The global reach of Leadership Metaphor Explorer™

monk chat in Thailand, see post 
thanks to Sarah Miller

From: Wright, Joel
Sent: 19 May 2010 11:45
Subject: Metaphor Explorer Question
All,

Clemson and I were talking about the Metaphor Explorer and he asked if I had ever used it cross culturally and outside of the US. Upon reflection, the only time I had was when I was in Prague. Clemson was curious about how some of the cards are being received in less democratic locations. He mentioned some of the cards are very western/democratic and was curious: does anyone have some insight into this? Thanks!

Peace
Joel

From: Harrison III, Steadman
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 11:48 AM
To: Wright, Joel
Subject: RE: Metaphor Explorer Question

Hello,

In the last month I've used the Leadership Metaphor Explorer deck in Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia--quite a range of governance and culture and language. The UN-IFAD team here in Khartoum will be taking LME with them as we head to the field tomorrow... heading down South to Rufaa and over to Wad Arakay on the edge of the desert... the entire training will be in Arabic and the locals won't be able to read the English subtitles on the cards... should be a great test to see how they are received!

My sense is that the newest deck is more global... we've replaced a few of the cards and updated some of the other pictures.

Just a quick update... from Sudan.

Steadman

Metaphors support reframing and strategic thinking

Here's a way to use Leadership Metaphor Explorer™ for supporting strategic thinking during an online conference. Thanks to strategy and creativity mavens Kate Beatty and David M. Horth.

From: Beatty, Kate
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 12:31 PM
To: Palus, Chuck; Horth, David
Subject: LME images - electronic version

Hi Chuck and David,

I am doing some final work on my slides for the upcoming Jossey-Bass online conference. I am doing a workshop on strategic leadership, and would like to include several of the Leadership Metaphor Explorer cards in an exercise. At the beginning of the session, I will have them identify a strategic challenge they are working on. When we discuss strategic thinking, I want to give them the opportunity to reframe their challenge, and thought that showing several of the cards would be a good prompt for this.

Can you direct me to the electronic images of these cards?

Thanks for your help!

Kate

Hi Kate,
Here is the online source for one at a time downloading.
Best,
Chuck n Dave

Here’s an exercise that I will used when I have a large group e.g a presentation. I put out the LME cards one under each chair and start the session with the following question and exercise: (I’m doing a presentation on innovation leadership and culture on Saturday and using this exercise to kick off my short presentation.)
As you look at the metaphor card you have been assigned, in what ways does it describe leadership in your organization either:

• In the past?
• How it looks when we are at our worst?
• How it looks now?
• How it looks when we are at our most innovative?
• How it needs to look like in the future?
• How it needs to look like to resolve the major challenges we face?

Discuss with your neighbors

D
David Magellan Horth
Senior Designer
Center for Creative Leadership

Video Intro to Leadership Metaphor Explorer™

Monk Chat in Chiang Mai, Thailand

From Sarah C. Miller at YLead:

M chose two pictures, one to answer the question of how a monk should be a leader in the community and one to answer the question of how he wished to be a leader. Both intersected in the theme of “know thyself.” For M, the most important part of leadership is knowing onself first. Only when we know ourselves, can we then lead others. He also chose several other cards to represent the various aspects of leadership a monk exhibits. But the crux of the issue was self-knowledge. ... >>more at the YLead blog.

LME for off-site team building

Here's another interesting and useful field report from Tom Hickok at DoD. Also check out Tom's earlier report on creating and sustaining high-performance organizations. Thanks Tom.

-----

I used the leadership metaphor explorer (LME) cards yesterday in a team-building off-site. The group that I support in the Department of Defense environment almost doubled in the last few months, from about 18 to about 30. The off-site was planned to be largely a fun event for this group, with pizza lunch with time afterwards to socialize and relax. But there was a team-building exercise at the front end and I used the LME cards as part of it. The design of the exercise was for the division director to make some comments about some changes ahead. The purpose of those comments was to get the group thinking seriously about change/change management.

