Appearances and packaging are important, even if sometimes deceiving

CorporateNature metaphor series, No 128

STORY 1: David Ogilvy & the beggar

A 1950s story tells the vivid history of advertising guru David Ogilvy. Ogilvy was working as a copywriter and would pass by a blind beggar on a street corner every day. The beggar held a sign: "I'M BLIND. PLEASE HELP." Pedestrians would usually walk past, ignoring the beggar. One day, the copywriter decided to help the man. He took out a marker and scribbled something on the sign. From that day on, the blind man's luck turned and his cup was always full of coins. The copywriter had changed the sign to: "IT'S SPRING AND I'M BLIND. PLEASE HELP"

STORY 2: Seven Up & the Lemon flavour of yellow

Malcolm Gladwell tells this soft drinks story in his bestseller "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." Fooling the brain with external visual stimulus is remarkably easy. It turns out that with the addition of only 15% more yellow colouring to the package of 7 Up, consumers consistently report a stronger lemon flavour. Similarly, the colour jelly taste test reveals just how essential appearances are for our brain to make a judgement call on whether something would taste good or not.

STORY 3: Kintsugi brings into the open what is often hidden.

Kinsukuroi (金繕い,  "kintsugi" or "golden repair) is the medieval Japanese technique of repairing broken pottery by gluing together broken fragments with a gold-mix paste. The idea is that the cracks where the item was broken are part of its history and should be showcased, rather than trying to hide them as defects. Collectors during some periods became so enamoured of this popular art form that some would even go as far as deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kinsukuroi.

STORY 4: Zhuangzi parable about the monkey trainer

Chinese daoist philosopher Zhuangzi tells the story of a monkey trainer who was giving his monkeys acorns during training: three in the morning and four at night. This was considered unjust by some of the monkeys, and they got furious with their trainer. To alleviate the situation, the trainer suggested: "Why don't I switch this around: four nuts in the morning and three at night." The monkeys were all delighted.

5. CONCLUSION

Whether it's about a quick edit on the go, changing the taste of food by changing colour, turning a seeming flaw into a decorative feature, or using rhetoric to get your point across, the importance of external appearance is ever-present and of extreme importance. Consider this next time you go for a job interview.

Kintsugi: golden repair of a broken plate corner
(image source: Wikipedia)

All illusions are unreal but some are useful

Three stories approach illusion from different perspectives: money, religion & technology.
All illusions are unreal, but some are useful.

CorporateNature metaphor series, No 127

STORY 1: SOUND OF MONEY PAYS FOR SMELL OF SOUP
A beggar once sneaked into the kitchen of an inn and held a piece of bread over a pot of soup, hoping that the vapour of the soup would give flavour to his bread. The innkeeper caught him, accused him of stealing and demanded that the man pay for a soup. As the beggar had no money, he was brought to the local judge, Nasreddin Hodja. After hearing the story, Nasreddin Hodja decided to pay the innkeeper himself ... with merely the sound of throwing several coins on the table. It seemed like a fair deal: the sound of money paid for the smell of soup, one illusion for another.  

STORY 2: HOW A BUDDHIST SEES THE MOON

According to Buddhism, reality (dharma) exists but the unenlightened individual can only see it as an illusion. To practice mindfulness is to catch a fleeting glimpse of what is behind the veil of this illusion - the essence of reality. Buddha uses an apt analogy to explain this concept. Imagine the Moon (reality itself) and a reflection of it in a shallow puddle (our attempts to look at reality as it is). While the Moon is always in the sky, its reflection in the puddle remains only until the water evaporates. 

STORY 3: IS LIFE A COMPUTER SIMULATION?

Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom goes even further than the Buddhists. He proposes that reality itself could be an artificial computer simulation. Bostrom argues that computing power in the future will be much greater than what it is today, and that future generations may use this power to run detailed simulations of reality. Given enough computing power and an adequate scientific understanding of "consciousness", it is possible that these simulated realities could include conscious beings. Thus, Bostrom surmises, if any sophisticated civilisation is able to and decides to run such a simulation, our own reality is quite likely a computer simulation itself, created by someone else. 

