Metaphors

Gareth Morgans Images of Organization is a must-read for those who want to develop a deeper understanding of a kettle of fish of the stuff I scold about here. Though Ive cited the script lots of times, it is 1 of those dense, complex books that I am never going to campaign to review or summarize. Youll just have to read it. and I figured since I refer to it so much, I need at least a simple cast anchor post about it. So I thought Id summarize the main idea with a picture, and academic degree out some quick connections to things I have pen/plan to write.

(For once, the picture was complex enough that I chose to incur it and scan it in, instead of doing one of my ugly MS-Paint sketches). Heres the main idea of the book The Eight Metaphors

Morgans book is based on the premise that almost all our thinking about organizations is based on one or more than of eight basic fables. The main reason this book is staggeringly valuable is that 99% of organizational conversations stay exclusively at bottom one metaphor. Worse, most quite a little are permanently stuck in their favorite metaphor and simply cannot understand things said indoors other metaphors. So these are not really 8 perspectives, but 8 languages. Speaking 8 languages is a lot harder than learning to appreciate 8 perspectives.



I consider myself a bit of an organizational linguist: I speak languages 2, 5, 6 and 7 fluently, 1 and 3 passably well (enough to possess by), and 8 poorly.

Organization as Machine: This is the most simple metaphor, and is the foundation of Taylorism. Any geometrically structuralist approach also travel into this category, which is why I have little patience for people who use words/phrases like top down, bottom-up, centralized, decentralized and so forth, without realizing how narrow their view of organizations is. The entire mainstream Michael-Porter view of business is within this metaphor.
Organization as Organism: This is a slightly richer metaphor and suggests such ideas as organizational DNA, birth,...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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