Use of organizational metaphors

Garth T. Johnston (garth@csn.org)
Tue, 27 Dec 1994 19:00:59 -0700 (MST)

I first began to appreicate the power of metaphor while doing NLP
training in the early 80s. While many questions can be raised about NLP
and the generations of pratitioners in the last 15 years, the original
NLP folks did a great job of analysing Milton Erickson's use of metaphor
in therapy. "Transformations" by Grinder and Bandler, several works by
David Gordon and dozens by various Erickson studenta are avialable.

And, more directly to the point of the use of metaphors in organizations,
I would recommend Gareth Morgan's "Images of Organization" (1986) and his
more recent,"Imaginization," (1993). We had a chance to experience Gareth
here in Colorado at the 1994 Chaos Network Conference and
are bringing him back in Aril of 1995 to pursue his ideas on images and
metaphors for org. change. I don't have an e-mail for him. He can be
reached at York Univ.at 416/736-5095.