CONCLUSION

Each of us faces illusions on a daily bases: from dreams at night, to the computer in the office, to a movie in the cinema. To paraphrase the famous statistician George Box: all illusions are unreal, but some are useful. Is looking at the Moon in a puddle one of the useful ones?

Virtual reality headset
(image source: Wikipedia)

Opportune moments come few and far between. Cicadas wait 17 years for one

Three stories about revenge, insects and fires tackle the principle of "bide your time" and wait for the opportunity
CorporateNature metaphor series, No 126

STORY 1: ROYAL REVENGE IN ANCIENT CHINA
The Chinese idiom 卧薪尝胆 (wò xīn cháng dǎn) - literally "to sleep on firewood and taste gallbladder" - today means "to undergo self-imposed hardship to strengthen one's resolve for revenge". The story behind this idiom takes place in China's Warring States period. Towards the end of the 5th century B.C., the king of Wu attacked the state of Yue and took king Gou Jian of Yue as his prisoner. Gou Jian spent the next three years as personal servant to the king of Wu. During this time, he diligently followed every order of the king of Wu. He maintained the memory of his humiliation by subjecting himself to the harsh experience of sleeping on firewood spread across the floor and regularly eating gallbladder. By doing this, he "burned the bridges" towards forgiveness and didn't let go of his desire for vengeance. When Gou Jian eventually returned to Yue, he raised an army and conquered Wu.

STORY 2: THE 17-YEAR LIFE CYCLE OF CICADAS
The North American periodical cicada (Magicicada) is an insect with an extraordinary life cycle. For 13 or 17 years the larvae of these creatures lie dormant underground in the root of trees, drinking sap and waiting for the opportune moment to begin their adult life. Their life cycle is exactly 13 or 17 years (for different species) to allow all insects to emerge synchronised at the same time. The prime number of years appears to be an evolutionary adaptation against predators, who are unlikely to be able to synchronise their life cycles over such a long period. "If a brood were to emerge in cycles divisible by a smaller number, then local predators could reap rewards by synchronising their own shorter cycles and emerge in large numbers exactly when the cicadas appear. The large prime number of years saves the cicadas' skin (or rather shell).

STORY 3: ARCTIC FIRES CAN HIBERNATE
When you think of recent natural disasters, the fires in California or Australia spring to mind. But did you know that there are fires in the Arctic and they can smoulder under the snow for a year, keeping burning throughout the harsh Arctic winter. These "zombie fires" find oxygen-rich underground pockets in the peat layer where they can hibernate during the winter and reactivate when the weather allows. Some of the Siberian wildfires of 2019 have been hibernating underground and are coming to the surface again only now when the summer weather is offering a good opportunity.

CONCLUSION
When faced with a monumental task, the principle of "bide your time" is a good bet. Instead of diving in at the first instance, often it is better to withdraw and wait for the opportune moment... for 17 years if need be, if you are a cicada.

Mars rover "Opportunity"
(image source: Wikipedia)

Action Substitution: China's Trojan Horse were Five Stone Cows

CorporateNature Metaphor Series No 125

What do stone cow statues, Tom Sawyer, and viruses have in common? 

STORY 1: THE TROJAN HORSE OF ANCIENT CHINA - THE STORY OF THE "STONE CATTLE ROAD" (石牛道)
During the Warring States period of Ancient China, King Huiwen of Qin wished to conquer the state of Shu to the south, over the Qinling Mountains, and devised a cunning plan. He had his sculptors fashion five life-sized stone cows with gold hindquarters and offered them as a present to the king of Shu, on condition that Shu had to build a stone road for the cows to be delivered. The king of Shu built the stone road and Qin used the road to conquer Shu in 316 BC.