When the director finished speaking, I followed on his talk with the theme of "initiating change within a sea of change." After a word about the purpose of teambuilding, I asked the 23 participants to browse the cards, and pick one that they related to in some way, or spoke to them about the challenges/opportunities ahead. They did that, and reconvened, with chairs arranged in a circle to allow good face to face contact. I asked them to share briefly about why they picked the card they did, and any brief story behind it. Everybody shared willingly, without extra pressure. A few people shared about parts of their personal background that were previously undisclosed. Others talked about their work goals. Comments after were very positive about the experience.

Some things to note: 1) The LME exercise was compressed to about 35 minutes because we started as lunch approached, and I didn't want to start a hunger strike, so I assured them at the beginning of the length of the exercise :)) 2) My design consideration in having the whole group share instead of breaking into sub-groups was to help facilitate relationships across the whole team. Also, the limited time didn't really support a two step feedback process (small teams to large teams). 3) I kept the sharing very short due to the time constraints. We could have productively shared much longer (at least another hour), I believe.

I continue to be impressed with the versatility of the LME cards at drawing people out to talk at a significant, or even profound level, in a short period of time. I appreciate the chance to use the cards, and I think they are very ready for prime time. I even had colleagues ask me after the exercise where they could order the cards (one wanted to use them in her church, which has a new leadership team).

Best,
Tom Hickok

Understanding leadership cultures that enable innovation

Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:26 PM
To: Harrison III, Steadman
Subject: Leadership Metaphor Explorer

Steadman,

We used the LME with our media client last week as we originally conceived the exercise: the participants explored leadership behaviors that enable and disable innovation. It was a memorable exercise in that it got the participants up on their feet so they could view the cards as well as stimulating fascinating dialog surrounding the questions. It was remarkable what people saw, how they interpreted it and then how they pursued consensus given their perspectives. I intend to share our experience at the AMI meeting in Banff. I'd be glad to elaborate more on the experience with you if you are interested and have the time.

Jim Myracle
TMT Associates, Inc.
"Experience Delivering Results"

Here's the process --

I used the LME cards to support a learning module on leading innovation and deliver on the objective to understand the leadership behaviors and cultural attributes enabling innovation. Since this module was part of a leadership development program that had been custom developed for one company, I also designed the exercise to deliver on the broader program goal of network and colleague development. To work within the available time, a pre-determined mix of enabling and disabling cards were distributed to four groups of four participants each.

The morning began with an interactive discussion of product life-cycles and how organization culture and leaders evolve as products succeed and organizations grow. This was followed by an exploration of the unique types of innovation; process, sustaining (incremental) and disruptive (new-growth).

It is at this point that I turned to the Leadership Metaphor Explorer to help identify the leadership behaviors and cultural attributes that had been hinted at. In the first round, each group was asked to discuss messages from the15 cards at their table and then collaborate to select up to four cards that depict leadership behaviors or cultural attributes that disable innovation. They were asked to share:
1. The disabling behaviors or cultural characteristics they saw in the image,
2. The type(s) of innovation that would be inhibited, and
3. The ways in which leaders display such disabling behaviors or organization culture works to send out these subtle messages.

A sampling of cards and comments selected during this round were:
o Calculating Brains – forcing outcomes based on the needs of now
o Well-Defended Warriors – use power to overcome resistance, oblivious to outside intelligence
o Lone Ranger – holding on to the glory, individual star
o Swarm of Bees – what happens to someone in our company if they make a mistake, fall short

In the next round, the groups were asked to revisit their discussions and collaborate to select up to four cards that depict leadership behaviors or cultural attributes that enable innovation. This time, they were asked to share:
1. The connections between the image and the enabling behaviors/cultural characteristics,
2. The type(s) of innovation that would be supported, and
3. The ways in which leaders display and cultures support such enabling behaviors.

A sampling of cards and comments selected during this round were:
o Shepherd – guiding, protective against interference, observant and listening, comes in all sizes and types
o Co-Creating Musicians – teams of unique contributors working in a highly integrated way to deliver one success they could not deliver on their own
o Creative Repairmen –Competent in the old and also open to a new way
o Garage of Innovators – An overall favorite card among all the participants
o Network of Peers
o The following 4 cards were told as one story:
Polarity of Opposites coming together, with the help of involved, knowledgeable Player Coaches, can organize and integrate a Community of (diverse) Craftspeople to set sail together as Ambitious Pioneers charting a new course.

