You Cant Solve a Problem Without Knowing Whats Wrong. Metaphore?

9 MIN READ

Metaphorical Thinking

Using Comparisons to Limited Ideas and Solve Problems

© GettyImages
patpitchaya

Find out how you lot can use metaphors to think exterior the box.

You've probable heard the expression, "Time is money."

Of course, time isn't literally used as currency, but by thinking almost time as money, you can create some powerful images. Time wasted is money down the drain, for example. Or, fourth dimension well spent is an investment.

A direct comparison between two unrelated or indirectly linked things is chosen a metaphor. And as we encounter in the example of "time is money," metaphors can create strong images that can be used to great effect in everyday communications and thinking. The English language is littered with metaphors, and this is testimony to the power.

So metaphors tin be used to ameliorate communications: they tin can add affect or can assist y'all to explain a hard concept by association with a more familiar one. But metaphorical thinking can besides help you lot to solve bug past generating new ideas for solutions.

In this article, we'll explain how you tin can utilise metaphors to effectively communicate complex ideas, and show how metaphorical thinking can also be useful in solving bug, with an example.

Metaphors vs. Similes

Metaphors sometimes get mistaken for similes, but the two are not the aforementioned. A simile makes a comparison as well, but uses the word 'like,' as in "time is like money;" "the idea is like half-baked food." Similes often sound less powerful than metaphors, even if the thought is the same.

The uncomplicated metaphor format is "A is B," as in "time is money." Just metaphors can also be indirect or implicit: "That's a half-baked thought." This metaphor compares ideas with part-cooked food – without mentioning the food!

Note:

Allegories are another similar literary device, merely are much longer than a metaphor and rely on symbols in a narrative to represent an idea and convey a moral. For case, the story of the Tortoise and the Hare is a well-known allegory. They can be in the form of an paradigm or piece of writing, and are an effective technique used in storytelling.

What Is Metaphorical Thinking?

Past associating an unfamiliar idea with one that is commonplace, you can spark better agreement of circuitous ideas. Allow's say you want to explain the concept of the business bike. You could use lots of words, definitions, and drone on for v or ten minutes leaving the audience bored and confused. So you could use graphs and diagrams, to assistance improve agreement and interest.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Receive new career skills every week, plus get our latest offers and a free downloadable Personal Development Plan workbook.

Read our Privacy Policy

Or, you could explain using a metaphor: the business bike is a pendulum, swinging back and along from peaks of prosperity, down through economic troughs, and back up again.

The metaphor captures the essence of the business organization bike – the listener immediately relates to the continuous back and along movement. The bright image helps people sympathize and also remember the thought. So, simply and in just a few words, everyone all of a sudden "gets it." To apply another metaphor, the light bulb suddenly goes on.

Employ metaphorical thinking to explain complex ideas with these four steps:

1. Identify what y'all are trying to communicate.
2. Determine the essence of the message.
3. Think of other instances in life where that same feature, thought, emotion, country, etc. applies.
4. There may be many metaphors for the situation y'all are describing – choose the one that volition best relate to your audience.

Tip:

Brand sure that your metaphors are understandable to your audience. If at that place's whatsoever risk that your metaphors will sound like jargon or could be misinterpreted, think again. The cloak-and-dagger is to use a metaphor that instantly rings true with your audience.

Metaphorical Thinking in Problem Solving

When yous use a metaphor to link ii ideas together, you are combining elements that have little or no logical connection. By breaking the rules of logic in this way, metaphors can open up up the creative side of the brain – the role that is stimulated by images, ideas, and concepts. And then metaphorical thinking can also help yous with creative problem solving; information technology helps you to "retrieve outside the box."

Accept the problem of creating a new product. You lot could set on the problem logically, and just redevelop an existing production, or analyze what your competition is doing. You might come upwards with a quick solution, but will you hit the jackpot?

Trouble solving often starts with brainstorming and billowy ideas back and forth with your squad. Brainstorming is great for getting the artistic juices flowing, it tin open upwardly a floodgate of ideas (more than metaphors!) However, people may still be constrained by the images they have of the current problem, or by their preconceived notions well-nigh the potential solutions.

When using metaphors for solving bug, you link the trouble to something seemingly unrelated. Doing this allows your brain to see the issue from a completely different perspective – one that you may non even have known existed.

If the problem is how to create a successful new product, you could use the metaphor of someone learning some other language. The next footstep is to generate solutions to the problem of learning another language rather than the problem of creating a new product. As y'all identify various solutions to the metaphorical problem, you lot tin can then relate these back to the existent problem. Chances are, you will come up with some artistic ideas for solutions.

Metaphorical Thinking Example

Here are the steps for using metaphorical problem solving, using our new product example:

1. Beginning identify the metaphor for your problem or challenge.

   There's no "right metaphor" – the ideas can exist as unrelated as you lot like. Simply if the problem involves increasing something, make sure the metaphor relates to an increment equally well, otherwise information technology can become likewise difficult to visualize. Here are some example issues and metaphors:

   Increase sales > Build larger muscles
   Subtract recruitment costs > Lower the price of staff of life
   Attract more than investors > Harvest more than corn

   And here's the metaphor of our example:

   Trouble: Create a new product.
   Metaphor: Learn another language (for case, French).

2. Now it's time to generate solution ideas for the metaphorical trouble, in this case, learning another language. Let's use French as an example:
   • Download a linguistic communication learning app.
   • Listen to French podcasts.
   • Travel to France and talk to some locals.
   • Exchange letters with a French pen-pal.
   • Take French classes or join a group of other French learners.
   • Exercise regularly.
3. And so, the next step is to meet how the solution ideas for the metaphorical problem might chronicle back to the real problem:

Solution ideas for the metaphorical problem	Solutions ideas relating dorsum to the existent trouble
Download a language learning app	Research and invest in new technologies
Listen to French podcasts	Listen to consumer feedback, needs and demands
Talk to French locals	Talk to your stakeholders and become to the root of their problem
Exchange letters with a French pen-pal	Share ideas and support with other similar departments
Have French classes or bring together a group	Hold a focus group to test your new product
Practice regularly	Continually revise and accommodate your new product

4. Finally, apply the solution ideas you have generated for the metaphorical problem to discover a workable solution to the existent problem.

Tip:

Don't get as well hung up on how well the metaphorical solution ideas map back. Metaphors that map likewise well tin can stifle the creativity you lot are trying to generate! The whole thought is to generate solutions and ideas that you lot may not accept otherwise thought of, then merely permit the ideas menstruation without besides much scrutiny.

Primal Points

A metaphor compares and equates two unrelated or indirectly connected things.

Metaphors are powerful shortcuts to instant and memorable agreement. They evoke vivid images and allow united states to "see" things from a new perspective, and then are useful tools for creative problem solving.

Utilise metaphorical thinking to help explain complex ideas, create impact in your presentations, and think outside the box.

parkerwhimpaincy94.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_93.htm

Share this post