STORY 2: TOM SAWYER'S POWERS OF PERSUASION
In one of the most iconic stories in American literature, Mark Twain explains the art of persuasion using his characteristic sense of humour. Twain's character Tom Sawyer is made to whitewash his aunt's fence as punishment. Using a clever reverse psychology ploy, Tom manages to convince the neighbourhood boys that whitewashing a fence is not tedious work but an enjoyable pastime. In the end, all the boys start paying Tom to be allowed to paint the fence. As Mark Twain himself put it: "He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."

STORY 3: WHY A NON-LIVING VIRUS HIJACKS YOUR BODY
A story closer to the current time and the Covid-19 pandemic involves the mechanism through which viruses propagate and spread. The general consensus nowadays is that viruses exist in a "grey area" between the living and the non-living. A virus cannot survive in the open nor replicate on its own. It instead hijacks a living host's system to produce more copies of itself. While it is "non-living", it interacts with the host in a way that resembles the survival instincts of a living organism.

4. CONCLUSION

Whether the goal is to conquer a state, paint a fence, or hijack a host organism, the mechanics  are similar and the principle is straightforward: if you can get someone else to invest time and energy to fulfil your objective, why not do it? This is the principle of action substitution.

"You scratch my back..." Keep scratching! End of story!

Tom Sawyer painting the fence
(images source: Wikipedia)

Capitalists are fruit pickers: they only take a cut. Communists and pig farmers take it all

Capitalism resembles picking fruit. Communism resembles slaughtering animals.
CorporateNature Metaphor Series No 124

1. FRUIT TREES & CAPITALISM 
We plant trees and crops in expectation of a return on investment. When we pick the fruit of a tree, we are taxing the tree a percentage of its accumulated carbon and sugar, year after year. Yet, the tree preserves whatever growth does not come in the shape of fruit. This resembles the capitalist system where different people takes a cut at various levels but there is still an incentive for the tree to keep producing.

2. LIVESTOCK & COMMUNISM
When we slaughter farm animals, this is extreme taxation: we impose a 100% tax on the growth of the animal and take everything that the animal has accumulated, including the animal's life. This resembles the communist system where all surplus is expropriated by the state. No wonder that communist regimes collapse as people have no incentive to either produce or not to waste resources.

3. COMPARISON
Ironically, a vegetarian diet of eating fruit is capitalist, while eating meat is communist. Capitalists seem to be good at "milking" the goose that lays the golden eggs, while communists go for the jugular and bring both the goose and the golden eggs to an abrupt end (while promising a bright future).

Livestock
(image source: Wikipedia)

Writing a book is like breaking lake ice with a hammer

To succeed: Strike the ice with a hammer in one place; and write in one voice on a single topic.

CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 123

Writing a book is a long-term commitment to a daunting project: it requires continuous effort in the same direction. In nature, this process resembles breaking lake ice in the winter to create a fishing hole. Here are the key similarities: 

1. Book-writing and ice-breaking require multiple blows

Every book begins with an idea in the author’s mind. The aim of the author is to formulate this idea clearly and build an argument around it that is convincing enough to “hammer” the key points home. A compelling argument evolves over the space of multiple chapters where each consecutive chapter builds on the previous one, going deeper into the subject matter. Metaphorically speaking, each chapter represents a hammer blow on the surface of the frozen lake. With each blow, the ice gets weaker and the end goal of breaking it draws nearer.

2. Striking in a focal point works better than scraping and thinning a wider area

When writing, it is essential to have the core idea firmly fixed in your mind in order to keep each chapter focused on the topic. While different chapters view the topic from different angles, they are all directed towards the same end. Getting distracted by chasing multiple topics will not get you space on the shelves of the bookstores. Similarly, breaking the surface of a frozen lake requires blows in the same spot. After all, you won’t make a hole in the ice by scraping and thinning a wide area of the ice sheet with a knife.