Each table captured their key messages from the cards and discussions that spontaneously followed, thus enabling the participants to begin building their own vision for innovation leadership.

The Leadership Metaphor Explorer cards were enthusiastically received. There was absolutely no hesitancy to get involved. The differences in first impressions of the images led to both laughter and focused listening to one another. Participants easily collaborated, and I witnessed better brainstorming technique during these discussions than had been accomplished during an earlier brainstorm practice. Importantly, the LME experience also heightened the awareness of how perspectives differ when viewing the same image (or situation), what can be learned through effective sharing of the perspectives as well as the dialog skills and time required to share the perspectives.

My wish list:
1. More time:
a. To allow familiarization with the deck and avoid pre-selection
b. To allow for more discussion and collaborative work with these images. For example, one member at a table selected “A Polarity of Opposites” as an enabling card. A colleague challenged him that there was a wall separating the two sides from each other. A third participant at the table immediately pointed out that it looked like the wall was crumbling, while the fourth admitted that he had not even seen the wall in the image because he was focused on the meaning of the color vs. black and white difference. They were well on their way to a rich conversation when time ran out.
2. A deck without captions. To some degree, I feel as if the captions set boundaries on the messages of the images.

Thank you for the early use of these cards. The LME is a wonderful tool that lends itself to a wide range of leadership, cultural and community-building explorations at an individual or group level. I also think they can be a valuable reflection and discussion tool for leadership coaches, and look forward to working with the LME in that capacity soon.

Visual and verbal literacy: Skills for contemporary leadership

David Magellan Horth provides this field report on using Leadership Metaphor Explorer (LME) and Visual Explorer (VE) to address skills for contemporary leadership.

The following design was used successful at the Library Leadership and Management Association LLAMA (a Division of the American Library Association - ALA at the LLAMA President's meeting June 2008 in Annaheim, CA. I was expecting about 10 people but more like 300 people came so I had to think quickly on my feet.

Overview

• Introduction
• Leadership Metaphor Exercise
• Presentation on leadership culture stage development
• Presentation of the Sense Making Loop for complex challenges
  
• Visual Explorer Exercise
• Concluding remarks

Description

1. My session was called "Visual and verbal literacy: Skills for contemporary leadership"

2. I put on one LME Card and one VE Card face down on each chair, randomly distributed.

3a. I opened the session with the question: How does the metaphor you have been assigned describe leadership in your organization in any one of these ways:

• in the past?
• your organization at its worst?
• how leadership is practiced currently?
• how leadership is when your organization is at its best?
• how you would like leadership to be in the future?
• how leadership needs to be in order to resolve your most pressing leadership challenges?

3b. Discuss with your neighbors

4. People were then invited to come to the microphone with the card they had been assigned. The microphone had been set up in the center aisle to share what they had found. This was very rich. About 7 people came forward before I moved on to the next part of the session. They shared both the metaphor and insights they had gained.

5. I then did a presentation about how we think leadership will look like in the future using:

Honorable Captains to illustrate dependent leadership
Adventurous Explorers to illustrate independent leadership
Leaderless Orchestra to illustrate interdependent leadership


6. I then presented the Sense Making Loop used as a response to complex challenges.

7. There was a VE image at each seat. I asked them to think of a complex challenge in their organization. How does the visual image you have been assigned describe your complex challenge?

8. Again I had people come up to the microphone to share insights on the process and what they learned.

One woman chose the snails eye view of trees as a metaphor for appreciating diversity.

"Lying on my back looking up at the trees and seeing how beautiful they are and how different they are in height. If I appreciate the beauty in them, they will in turn appreciate the beauty in me."

I rounded things off by reciting a verse from T.S. Eliot, East Coker, to close.

In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

Leadership Metaphor Explorer Cards used with multiple federal agencies at the Treasury Executive Institute

From: Laskow, Greg
To: Palus, Chuck, Horth, David
Subject: Metaphor Explorer Cards with multiple federal agencies represented at today's Center Connection at the Treasury Executive Institute

Hello David and Chuck:
The Leadership Metaphor Explorer Cards were a supreme hit with multiple federal agencies represented at today's Center Connection at the Treasury Executive Institute. This was the initial event for the morning.

