In Search of a Metaphor

Most of us dismiss metaphors as those incomprehensible definitions from Freshman English, of interest only to writers and poets; but metaphors, it seems to me, are the keys to human knowledge and understanding. We all use them every day to make sense of the bewildering flood of input stimuli that we must process to get through our normal routines. Good metaphors unlock concealed truths about ourselves, our fellow creatures, and the universe; they reveal similarities between things we already know and understand, and those that we are struggling to comprehend. The ability to visualize tangible analogues for abstract concepts is a distinguishing feature of human intellect. Somebody once said that you cannot really know anything about a subject until you can write a mathematical equation for it; a similar claim might be made for metaphors: you do not understand a concept or thing until you can create a metaphor for it.

Advertisers use metaphors to sell products. They try to create an image in our minds, a connection between their product and some desirable circumstance. Car makers would have us believe that a car is a metaphor for success, or excitement, or sex, or whatever image they want to promote. Beer and tobacco advertisers push their products as metaphors for youth, excitement, fun, sex, and athletic prowess.

To understand corporations, one must create a metaphor. There are any number of possible metaphors one could use, and as I searched for a suitable one, I first considered ant and bee colonies; but they are too uniform and well organized to represent most corporations. Neither of them conveys the diversity that exists in the corporate work force in spite of the efforts of most corporations to promote the kind of monoculture that exists in these insect organizations. Corporations would love to have a work force composed of standard units, interchangeable worker bees that could be swapped out like mass-produced mechanical parts as the need arose. But species diversity--a biological concept used to gauge the health of an ecosystem--always seems to creep into even the most regimented corporate ecosystem.

The corporate metaphor I liked best, and the one I chose, is a coral reef. A modern corporation, like a coral reef attracts and supports a host of species and, like its analogue in the natural world, if it is healthy, it grows and supports even greater numbers and varieties of living things; if it is not healthy, it declines and life moves on to more verdant waters. Many of the people who flock to feed and live on, in, or near the corporate reef are essential to its health. It is usually a symbiotic relationship, with all parties benefiting in one way or another. Some, of course, benefit more than others. Some lead happy exciting lives on the corporate reef, while others lead miserable ones.

Once I arrived at a corporate metaphor, the next task was to find compatible sub-metaphors for the people who inhabit the corporation. Coming up with a set of harmonious metaphors that are not too mixed in the metaphorical sense is a satisfying accomplishment, akin to writing a poem.

Here, then, are descriptions and definitions of a few of the corporate reef-dwellers that I have identified.

SHARK = Super High Achiever Ready to Kill. Male or female. Young, ambitious, ruthless. Dresses for success. Wants that promotion desperately, and plots to get it. Eviscerates people for the pure fun of it. Often comes to a bad end. Awakes each morning thinking about what he will do when he gets to work. Reads Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, and anything he thinks might make a difference.
KILLER WHALE = A shark who has almost made it. Needs one more promotion.
WHALE = Too big and powerful to worry. Can afford to be benevolent to lesser creatures.
MORAY = Mean Old Recluse. An older male who hides in dark places and lashes out when disturbed. Been with the company since it was founded. Has a two-digit badge number. Knows people in high places, but not a climber. Content to stay in his own closely guarded niche. Eligible for retirement, but won't hear of it. Usually dies at or near his desk. Informal corporate historian--knows everything about everybody. Can be friendly, but don't cross him. Gets angry if forced to deviate from his set routine. Not receptive to new ideas. Likes doing things, "the way we've always done them, sonny." Hunkered down. Drinks a bit, but never on duty. Likes things stable. Crotchety. Guppies turn into morays if they stay too long with a company.
BARRACUDA = A dangerous female who attacks savagely anybody she perceives as a threat. Closely related to the shark, but more vicious when aroused. Not motable--pro or de. Too many people above and below her are afraid of her. Cruises the halls in sensible shoes and a tight hairstyle. Breasts and loins always tightly girded. Fuzzy upper lip. Fiercely territorial. Reports infractions of rules. Particularly hostile to young attractive females. Unquestioning loyalty to those males above her, ill-concealed hostility to those below. Like the moray, has been with the company since Christ was a corporal. Keep your steel jock handy when dealing with her--a ball cutter. Every sentence she speaks to you sounds as if it is punctuated in her mind with the word "asshole."
CORAL = Common ORdinAry Laborer. Blue collar equivalent of the Guppie. Forms the supporting structure for the entire corporation. Works on the production lines, cleans bathrooms, types memos and letters, washes windows, drives trucks, makes everything that the corporation sells. Without coral there is no reef--no corporation. All those sharks and whales and eels and barracudas have no place to go and nothing to do without the coral. Not that the coral is particularly more admirable than anybody else. There are just more of them.

There are any number of other reef dwellers that could be identified without too much strain, but these seem to be the main ones to me. Of course, the final phase of the metaphor building exercise, is to see where you fit into the picture. I would like to tell you that I am a whale, or a killer whale, but I can't. I am, always have been, and always will be, a Guppie.