3. Editing is gnawing

Editing is a crucial aspect of successful writing. The editing process is gruelling work because it requires making tough choices. In nature, Arctic seals in the winter need to maintain the holes in the ice sheet to be able to come out on the surface to breathe. They do this by constantly gnawing ice off the edges of the hole to keep it from freezing over. Similarly, editing requires constant gnawing, milling and perfecting of the text and ultimately of the ideas. 

And when you eventually succeed in digging a hole in the ice, be careful not to drop the hammer in the lake. You may need it for digging another hole, i.e. writing another book.

Ice on Lake Baikal in winter
(image source: Wikipedia)

Linear careers differ from portfolio careers just like a tree trunk differs from a coppice

Linear careers are like single tree trunks. 
Portfolio careers branch out like a coppice.
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 122

1. Some careers are straight tree trunks:

Many career paths are stable and predictable. If you pursue a career in medicine, you know the steps you need to take: study for years and invest consistent effort in one direction to obtain a specialisation. 

2. Other careers are crooked trees:
The tree trunk of a linear career is not always straight, just as trees don't always grow perfectly straight. In fact, German philosopher Immanuel Kant said that "out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." If you change direction, e.g. move from finance to teaching, the sharp turn would result in a crooked tree in the forest of life. Also, there may be smaller career hiccups (e.g. gaps and sabbaticals) that create knots in the wood grain. Yet, the resulting trunk after 30 or 40 years is still a single massive block of wood.

3. Portfolio careers are shaped like a coppice:
Some people have portfolio careers: a diversified set of activities, such as consultancy, entrepreneurship, sitting on corporate boards, volunteering for charities. This model resembles a coppice. Coppicing is done by cutting down a tree to the ground, so that multiple shoots come out from the stump and grow into a bunch of (thinner) trees. Coppicing stimulates growth and increases the yield of harvested timber. By foregoing a linear career, you get a more interesting and diversified portfolio career which may result in a bigger timber harvest, i.e. higher income compared with a single salary job.

4. A "tree trunk" or a "coppice" career is mostly down to choice
Most trees can be coppiced: typically hazel, ash, willow, elm, beech, oak, chestnut. However, a small number of trees are not amenable to coppicing, for example birch. So it is of paramount importance for the "birches" among us to know that they should not pursue portfolio careers.

Coppice tree
(image source: Wikipedia)

Language learning resembles vine training. Planting in solid ground helps

Learning a language "vocabulary first" is like training a vine on a metal frame.
Learning a language "grammar first" is like building a vertical garden.
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 121

Learning a language is a lengthy and demanding process. It requires hours of reading boring grammar rules and doing tedious exercises. However, this is by no means the most efficient way to reach conversational fluency in a foreign language. 

1. CASE IN HISTORY: MEZZOFANTI
Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti was a hyperpolyglot known to speak more than 30 languages fluently. Reportedly, he was able to pick up a new language within weeks. How did he do it?

Entrepreneur Tim Ferriss explains the method Mezzofanti used: Whenever he would start learning a new language, Mezzofanti would ask a native speaker to recite the Lord’s Prayer. By doing this, he was able to deconstruct the target language and reveal its basic grammatical structures. This proved to be a more than sufficient framework upon which he could then develop further his knowledge of the new language.

2. VOCABULARY LEARNING IS LIKE VINE TRAINING

The Mezzofanti approach gives the learner a lot of vocabulary and merely a basic set of grammatical rules around which to start organising the vocabulary. This process is similar to growing a vine (the language) in the ground and training it on a metal frame (the basic set of grammatical rules). When the vine shoots are just above the ground, they hardly need the frame at all. Over time, as the vine grows, it needs to be tied to the frame so that it keeps growing straight (adhering to the grammatical framework).

3. GRAMMAR-CENTRED LEARNING IS LIKE BUILDING A VERTICAL GARDEN

In contrast, learning a language by first instilling a complete grammatical framework is a much more labour-intensive process that focuses on the wrong priority. Grammatical rules are of no use without  words and expressions. Speaking the language should come first, not be left as a mere afterthought. The unnatural (forced) "grammar first" learning process resembles building a vertical garden, with plants growing not in the ground but on the vertical framework itself. "Grammar first" learning takes longer and requires a lot more effort, just like setting up a vertical garden wall and populating it with plants is harder to start and maintain than planting a vine in the ground. 

