Professional topics

Frequently Asked Questions About Metaphor Mapping

Who has used Metaphor Mapping? Is it totally new or does it have a track record?

Village Mapping and River Mapping have been applied extensively by facilitators in large companies, international agencies and governments since 1988. The Zoo and Facecards are more recently developed tools. The logos at bottom of the home page show the main users of over 300 workshops.   Companies that have used Metaphor Mapping include:

 What do I need to get started?

First, you can always have your questions answered by email or phone by using the “Contact Us” link.

If you want to lead group sessions, you need to become certified.  Read more about this in the “Consultant’s Corner”

Certification provides the level of training your choose and gives you access to:

• The on-line Metaphor Mapping tool
• The Guide to each language, which includes when to use it, how to build a map and dictionary
• Ability to purchase workshop kits (booklets of symbols on stickers)
• Printable and downloadable images for each language

I understand certification comes with a digital tool?  What’s it for?

The on-line digital Metaphor Mapping tool or symbol libraries that can be used with Powerpoint or other programs allow you to build a map in digital form.  This can provide documentation of a workshop or aid in presenting results.

Can I take photos of maps?

Yes. Just pull out your digital camera or phone. Depending on your camera, it may be best to take an overall shot and others that zoom in on parts.

Where can I get help?

If you have a question, we would be happy to help. The best way is to Contact Us and send a note.

– See more at: https://www.metaphormapping.com/applications/faq/#sthash.4mmluXTQ.dpuf

Skepticism. Resentment. Confusion. Uncertainty.  

Not how we do things here.

Overcome resistance with participative tools!
Organizations are like people.  They develop habits.  Habits are hard to break. Development and change happen when there’s a pull as well as a push. What can you do to establish an environment where people will pull? It can be tough when change is driven from top down. People may be bruised by the power exerted, feel dis-respected or vulnerable. A sense of powerlessness may lead people to become passive or adopt negative behaviors when major organizational change is under way. A way to avoid or cure these problems is to engage the “victims” of top-down change in defining how things will work in their processes beneath the mandated structure of their new world.

Each individual must be able to answer the question “What’s this mean to me?” in order to become comfortable and productive with change management. If a new organization structure has been mandated by top management, a Village mapping workshop soon following the announcement allows groups to define their new process at an operations level. When showing the activities and relationships needed, each can symbolize obstacles to effectiveness he perceives. Tagging their concerns with symbols externalizes them and makes them easier to address.  The visual image makes it easier to form new organization habits.

In cases where top management challenges the organization to develop new bottoms-up ideas for organizational effectiveness, the four metaphor languages are ideal vehicles for multiple groups to develop alternative visions of an ideal operation, compare and reconcile them.

Metaphors and the different thinking they provoke are valuable catalysts for seeing new and better ways of operating. A Village map is best for that application. When a vision is agreed and the Zoo and Facecards have shown the roles, responsibilities and attitudes that will make it successful, a River map helps focus creativity on how to overcome obstacles to achieving the vision.

You can use it as a change management game to draw out alternate future directions.  Showing process flow is highly useful as a predecessor to organization design.

Metaphor Mapping:  Visual, Engaging.   Organization habit forming!   Increasingly, a best practice for change management.

For more on changing organization habits see the post that briefly explores how Metaphor Mapping relates to Charles Duhig’s The Power of Habit

Applying game elements and game techniques– such as challenges, points/badges/rewards, avatars and leaderboards– to business situations holds a great deal of promise for increasing morale and focus.  Games imply having some fun, not a bad thing, and they imply competition, usually a good thing.  Games can have serious intent and results.

At the Research Center, we’re just beginning to explore the natural synergies between gamification and Metaphor Mapping.  The novel, visual symbolic aspects of building Maps with sticker symbols fit naturally with games. Also, Mapping is often used as part of large corporate change programs where Mapping sessions cascade from corporate offices to the field.  Challenging operating divisions or global regions to be the first to engage all of their units in an organization streamlining, supply chain improvement, culture change or other seems a natural extension.

We’ll write up results from first pilots and keep you informed of what we learn in the months ahead.  Let us know if you’d like to run a pilot of your own and we’ll be glad to support you.

If someone were to ask you: “What’s the biggest issue in managing change?” chances are good you’d answer “Overcoming resistance”.  Right?  If you were to then ask me “So how to overcome resistance?” my answer would be “Involve everyone affected.” 

When a change is your idea, you can’t be against it and are likely to enthusiastically sell it to everyone you see. Sounds easy BUT most changes originate as somebody else’s idea.  For example, the CFO says “We’ve got to cut costs by 15%!”.  “What to do then?”  While the idea for a change usually can’t be jointly owned, everyone can own the task of “how to make it happen?.