• First we asked them to write down adjectives in response to the framing question: In your agency today, how would you describe the talent pool for future leaders? (An option is to allow more time for journaling on this topic)
• Next we asked them to select a metaphor card that represented this current state of affairs in talent development (this is step 1R in the 4MAT Model). There were 5 tables with a deck of Metaphor Cards at each table. I asked them to spread them out so that all were visible. They did so immediately and enthusiastically and began to exchange their reactions to the cards (we did not have to tell them to do this).
• They each selected a card, sometimes two.
  
• We had them exchange with each other their adjectives and the reason they selected the card(s). This took 10 minutes.
  

When we asked them to report out, we received comments such as "I can't believe that we were able to describe our situation in such a short period of time".

Lastly, we did a Visual Explorer session. Here we asked, them to select one image that represented what they needed to do differently in their organizations given what they learned today. I literally took them on a gallery walk with almost all of the VE images on display to insure that they saw them all (we were constrained as to space) and with a hand-held mike, I "led" the tour encouraging them to let the picture "grab" them. Worked well and then we had them do a table-top debrief using the Star Model. VE was a real hit as well. We let them keep their selected VE images as well as their selected ME images.




Regards,
Greg
Gregory B. Laskow, Ph.D.
Lead Senior Enterprise Associate
Government & Military Sector
Center for Creative Leadership

Creating and Sustaining High Performance Public Organizations

Thanks to Tom Hickok for this fine description of how the Leadership Metaphor Explorer Cards worked in his advanced topics in management course at Virginia Tech, with a special focus on "the inextricably intertwined concepts of leadership and culture."










-----Original Message-----
From: Hickok, Thomas, CTR, NII/DoD-CIO [mailto:Thomas.Hickok.ctr@osd.mil]
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 5:07 PM

Thank you for allowing me to use the metaphor cards. I have had one opportunity to use them to date, and see another opportunity coming up in a few weeks. You asked for feedback on use, and I am happy to provide it.

I am presently teaching a course at Virginia Tech designated as an Advanced Topic in Management; the subtitle is "Creating and Sustaining High Performance Public Organizations." There are 15 students -- 12 are PhD candidates and 3 are Masters candidates -- in two locations, Richmond and Alexandria, and they represent a mix of local and Federal organizations.

I used the cards in the 3rd session, a joint Saturday session in Fredericksburg, in between Richmond and Alexandria. We shared a meal at a local Perkins restaurant, and went to a classroom at nearby Mary Washington College.

I started the session by letting the students know we would be having a discussion followed by an exercise. The discussion began with the class brainstorming a number of characteristics of high performing organizations. Then we teased out the discussion of one of those characteristics -- accountability. We talked about what the term meant operationally; how you would implement it; what would be consequences of failure to implement; and how you would measure it. This was a robust discussion.

Next I laid out the cards on several tables. I asked the students to mill around the tables and to pick out one or two cards that spoke to them in respect to the challenge of creating a high performing organization. The organizational context could be either where they worked, some other organization, or an imaginary organization. The card(s) could speak to them in either in a negative or positive way. And I let them know they would be asked to share about the card(s) they pick.

The sharing came fluently and progressively seamlessly as the discussion went along. By fluently, I mean that none of the students had trouble sharing, and in the process both self-disclosed and provided insights into their organization. By seamlessly, I mean that students hop on each others backs, linking their card to the one just previous. The discussion period last nearly an hour and a half.

There was no given order for discussion. The way they took turns is, after someone shared, another person would say "Maria's card reminded me of ... " and then they talked about their own card.

Examples of the discussion: Student used ...

• strict disciplinarian to talk about how rules can stifle creativity
• co-creating musicians to talk about high performance as improvisational jazz
• squadron of jet fighters to talk about the need for training to simulate real situations
• union of independent states to talk about new stovepipes replacing old ones
• ambitious pioneers to talk about some initiatives of the new President

Other cards used were critical parents, community of practice, preserved fossils, network of peers, steady navigators, and adventuresome explorers.

