Creative Thinking Through Metaphors

One of the easiest ways to get creative is through the use of metaphors.

Unfortunately, it's way too easy to fall back on cliches when we brainstorm metaphors.

That's why I love using metaphorical images. We lay out 100 or so ambiguous images and ask the group to pick an image that serves as a metaphor for their challenge. After one person shows an image, I'll even ask others to contribute what metaphor they saw in the image. There's usually a big difference.

Today, addressing staffing, one participant picked up an image of a leopard. From that image, the team came up with 'hunting talent', 'scanning the horizon', 'staying hungry', 'tracking leads', 'working in teams', 'moving fast', 'being agile', and 'prowling the popular watering holes'.

Not sure if that last one was about staffing or their Friday night plans...

Either way, the images gave us some power ideas that we wouldn't have reached otherwise.

Metaphors and Learning

As I just finished the book "i never metaphor i didn't like" (see review below), I decided to write a few metaphors to stretch my muscles.

• "Learning is to teaching as eating is to cooking. You can't fully appreciate the former without having done the latter."
• "The Arizona desert is a kaleidoscope of rock, sky, and cloud".
• "A blog is like a journal, people regularly appear there, and it should change each day.
  A website is like a tombstone. People visit once a year, and the contents are unlikely to change."

Write a few and post them!

Facilitating with Metaphoric Images

We've been experimenting with metaphoric images in our facilitation lately.

I first saw them used in 2006, when I was attending Coach U in Singapore. The facilitators there used them 3 or 4 times during the week.

I did some web research when I returned, finding two primary sources - VisualsSpeak and The Center for Creative Leadership's Visual Explorer.

After reading about the images, I decided to build a set with my own photos. It's not that hard. You just pick photos that are ambiguous - that can be taken positively or negatively.

We've been using them for team sessions. A typical facilitation exercise starts with, "pick an image that represents the state your team is in today". Then, we might ask them to pick an image that represents what they'd like the team to look like in the future.

What happens next is a little bit of magic. The images grab some part of our right brain, but then we must explain them using the logic and words of our left brain. The result is a bit like truth serum. Feelings are expressed before the mind can suppress them, often surprising the person speaking those words.

It's a great way to start or end a session.
You can let participants choose their images, or you can hand them a random one and have them force a connection.

We've been using them with a number of individuals and teams.
In every situation we've tried, they've moved the conversation forward.

I bought a couple sets from VisualsSpeak for my colleagues recently.
I also saw the Visual Explorer set at The Leadership Challenge Workshop.
Both sets work fine. You can't go wrong with either.
Still, I prefer to use my own set - heavily loaded with Asian images - for my facilitations.