That’s where Metaphor Mapping shines.  When the boss says you’ve got to cut 15%, go ahead and think about how’d you’d do it, but, don’t do it.  Bring together the people affected.  If that’s a lot of people, start with your peers.  Get their creative juices going by Mapping today’s problem and at least one solution.  Bring in more people at lower levels.  Show them what their bosses came up with and ask them to either:

1. Come up with a totally new approach or
2. Show how they can make it happen in their area without hurting overall performance.  If your organization is hierarchical, you’ll likely focus them only on this option

When you visually map a problem, it’s not so scary any more.  When you cook up unusual solutions with sticker symbols, you’re automatically forgiven for being too far out of the box.  But, when you Map it together you’re all in it together.  You’ll come up with a solution that you all own and make happen!  Try it.  It works every time!

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Avoiding thinking traps with Metaphor Mapping

The Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow is a highly regarded research-based analysis of the many flaws in human decision-making and judgement.  It surveys key elements of behavior research and behavioral economics.  Without intending, it also describes many aspects of our thought processes that explain why Metaphor Mapping has proven effective in helping groups and individuals solve problems and set change strategies.

Foundation concept: System 1 vs System 2

There are two protagonists in Kahneman’s book.  System 1 is “fast” thinking.  It’s always “on” and you may not be conscious it.  It’s automatic and emotional because it doesn’t require attention.  It is intuitive, emotional and my personal view is it has a visual quality to it.  System 2 is “slow” thinking.  We’re conscious of it, it’s analytic and takes effort and we often think of it as our self.   Fast thinking spontaneously generates ideas while System 2 applies rational analysis to validate and detail the ideas.  System 2, however, is lazy.  It will often just accept ideas from System 1 if they appear plausible.  This can have serious consequences because without the critical analysis of System 2, System 1 has three main weaknesses that can lead us into traps:

1. It views issues too narrowly
2. It is more sensitive to loss than to gain
3. It tends to be optimistic and overconfident

(This view of our thinking mechanism is become  quite widely accepted.  Maria Konnikova, in her 2013 book “Mastermind: How to think Like Sherlock Holmes” defines the two systems this way:  System 1 = “Watson thinking” and System 2 = “Holmes thinking”) Konnikova emphasizes the importance of bringing wandering attention back to the problem at hand, which is further discussed under Peer Challenge.

Context manipulation – Priming, Framing, Anchoring

Metaphor Mapping guards against any inadvertent or intentional manipulation of the focus of goals and solution alternatives around one particular aspect of the challenge at hand. This risk is serious because of the numerable examples of looking one way at a small and “noisy” problem while a silent big threat is developing unseen by all but a few.  Mapping accomplishes this by efficiently bringing together all the stakeholders and then by forcing visual communication and analysis of the big picture.  By broadening the frame of evaluation, visioning and planning, it avoids putting too much weight on one aspect of an issue at the expense of others of equal or greater impact.

Metaphor Mapping requires the issue at hand to be framed end-to-end.  It prevents the group’s collective mind from wandering because the problem’s context and specifics of its operations are continuously on display.

Constructive Peer Challenge

Other thought traps include: Loss aversion, Prospect theory, Halo effect, Avoidance, Illusion of validity, Illusion of skill, Certainty effect, Constructive peer challenge.  Through the mapping process that continually displays the big picture of the groups thoughts, minds are concentrated in a symbolic, almost playful way,  on all aspects of the issue at hand.  That makes it natural and non-threatening to challenge ideas, evaluations and priorities.  Maps created with stickers on flip charts encourage critical examination on both intellectual and emotional levels.  “Is that the way things really work today?”  “Does that symbol exaggerate the impact of the problem?” (Is the obstacle a crocodile or a duck?)  These are constructive questions aimed at the ideas represented by the stickers and not aimed at those people.  It becomes easy for the originator of an idea to discus its various aspects and agree to a different symbol as may be suggested by another group member.  By the time such challenges and added thoughts have run their course, the full group has contributed to the result and owns it.

Resilience can be built by translational leaders

In his 2012 book Resilience, Andrew Zolli states that strong communities that have proven resilient to crises, “we almost always found a very particular species of leader is almost always found at or near its core.”  The translational leaders Zolli found in his research could connect people from various different groups, and translate objectives, perspectives and knowledge.  This results in networks that can overcome differences, make and implement good decisions for their communities.

 Metaphor Mapping is a logical part of a translational leader’s toolkit.  It brings people together to share views and, thought conversation, build understanding and find common ground.  It is further useful to help leaders discuss the structure and operation of adaptive styles of governance for dealing with ad-hoc and crisis situations when it is not clear which organization is in charge.

You have the option of gamifying your Metaphor Mapping workshop.

At the outset of the Village Mapping visioning session, introduce the four competitive aspects of the game by describing these four symbols.

