Harnessing the power of metaphors in training

Below are some ways that you can use metaphor to make your training more powerful.  As you read, I expect you will identify instances where you already use these ideas - and perhaps you will become aware of additional ways or contexts in which you could start using metaphor to make learning stronger and deeper.

Delivering a point indirectly

Sometimes it is useful to get a point across without making it headline news.  Metaphor lends itself to this, by allowing you to suggest a useful way for participants to interpret and understand what is going on, or in other words, to set a frame.

You can use this to set a frame for the whole training, e.g. I frequently start soft skills trainings by suggesting that participants act as though they are in a clothes shop, by trying on the ideas presented, giving them a tug, turn the hem up etc and seeing how each idea fits them.  I suggest that they take away the ideas that suit them and leave behind those that don’t.  I also suggest that it would be a pity not to try on the ideas during the training, since we have all had the experience of trying on a piece of clothing that we thought wouldn’t suit us, and finding that we look and feel very good in it.  Feedback from participants is that this frame around the training makes them more inclined to suspend disbelief and engage with unlikely-sounding ideas – often to discover that this previously uncharted territory contains treasure, or at least new and interesting views. 

You can also use metaphors to set a frame for the participants’ experiences during the training, e.g. you can suggest that material that they find challenging is best treated as you would a glass of home-made apple juice, which may have lots of ‘bits’ floating in it when first it is poured, but if left to settle for a while, becomes clear and sparkling.

As Lawley and Tompkins say: “A metaphor describes one experience in terms of another, and in so doing it specifies and constrains ways of thinking about the original experience.  This influences the meaning and importance of the experience, the way it fits with other experiences, and actions taken as a result.” 

Making an impact to make your material memorable

A well-chosen metaphor for the point that you are making will almost always give your training content more impact than if it was only presented conceptually, e.g. if you want to emphasise the importance of following a tedious health and safety regulation: ‘It is rather like crossing a high-speed railway line: nine times out of ten, you get across safely, but the tenth time, you won’t be slightly injured: you will be dead – so you’d be mad to take the chance.’

Stories as metaphors

Stories or anecdotes that you tell to illustrate a point are usually metaphors. These are very effective because people naturally compare their experience of the world with the story that you tell, to find out how the story fits them.  This process engages them far more than a list of conceptual bullet points and that engagement makes it easier for them to remember the points that you made.

For more information on ways to use stories as metaphors, see Sue Lickorish’s articles: ‘Storytelling: how to enrich the learning experience’ (Issue 4) and ‘Storytelling in NLP – and NLP in Storytelling’ (Issue 7).

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