the salvage efforts. Contrary to the fears expressed by the media, on 29th March, salvage teams pulled the ship free from the sandy bank with tugs with in a week. Horns sounded in celebration as she made her way up the canal after an operation that involved moving 30,000 cubic meters of sand. On 29 March, the ship was re-floated, according to Inchcape, a maritime services provider. Within a few hours, cargo traffic resumed, slowly resolving the backlog of around 450 ships.

Many of us maybe wondering on how such a massive ship was moved by the small tugboats. But that is what the tugboats are meant for. Tugboats are not only brought in to the above kind of situations, but play a crucial role in marine tanker movements in to the port .Without the help of tugboats, the marine monster like tankers cannot get berthed in the harbors. They maneuver the huge vessels in and out of the harbors.

I tried to the tug boats as a metaphor to the delivery excellence team and brought out the following analogies.

1. Small, but Powerful: If you see the above picture or any other picture of a tug boat in public domain, you would realize that they are small in size compared to cargo ship or an oil tanker. They may look small sitting next to the mega ships, but they have the required muscle power. The power of the diesel driven tug boats range from 680 to 3,400 hp.

2. Work in Teams: Most of the time, while maneuvering large vessels, tug boats work as a team. While one tug boat may pull the ship, another one may be pushing it or adjust the direction. Since they work as a team, close coordination may be needed for the safe handling of the ship and the infrastructure.

3. Operate Safely: One of the vital function of the tug boats it nudge or ram the big tankers to move them into the desired directions. But in that process the ship and the infrastructure should not get damaged. Hence the tug boats are provided with heavy rubber fenders All across its periphery and also additionally got protected by extra rubber tyres. Tug boat fenders are made of high-abrasion-resistance rubber with good resilience properties.

4. Aim with Clarity: Tug boats do not ram or nudge the huge vessels in a random manner. They take aim at clearly marked sweet spots. This makes the expected job to get completed without any complications.

5. Function with Flexibility and Maneuverability: Tugboats are highly maneuverable, and various propulsion systems have been developed to increase maneuverability and increase safety. They can rotate 360 degrees with ease. They can tug, nudge, ram a ship depending on the situation. Clock-wise or anti-clockwise swing of the ships is possible with little effort. They help the ships to berth and unberth in harbors. They offer the necessary support to counteract the force of the wind, waves or currents and help the ships to stay stable. They do fire-fighting and they come to the rescue in the event of incidents like “Ever Given struck in Suez canal”.

After explaining the basic features of tugboats, I tried to draw parallel to the delivery excellence team.

1. Small, but Powerful: Unlike the IT delivery team, the delivery excellence team is a small team, but empowered to guide, question, audit the delivery teams. If they exercise their power appropriately, their power is immense and salvage the company at times of crisis.
2. Work in Teams: Delivery team never work in silo. They closely work along with other support teams like Project Management Office (PMO) and Resourcing team. By bringing synergy with other teams, their contributions is immense
3. Operate Safely: While taking hard decisions, there is every possibility that the relation between employees, investors and regulatory agencies is broken. But like the rubber-clad tugboat, the delivery excellence team ensures the relationships between stakeholder is not hampered.
4. Aim with Clarity: During delivery crisis, teams need to be absolutely clear with the situation and come out with very specific action items. If the suggestion and ideas are generic without any specificity, it would add more chaos to the existing crisis. Tugboats ram the ship with heavy force, but that is done only at select sweet spots. In the same manner, the delivery excellence team comes out with very specific actions items to bail out the delivery team from the crisis.
5. Function with Flexibility and Maneuverability: Though organizations come out risk management procedures and contingency plans, there wont be a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), for specific crisis. Leaders who would like to resolve the issues need to function with high flexibility and maneuverability like the tugboats. They cannot endlessly wait for someone to give guidance. The single goal of a tugboat is any one of the following; berthing, unberthing, towing or rescuing a ship. Till that goal is reached, the tugboats do whatever they want. They go forward, backward, turn clock-wise or anti-clock-wise, tow, nudge or ram the vessel. In a similar manner, the delivery excellence team has an open mind and the flexibility to adopt to situations till the goal is reached.

In the above scenario, tugboat is equated to the delivery excellence team again and again. I used the metaphor, throughout my session. This type of metaphors extensively used from multiple perspective is known as extended metaphor. If the business storyteller is able to identify a right metaphor and use it as an extended metaphor, the message become memorable. Sometimes, the audience thinks beyond whatever told by the business storyteller.

Kindly follow the hashtag #atozofbusinessstorytelling for others posts on this thread.