After small groups have built maps and reviewed, the full group decides which group contributed the most in each category and makes the award.  Each individual who contributed receives the related sticker and a gift decided by the organizer.

Today, business leaders are taking a hard look at how real conversations lead to problem-solving successes, and they want to know how to get their employees talking to take advantage of this news. The bottom line is that business leaders want to foster brainstorming that will target goals and spur solutions to keep their businesses growing.

Metaphor Mapping can help them to do that. Metaphor Mapping promotes teamwork and gets people to say what’s on their minds.  It makes tough work fun by providing a fame-like environment.  It galvanizes innovation through collaboration by eliminating some of the worry that’s commonly associated with social strictures in the workplace and that deters colleagues from sharing their valuable input.

Since reduction of anxiety is one of the most important factors for improving communication and creative problem-solving, Metaphor Mapping puts small teams together in a comfortable setting where everyone has a stake in the goings-on.

Teams get a thorough understanding of their assignments by using multi-sensory activities that appeal to the different learning styles of their members. They handle pictorial stickers and label them to identify, map out and discuss the key elements of the groups’ challenge, and together they figure out the best course of action to solve it.

A collaborative strategy setting ensures that participants perceive the environment as non-threatening and a safe place to offer insights and suggestions that can lead to sought-after solutions.

To generate a safe haven when forming groups, bring everyone together for a Metaphor Mapping workshop to define the issues they are working on and ensure that:

• Participants  share equal footing and refrain from assigning leaders
• Protocols give equal access to the discussion and to promote self-regulation
• Demonstrate respect for others’ opinions
• Ensure adequate time for effective discussions to take place.
• Introduce the practice of using appositives to bolster self-confidence

A well-planned collaborative strategy setting will promote the creation of multiple high performance teams that share a vision. Metaphor Mapping will give you that edge. It will encourage participants to brainstorm realistic solutions to the challenges that they openly and respectfully identify and acknowledge.

Using Metaphor Mapping, colleagues validate each other, and that validation serves to instill a more personal, even passionate, commitment to change to effectively secure the company’s desired goal or outcome.

For more information, please contact us.

Game playing is a great way to build relationships in a corporate setting. It encourages colleagues to let down their hair and make suggestions without that almost tangible fear of being scrutinized by co-workers and bosses.

Studies found that fear of rejection prevents participants from actively offering valid ideas, and it even impedes learning and understanding new information that’s presented by someone else.

Metaphor Mapping avoids this problem by engaging participants in a hands-on, everyone-is-part-of-the-team, game-playing fashion that can alleviate the tension. But that’s just part of it.

To set the stage for real camaraderie, the game players need to learn how to use language to really say what they mean, and sometimes that’s not easy.

Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” And, it’s true because words alone can’t always convey the message the way a communicator wants them to. And getting the wrong message or taking the wrong action can be devastating.

The trouble is that finding that right word or group of words can be daunting, especially in today’s society where the workforce contains such a wide range of skills, abilities, and, most especially, backgrounds. References don’t always click.

That’s why it’s important for team members to enhance communication among themselves using visual cues that map out how to get from point A to point B and to make time for clarification and reiteration so that all parties gain a clear sense of the issues at hand and can learn to explain their perspectives.

Today, corporate facilitators have to find ways to incorporate strategies that put everyone on the same page by providing opportunities for hands-on collaboration and fruitful peer discussions.

That’s where Metaphor Mapping comes in. It entails having small groups of workers place and label picture stickers on a map to explain and explore various topical issues that are integral to the development and success of their companies. The purpose is to clarify the issues and to identify and offer solutions to those challenges that might impede reaching goals in specific areas.

The cornerstone of this process rests with the collaborative strategy setting where metaphors can act as bridges to understanding. A mapping workshop is a safe haven for employees, a place where unfettered brainstorming will generate more productive discussions among peers, and that’s what successful corporations look for: discussions that will ultimately lead to problem-solving and other desired outcomes.

Most everyone knows that team development follows the  four stages of

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performing

If you have to develop a team and deliver results in short order, a month for example, you’ll be greatly hindered by the time lost in the first two stages (Organizational research tells us that three-fifths of team time is taken up by  forming and storming.)   Metaphor Mapping sessions can give you a jump-start by getting you clear on objectives and how to reach the, effectively completing the first three stages in a single session that can take from two hours to a full day.

In that short time, all your members will be in agreement on

• The purpose of the team and the the significance of what you’re trying to accomplish
• Roles of the team members
• Schedule and how to work together

Metaphor mapping ensures team members are not quiet or reluctant to share their viewpoint.  You can’t map villages and rivers and be a wallflower!  Please contact us if you’d like to discuss a situation that needs both high performing teams and speed!