There were no negative comments about the cards. The beauty of the card process is that there is no need for every card to resonate -- as long as some do.

I had about 15 minutes prior to close, so I invited the students to give feedback on the class, and especially the use of the Explorer cards. I had earlier let them know the terms of use -- that you were letting me use a product still in pilot and were looking for feedback. The feedback was universally positive. Some comments were --- "It created a dialogue", "the cards were great", "the use of analogies is good", and "great ice breaker".

To me, the success elements that need to surround the cards include: a warm up discussion, so that the brains are warm, ready to go; enough time to let people linger over the cards, to engage their intuitive side; and then the chance to share in a well-supported way.

If I had a wish at the end of the class, it was that I could have given the selected cards to the students. After my CCL workshop experience, where we were allowed to keep the cards, I referred to my cards a number of times and I actually posted the Visual Explorer picture on my wall. The cards were more than mementos. They were triggers to recall the thought process that the workshop facilitated inside of me. (I couldn't offer the cards to my students, since I
plan to re-use them in my work setting in the next month.)

In sum, I think the LME cards work beautifully. And the exercise demonstrated to me the versatility with respect to theme --- the CCL workshop used leadership; in this context I used high performance organizations; and I am confident that the cards will work with "change management" as a theme (that's my plan for the off-site of this office that has doubled in size due to re-organization.)

One other difference in use from the CCL workshop was that in the CCL workshop, the sharing was done primarily at individual tables in small groups. The conscious design of the day for my class session was to get the Richmond and Alexandria students to experience being one community. So I rejected the possibility of small group work. The large group sharing was a less
efficient use of time (the exercise took probably two times as long as it would with small groups), but accomplished the intended purpose.

From my perspective as the instructor, the main purpose of the class was to create a sense of community in a class that is being "polycommed" to two locations. In my view the class was a success; some lesser known students got better heard in that class; and the students from the two campuses got to know each other better. My concern was not with efficient time use, and that is why I didn't rush any part of the exercise. It was with effect, and the cards worked beautifully in that regard.

My next possible use of the cards is as an "ice breaker" at an off-site "team-building"/picnic outing. Our group where I work has almost doubled to about 32 in the last month due to a re-organization. The way I want to use the cards is to create a discussion about managing change, and the number of changes the participants in the exercise are making and/or are going (or will go on) on in the organization. Then, I will invite people to pick cards of people that speak to them, and discuss.

I really like the cards and the way they draw from the intuitive side of people's brains.

Best,

Tom Hickok

Framing Questions for Facilitating Leadership Metaphor Explorer™

Here are steps and framing questions to use with the Leadership Metaphor Explorer™ Card Deck. This process can be adapted to any size group, for pairs of people, or for individual reflection.

First choose a framing topic or question.
"Pick a card that says something about ... "
For example:

• Leadership in my organization ... or community, or team.
• How do I myself practice leadership? Past, present, and future (3 cards)?
  
• What does leadership look like around here?
• What do I want leadership to look like?
• The kind of leadership we need for the challenges we face.
• This is us at our best.
• This is us at our worst.
• This is what we looked like during the crisis last week.
• These are our competitors.
• These are our clients or customers.
• This is the kind of talent we have in this organization.
• This is the kind of talent we need in this organization.
• This is me when I was younger.
• This is me now.
• This is me next year.

Next, talk about your choices using one or more framing questions.
Questions to talk about include:

• Why did you pick this card? Find out why others picked the cards they did.
  
• What are the strengths in this way of leadership? What are the weaknesses?
• What is the story? Tell the story behind the card.
  
• How do the cards connect or fit with one another? How do they help or hurt each other?
  
• What cards are more mature ways of leadership? Which are less mature? Why?
  
• Where do we have conflict? Explain the conflict using the metaphors.
  
• Which way would we like to be? What are we missing?
  
• What is the right combination of cards for our challenge? In what order?

Finally, reflect on what you have learned from the metaphors, and what steps you might take.

• What did we learn? What was surprising? What did we already know?
• What was this experience like emotionally?
  
• What is the wisdom expressed here?
• What new or changed beliefs about leadership does this suggest? Does this change how you define leadership?
  
• How does this suggest a different way of doing things?