Tag Archives: George Lakoff

Cattle, Slaves and Automobiles: Driving Dangerously With Management Clichés

Language is rooted in metaphor. In their popular book, Metaphors We Live By (1982) George Lakoff and Mark Johnson showed the pervasive role that our embodied experience plays in our understanding of how the world works, or might work. We … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged Cartesian, causality, change, complex systems, creativity, George Lakoff, Gilbert Ryle, innovation, language, Mark Johnson, metaphor, Newtonian | Comments Off on Cattle, Slaves and Automobiles: Driving Dangerously With Management Clichés

Watch Your Language! Why Metaphors Matter in Management

It’s another launch of another strategic plan to the company’s senior and middle managers and the CEO is rattling on about “roadmaps” and “blueprints” that will generate “traction” in the market and “buy-in” from the employees. The employees are watching … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Aristotle, blueprint, buy-in, change, ecological perspective, ecological rationality, embodied cognition, Gareth Morgan, George Lakoff, Gibson Burrell, Mark Johnson, metaphor, roadmap, Thomas Kuhn, top-down | 1 Comment