Metaphors -- Jurgen Appelo

• Figure of speech; Likeness or Analogy of something
• Science metaphors -- Butterfly effect, Edge of Chaos, Survival of the Fittest, etc.
• Metaphors in Management
• Organisations as Machines
• Organisations as Organisms
• Organisations as Brains, Cultures, Political Systems, etc.

Organisations as Machines (These are all Machine Metaphor Thinking)

• Machine images pervade management jargon
• "Running a Company"
• "Driving a Change"
• ""Owner" of a Company (As if they are owners of a car, how can someone be "owners" of a social structures (where human beings are key)?

Dangers of Metaphors

Metaphors sometime lead to "Reminiscence Syndrome", which is jumping to conclusions (when going too far) because "Things Look the Same". [Jack Cowan]

Example - "Inventory as Waste" makes perfect sense in case of book publishing (lying in warehouse) or cars (lying in warehouse adding no value to anyone). However in case of "writing a book" (Jurgen was writing a book and had about 16 half finished chapters "lying in inventory", however it was still adding value as the ideas were continuously interacting with other topics in his brain). Representing them as "waste" in this case goes too far and therefore fail.

Metaphors fail much faster. Science likes mathematical models and they fail much later. 

Complexity science says we cannot have one strong model. This requires prediction and we cannot have it in complex systems. So we need plenty of weak models. We can therefore have Multiple Weak Models that can make as much sense as One Strong Model. And it is certainly better than No Models. 

However in the end all models, all metaphors fail.

Long Tail and Weak Ties in social networking

One single perspective is not enough to understand complexity. You will need multiple perspectives.