In Other Words Using metaphors can change the way you--and your customers--perceive your business.

Donel Young and Jeff Caponigro are entrepreneurs in the sameindustry, in similar-sized companies. But to Young, a partner intwo-person New York City communications firm Hansen & Young, aday at the office is a spin on the dance floor. For Caponigro, CEOand president of 10-person Caponigro Public Relations Inc. inSouthfield, Michigan, it's a football game to be won.

"For us, a dance is how we think about business," saysYoung. "It's a dance between the client and the media,trying to figure out what we can offer the media so they will callour client back."

"We're in a competition," counters Caponigro."We've got opponents. We keep score with our finances. Ilook at myself as the head coach of a football team."

The metaphors these entrepreneurs use to think about theirbusinesses are more than shortcuts or convenient communicationstools. They powerfully affect the firms' competitive strategiesand, ultimately, their effectiveness as competitors.

When you think of your business as a game, as a war or as someother metaphor, you are shaping your whole approach to business,says Shelby Hunt, a marketing professor at Texas Tech University inLubbock, Texas, who has studied business metaphors extensively.Says Hunt, "It suggests a pattern of associations you bring toa situation."

• Emerging Metaphors

You may remember learning a metaphor is a figure of speech inwhich one thing is said to be another. Unlike a simile, which usesthe words "like" or "as," a metaphordoesn't so much compare two things as indicate they are one andthe same. Saying "business is war" is different fromsaying "business is like war."

One of the best-known metaphors is "marketing myopia."This phrase, coined in 1960 by marketing guru Theodore Leavitt,makes the point that marketers are shortsighted by comparing theway marketing is practiced to the way an eye sees.

By equating one thing to another, a new relationship ishighlighted or a new idea is explored. Some of the most commonbusiness metaphors, along with war and sports, are business asbiology--as in "product life cycle"--and business asmarriage, a metaphor commonly used by companies to describestrategic alliances, supplier-vendor relationships and thelike.

"People use [metaphors] to communicate with like-mindedpeople and because they're comfortable," explains WilliamH. Crookston, an entrepreneurship professor at the University ofSouthern California in Los Angeles. "It's as ifthere's a language of entrepreneurship or business."

But Hunt argues that using metaphors like these merely tocommunicate is not making the most of this powerful business tool.Instead of using metaphors simply to make points or explainconcepts, he urges businesspeople to use metaphors to help plancompetitive strategies.

"To me, the great benefit of using metaphors is they spurcreativity and innovation," says Hunt. "They can providea new way to look at something you've been looking at for along time."

When you're out of ideas or the old strategies justdon't seem to be working, Hunt suggests creating a list ofmetaphors comparing what it is you're looking at, whetherit's a new product, a new market or the entire business, tosomething else.

For instance, an entrepreneur who compares business to war willlikely be thinking about such military maxims as "don'tdivide your forces" or "choose your own ground forbattles."

An entrepreneur who equates business with dancing might beconcerned with a completely different set of rules--for instance,staying in time, choosing properly between leading and followingand, of course, not stepping on his or her partner.

In this way, switching to new metaphors may reveal newresources, suggest new solutions or offer alternate routes aroundexisting obstacles. "When the creative process runs dry,"says Hunt, "looking at a fresh metaphor can beuseful."

• Metaphor Boundaries

One point that may seem obvious but is important to keep in mindis that metaphors aren't true. Business is not war, dance ormarriage, even though it may resemble all these things insignificant ways. An entrepreneur may get some helpful hints bytransplanting football strategy to business, but eventually themetaphor, like all metaphors, will break down.

"The danger of metaphors is that you may bring in an entiresystem of values, behaviors, techniques and strategies thatdon't really belong," explains Hunt. For him, the bestexample of this is the business as war metaphor.

Hunt cites one common experiment in which people are given twooptions in a business scenario. In the first, the business cancharge high prices and make high profits but not hurt competitors.In the second, the business must charge low prices and earn lowprofits but do lots of damage to competitors.

"Interestingly enough, about 35 percent of practitionerswill choose the low price, making less money, just to hurt theircompetitor," says Hunt. "I think that comes about becausethey frame competition as warfare; therefore, they place atremendous importance on punishing their competitors. It makes nosense, but they're so wrapped up in marketing as war, they makesuboptimal decisions."

One way to avoid metaphoric breakdown is to make sure you choosea metaphor big enough for the job. For instance, Hunt points to thebusiness-as-biology metaphor. Product life-cycle theory tiesconcepts such as pregnancy and gestation to investment and productdevelopment, compares birth to introducing a product, and equatesproduct maturity and decline to death and extinction. Otherbusiness-as-biology analysts have looked at competitive markets interms of natural selection, population pressure and other ideasfrom nature.

When you're looking for a metaphor to use in thinking aboutyour business, look for one that's similarly broad and deep. Ina June 1995 Journal of Business Research article writtenwith Emory University marketing professor Anil Menon, Hunt writes,"Rich metaphors contain a large proportion of substantive,well-developed concepts that, when transferred to marketingstrategy, can have theoretical potential and practicalsignificance."

Metaphors can also be mistakes if they're not clear,especially when they're being used to aid communication. Thisis coded language, Crookston points out, and if the personyou're trying to speak to doesn't get your metaphor,you're back somewhere at square minus one.

Other metaphors can go wrong if they're too well-known.Stale metaphors only bore and irritate people, without adding tothe communication process or the creative session, says Crookston.For that reason, entrepreneurs should usually resist the mostcommon, obvious metaphors. "We've outgrown the athleticsand war stuff," Crookston says.

Not everybody agrees. "It's probably wayoverused," Caponigro admits, "but I think about somebodylike Larry Bird, one of the great players in the NBA, who wouldshoot a thousand free throws every day. That's how he gotgreat, and that's how he stayed great. And that's how Italk to our staff about things like professional development andhow important it is."

Donel Young, on the other hand, believes metaphors themselvesare good opportunities for creativity. Rather than use conventionalmetaphors like sports or war, she likes to unexpectedly insertmetaphors uncommon to the business world into otherwise humdrummeetings. For instance, instead of advising a flighty client to"follow the game plan," she'll suggest they"stick to their knitting" just to shake things up.

Similarly, the dance metaphor may give some clients pause, shesays, but it creates a vivid picture of the give and take and senseof timing required when working with the news media. "Thedance metaphor seems to work best for explaining to our clients whywe do what we do," she says. "It quickly makes it clearhow we work."

Mark Hendricks is an Austin, Texas, writer specializing inbusiness topics.

Contact Sources

Caponigro Public Relations Inc., 4000 Town Center, #900,Southfield, MI 48075, (810) 355-3200;

Hansen & Young, 183 E. 94th St., New York, NY 10128,(908) 295-2406.