ABSTRACT
Organizational metaphors mediate between, and condense, the seen and the unseen, avowable and the unacknowledgeable, reality and fantasy. Quiet metaphors are rarely recognized for symbolic crystallizations and distillations that they are. They come not only as words, phrases, and mottoes but also as artifacts and things. Occasionally the group recognizes, interprets, and even transcends its own metaphors. Metaphors can be tools by which the peoples plumb nature more deeply, or they can be self-imposed prisons whose truth they in turn impose on all who enter our doors. Organizational metaphors take us beneath the genteel veneers to the undisclosed heart of organizational life. Metaphors can often be found in any organization's use and relative valuing of space. At deeper levels of meaning and feeling, these areas express group psychogeography, areas that are safe and areas that are emotionally hot and avoided. A promising future role for organizational development specialists is to help group members gain greater access to meanings and feelings.
