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Product reviews for More Magic of Metaphor
Anne Marples Training Materials Designer, Cicerone Review to appear in The Training Journal
Stories and metaphors help people shift perspective and experience creative insights into new possibilities. They are disarming, and can make a subtle point without confrontation, often working at a subconscious level. But Nick Owen has put together much more than a collection of stories on the theme of leadership.
This book is a delight to read, and like all the best stories, works on a number of levels. Almost the entire book is presented as a metaphorical journey of discovery exploring the nature of leadership, combining metaphors and stories from around the world and across the centuries. Each is then analysed for its insights, how it relates to value systems and its application in a leadership context. The author explores the concepts of Spiral Dynamics using colour coding to show valuing and thinking systems, alongside Ken Wilber's 4-box model (Personal, Professional, Team and Infrastructure) as a way of organising thinking which ultimately involves developing an integral awareness of how the whole system fits together with balance and harmony.
Through metaphor, the author analyses the characteristics of leadership. As a leader, you might use a story to help (a) team member(s) become “unstuck' and progress beyond unhelpful behaviour. You might use it to bring about change in a respectful, efficient and elegant way. Or you may read the stories for your own insight into the value systems at work ” your own, and those of your team. Again, like a good story, apparently simple but actually deceptively complex in structure, this is definitely one of those books to take with you if you're going to be working away, or enduring long train journeys. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to dip into each of the 60 short stories and its accompanying “debrief'. Each brings its own insight ” some are entertaining, some enlightening, a few are perplexing, and as the thorough analysis shows, there's literally “something for everyone'.
Innovation *****
Clarity ****
Content *****
Value for money *****
This book is a delight to read, and like all the best stories, works on a number of levels. Almost the entire book is presented as a metaphorical journey of discovery exploring the nature of leadership, combining metaphors and stories from around the world and across the centuries. Each is then analysed for its insights, how it relates to value systems and its application in a leadership context. The author explores the concepts of Spiral Dynamics using colour coding to show valuing and thinking systems, alongside Ken Wilber's 4-box model (Personal, Professional, Team and Infrastructure) as a way of organising thinking which ultimately involves developing an integral awareness of how the whole system fits together with balance and harmony.
Through metaphor, the author analyses the characteristics of leadership. As a leader, you might use a story to help (a) team member(s) become “unstuck' and progress beyond unhelpful behaviour. You might use it to bring about change in a respectful, efficient and elegant way. Or you may read the stories for your own insight into the value systems at work ” your own, and those of your team. Again, like a good story, apparently simple but actually deceptively complex in structure, this is definitely one of those books to take with you if you're going to be working away, or enduring long train journeys. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to dip into each of the 60 short stories and its accompanying “debrief'. Each brings its own insight ” some are entertaining, some enlightening, a few are perplexing, and as the thorough analysis shows, there's literally “something for everyone'.
Innovation *****
Clarity ****
Content *****
Value for money *****
Guest
|
08/03/2005 00:00
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