FRESH THINKING WITH VISUAL METAPHORS
by Kathy Kegley, Ph.D.
Fresh thinking involves making new connections between concepts previously thought to be unrelated. It requires us to escape the proverbial box, break our routines, challenge our assumptions and abandon our comfortable thinking habits.
One outcome of fresh thinking may be new ideas for solving an existing challenge, and yet another may be the discovery of a new problem that needs to be addressed. In either case, fresh thinking takes mental energy and can be hard work.
Yet fresh thinking is becoming increasingly critical for success in today’s competitive business world for ill-defined challenges such as innovation, change management and new product/service development. As Albert Einstein once remarked, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Metaphors, especially visual ones, can make the task of fresh thinking energizing, enjoyable and effective.
In simplest terms, a metaphor is experiencing one thing in terms of another by finding unexpected similarities. A metaphor piques curiosity and stimulates an exploration of possibilities. Often we encounter metaphors in the literature, where we may find statements such as “Love is war”. These statements invite us to think about ways in which two seemingly unrelated concepts might share some surprising similarities. We use the knowledge we have about the source (in this example, the source is “war”) and try to find a similarity with the target (in this example, the target is “love”) to generate new ways to think about the target.
For example, attributes of war include: there is usually a winner and a loser, there are typically casualties on both sides, it is expensive, and there are strategies employed by each side. Does the target concept “love” have similar properties? Looking through a mental lens shaped by our knowledge of war, we may begin to find new ways of understanding “love” that had not previously been considered. In essence, we have gained fresh thinking about the target concept “love.”
LOVE IS WAR
Metaphors invite fresh thinking by experiencing one thing in terms of another. In this example, the concept LOVE is experienced in terms of the concept WAR.
In business, the challenge we are seeking to understand is typically the target, and through metaphor we are trying to understand the challenge in a new light. For example, if the challenge is to enhance the customer experience, we might explore metaphors such as “The customer experience is war”. In what ways are the customer and the business at odds with each other? Are there also casualties on both sides, and if so, how can they be managed?
Through metaphor, new questions arise which may help think of the situation from a different perspective.
It is also possible for the source – the concept bringing the new perspective - to be a visual image rather than a word or phrase. Visual metaphors invoke a more primitive and often more powerful invitation to explore new connections. Long before we developed the ability to speak, people were using visual information to communicate and survive.
Metaphor and images are processed by the more creative parts of the brain; they nudge us out of the usual language-bound, routine thinking and allow us to tap in to our imagination. Nature provides a rich abundance of visual metaphors. Leonardo da Vinci was known to say that whenever he was trying to gain insights about a problem, he would “go straight to nature”. As a thought experiment to encourage fresh thinking, consider the following activity.
Find a bit of nature and take a few photographs of anything you consider interesting or beautiful. Later, when you have time for reflection about a challenge you are facing, think about ways your images may shed new light on the situation. Notice how your thinking shifts gears from routine thinking to seeking new connections. You may find surprising results!
For examples to help you get started, visit Inspiration from Nature.
