MORGAN’S ORGANISATIONAL METAPHORS
Use it to identify how you and your staff feel about the organisation’s culture.
Morgan suggests that organisational cultures can be represented as a series of metaphors.
MORGAN’S EIGHT CULTURAL METAPHORS ARE:
Machine: Based upon efficient, standardised and controlled procedures with each unit operating like a cog in a wheel.
Organism: A living system with a life cycle of birth, maturity, death – a matter of survival of the fittest.
Brains: A learning environment involved with information processing with an emphasis on knowledge, intelligence and feedback.
Values: A value-based organisation with an emphasis on tradition, beliefs, history and a shared vision.
Political systems: A culture built on preservation of interests and rights with hidden agendas and alliances.
Psychic prisons: Represents the culture in terms of conscious and unconscious feelings of repression and regression.
Flux and transformation: Sees the culture as a whirlpool of change; sometimes beneficial but sometimes chaotic and paradoxical.
Instruments of domination: Represents a culture that is underpinned by aggression, compliance, exploitation and the imposition of values.
Morgan argues that metaphors create windows into the soul of the organisation and allow us to see, understand and imagine the organisation in different ways.
HOW TO USE IT
- Use Morgan’s insights as a starting point for creating your own metaphors. Give staff a sheet of flip-chart paper and ask them to draw a picture of the organisation’s culture. Emphasise that you want a picture not an organisation chart.
- In all likelihood you’ll get a selection of trees, watering cans, computers and maybe the odd castle under siege. Some of the more interesting ones may include scenes from an inter-galactic war or a teddy bear with fangs and claws (yes, I’ve had these). Such pictures provide a great insight into how staff perceive the organisation.
- Ask each person what their picture means. Listen to what they say. Identify where the problems lie; for example, the watering can might have a hole in it or maybe a blockage in the spout which prevents the water reaching its intended target. Deal with the issues in the metaphor first and then return to the real world and deal with the real issue. In this case it might mean that important information isn’t reaching staff.
- If you’re uncomfortable with ambiguity and emotion, metaphors may not be for you. If you are willing to risk it, try it out in a safe environment and see what staff come up with. I bet it will throw up many valuable insights into how they feel about the organisation.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
- Do I believe that everyone in my team shares the same image of the organisation as I do?
- What are the implications of my answer for how I treat staff?