If we want organizations that can thrive in perpetual upheaval, we need metaphors drawn from ecology. Living systems adapt. They cycle. They compost. They regenerate. They respond to stress not with collapse but with reorganization.

A living systems lens reframes organizations not as linear machines, but as ecosystems—relational, interdependent, and... See more

Language doesn’t just describe neutrally. Language creates reality. It is a world-building force

We now live in a BANI world: brittle, anxious, nonlinear, incomprehensible. Old metaphors fail here. When we describe organizations as engineered systems, we expect stability and control. But today’s environment refuses both. The machine cracks under pressure. The “move fast and break things” mantra has contributed to a landscape of fragility,... See more

“Metaphors are not merely poetic or rhetorical. They structure our perceptions, our actions, and our relations to others.” GeorgeLakoff & Mark Johnson

Metaphors eventually become invisible. They calcify into a worldview that seems natural and inevitable. Once embedded, they define what counts as legitimate strategy, what risks are tolerable, who holds power, and how success is measured.

“Every way of seeing is a way of not seeing.”

Every organization is a story it tells about itself. That story lives in the metaphors people choose. We don’t just use metaphors; we live inside them. The metaphors in play reveal the deepest assumptions about what the organization is and what it can be. Metaphors are not decorative. They are cognitive tools that filter reality, spotlight certain... See more

Language shifts are often the earliest signs of cultural change. Transformation rarely starts with new behaviors. It begins with new interpretations of experience that first surface in speech.

Language doesn’t simply describe organizations. It actively produces them. It signals what is valued, what is possible, what is taboo, and what counts as truth.1

“Realities are socially constructed in the conversational interplay between people.” John Shotter