Julie’s Ideas Blog 47: Script as Metaphor – Part 1

​In 2002 I was busy combining ideas from NLP with TA and wrote about how we might think of our scripts as metaphors. The following are some extracts from an article I had published then (Hay, 2002).

• A project manager announces to anyone who will listen that “Time is money.”
• A trainer tells participants “I know no-one enjoys it but don’t be too nervous about us videotaping the role-play.”
• A co-ordinator of a mentoring scheme for refugees states that “Mentors don’t need cultural awareness training because the aim is to have the refugees adopt the norms of this country now.”

What do these three have in common?  They each have within them an implicit assumption that the speaker’s map of the world is the one that matters – they discourage the listener from even thinking about the underlying pre-suppositions within the statements.  They have an hypnotic effect – the project manager is likely to find that people focus totally on time, probably at the expense of quality; the trainer finds that at least one participant in each group will become so nervous that they actually refuse to do the role-play at all; and the co-ordinator runs a scheme where the mentees’ distress at being refugees is compounded by culturally insensitive mentors.

We can get a better understanding of how the statements create the impact they do by considering them as metaphors and paradigms.  A dictionary (Times, 2000) search for these labels gives us:

• Metaphor – figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action that it does not literally denote in order to imply a resemblance – with the root being ‘transfer’
• Paradigm – a pattern or model; a typical or stereotypical example – with the root being ‘compare’.

Our maps have more meaning than we may realise

In a metaphor, we substitute one thing for another, with all the connotations that brings. Metaphors add richness to our maps, enabling us to convey a lot of meaning in a few words.  At the same time, our metaphors are representations of paradigms, in which exist some powerful but implicit boundaries.  Again, the paradigm enables us to convey these boundaries in a few words.  Put the two together and we create a map of the world that has much implicit meaning within it and clearly implied boundaries around it.

Taking our three examples:

• Time is money – so be careful how we spend it; we need to budget time carefully; the faster we work, the more profit we make; don’t waste it by spending time with people who will not contribute; we must keep an account of what gets spent and why …….. and we can view everything within this framework so we neglect aspects such as taking time to build in quality; to ensure optimal health and safety procedures; to build relationships with colleagues, customers, suppliers, etc.  Maybe we feel that we’re living on borrowed time!
• Nervousness and videotaping – telling someone not to do something causes them to think about and often to do it – as in “Don’t think about blue rabbits” – so the trainer mixes nervousness and videotaping together in a way that makes it hard for participants to separate them again  …….. and then sets a boundary that encompasses all participants by saying that no-one enjoys it.  Only the rebels will now feel able to enjoy being videotaped without getting nervous!
• Cultural awareness and norms of the country – not needing cultural awareness training implies: that mentors already know all they could possibly need to know; that the cultural norms of the refugees are unimportant and irrelevant; that refugees can somehow acquire new cultural norms without mentors needing to be trained to help them with this ..............  and sets a boundary against any possibilities that the existing cultural norms might be enhanced by the addition of norms brought by the refugees or that mentors might also learn from their mentees.

Everyday Maps
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We operate on numerous everyday metaphors and paradigms, generally without realising we are doing so because so many of them are shared. 

Prompted by Molden (1996), we can identify several other models of time in addition to money:

• a possession – I haven’t got enough time; We have all the time in the world.
• a commodity – There’s never enough time.
• an opponent or ally – Time is against us; Time is on our side.
• a person – Time waits for no-one; Time is passing.

Molden suggests that we could instead think of time as an investment, so that we focus on: planning how best to invest time; evaluating our gains from our use of time; building an investment portfolio comprising activities such as learning and developing, building relationships, enjoying life.

O’Connor (1998) provides examples related to leadership that conjure up some amusing imagery if you consider them literally: larger than life, on a pedestal, ahead of the field, hands-on, having the common touch, out of touch.  Many organisations have ways of talking about different maps as if they equate to wars, with people using phrases such as: winning and losing, shooting down other’s arguments, attacking the weak points, being right on target, gathering ammunition.  And how often have you been accused of moving the goal posts; throwing out the baby with the bath water; expecting to have your cake and eat it?  Or had the advantages of being a high-flyer or star performer; operating on a level playing field; getting all the ducks in a row?

Identity Maps

We often use metaphors to define ourselves; again these contain implicit limitations.  At the professional level, we may consider ourself to be:

• a leader, follower or bystander – and maybe find it hard to switch roles when appropriate;
• a  professional – such as an accountant, an engineer, a salesperson – which carry with them rules and responsibilities for how we perform our duties;
• a particular type of person – caring, quick-thinking, principled – and maybe we struggle when events conspire against us so that we are taken advantage of, get impatient, have to compromise.

In Part 2 of this blog I will relate these ideas to life scripts (Berne, 1972; Steiner, 1974), to the six process scripts (Kahler, 1979), and to my 5E model.

References

Berne, Eric. (1972) What Do You Say After You Say Hello? New York: Grove Press

Hay, Julie (2002) Metaphors and Paradigms – Whose Map of the World? Organisations & People 9:4 2-8

Kahler, Taibi (1979) Process Therapy in Brief Little Rock, AR: Human Development Publications

Molden, David (1996) Managing with the Power of NLP London: Financial Times/Pitman Publishing

O’Connor, Joseph (1998) Leading with NLP London: Thorsons

Steiner, Claude (1974) Scripts People Live New York: Bantam

Times (2000) Times English Dictionary London: HarperCollins Publishers
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​© 2018 Julie Hay​
 
​Julie is a fan of open access publishing so feel free to reproduce any of these blogs as long as you still attribute it to her.
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