Don't believe all you read

Open just about any management book these days, and the chances are - particularly if the object is to help business people deal with something complex like change - that the central thrust will be tied up with some extended analogy. You know the sort of thing, organisations are like societies or eco-systems; or think of yourself as a leader navigating storm-tossed seas or a canoeist negotiating the rapids.

Since it helps to engage busy people who are generally much more interested in doing than thinking or reading theoretical material, this use of metaphor can be extremely useful. However, consultants' apparent readiness to offer instant answers and business people's well-known enthusiasm for quick and simple fixes means that there can be a tendency to rely too much upon them. What starts off as a method of giving people an insight into a problem is taken literally, often with predictably catastrophic results.

Correcting this situation will be one of the aims of Gareth Morgan, author of the books Imaginization, Images of Organisation and Riding the Waves of Change, when he speaks at a conference in Cambridge this week. Professor Morgan, who has been a consultant to many of the world's leading companies, will point out at the event (organised by the Institute of Management in conjunction with local business groups) that, while metaphors have several strengths, they also have certain weaknesses.

As he says in Imaginization: "In creating ways of seeing, they create ways of not seeing. There can be no single theory or metaphor that gives an all-purpose point of view, and there can be no simple 'correct theory' for structuring everything we do."

Instead, he adds, "The challenge facing modern managers is to become accomplished in the art of using metaphor to find new ways of seeing, understanding and shaping their actions".

Professor Morgan describes "imaginization" as a word coined from imagination and organisation to create something relevant to these times and sees his contribution as helping people in organisations move beyond buzzwords like "vision" and "learning organisation" and bring such concepts alive.

Doing this involves realising that the metaphors are not prescriptions to be taken individually, but a group of concepts that together amount to a sort of code that managers must understand if they are not to be totally confused or swamped.

Referring back to the idea of imaginization, he points out that, while managers must become more creative as individuals, their organisations need to become looser and more free-flowing, a trend that will obviously also have an effect on what they need to do as managers.

But this need not be threatening. In common with many other thinkers and consultants finding themselves in increasing demand as western businesses gear up for growth, he claims that most organisations and individuals have creativity within them; it is just that it tends to get stifled or subverted.

Participants at Wednesday's conference will be given insights into how this creativity can be unlocked by encouraging new ways of working and thinking.