4. PRIORITIES AND RESULTS

After all, wine comes from the grapes, not from the metal frame to which the vine is attached.

Vine training
(image source: Wikipedia)

Extroverts are like surface runoff. Introverts are like rivers fed by groundwater.

Extroverts instantly pour out their inner self in one go: like streams of rainwater after rain. Introverts communicate slowly and intently: like spring water welling up from deep underground.

CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 120

Two key categories in personality tests are “introvert” and “extrovert”. Although it is true that we tend toward a certain pattern of behaviour which can be labelled as “introverted” or “extroverted”, no person is completely one or the other - it is a spectrum. Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung gave the following definition: “Each person seems to be energised more by either the external world (extraversion) or the internal world (introversion).” 

1. Extroverts are like surface runoff after heavy rainfall.

When there is an excess of stormwater or meltwater (external influence), it forms a stream. This flow is strong at first but quickly dries up after the external influence is no longer present. In the same way, extroverts get energised by social interaction but are prone to mood dips during periods of “drought” in their social life. Famously, when asked a question extroverts first speak and then think: everything comes out at once, just like surface runoff.

2. Introverts are like rivers fed by groundwater.

A river valley rich in groundwater provides a steady inflow to the river over extended periods of time. While the river is still affected by external factors (water levels rise and drop seasonally), the regular groundwater flow ensures that the river will not dry up. Similarly, introverts source their energy from their internal world. While introverts may occasionally get overwhelmed by prolonged social interactions, all the tools they need to recharge are within themselves. And when asked a question, introverts first think and only then speak, like the slow discharge of groundwater into a river system.

Surface runoff
(image source: Wikipedia)

Walking on lake ice is like navigating corporate culture: slippery and occasionally sinking

Clear ice is stronger than white non-transparent ice on a frozen lake; Transparent companies are safer to work for or work with than murky ones.

CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 119

When walking on a frozen lake, you should step on the stronger clear ice and avoid the weaker white ice. Choosing the company to work for or work with has analogous parallels. 

1) CLEAR ICE: 

Companies with transparent employment practices are like clear ice.

Clear ice is formed when still water freezes directly. There are few air bubbles, which results in solid ice, so even though he surface is slippery, it is firm under your feet. Similarly, companies with transparent employment practices have fewer undefined “air pockets” in the corporate structure and provide a well-charted course for career development. The same metaphor also holds for dealing with or investing in companies. A “clear ice” company has transparent financing and is less likely to suddenly spring a hole and sink. 

2) WHITE ICE: 

Companies with “murky” nepotistic employment practices are like white ice.

White ice contains air bubbles and impurities which compromise the integrity of its structure and make it more fragile and unreliable to support your weight on your journey across the lake. In a similar way, a company with nepotistic employment practices ("air pockets") offers an uncertain future: you would not have a clear roadmap since career advancement is not entirely determined by performance. And when dealing with a "white ice" company as a supplier or a customer, you constantly have to be on the lookout for concealed financial information or quality-cutting practices.

Whether you are seeking employment or a corporate partnership, consider the risks of taking a step off the clear ice and onto the white ice on the frozen surface of the "corporate lake".

Frozen lake in Canada
(image source: Wikipedia)

Services in the economy and living organisms in nature come in three degrees of mobility

The economy is based on three groups of services with different degrees of mobility, just like in nature there is diversity in fixed plants and mobile animals.

CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 118


1. FIXED-LOCATION SERVICES

Physical services delivered on location resemble a tree.

A tree has its roots firmly in the ground and depends entirely on the local environment for sustenance. The tree cannot move if the soil is not fertile or the amount of rainfall or sunlight is insufficient and gradually withers away. In a similar way, a corner shop, a local cafe or a hair salon are geographically fixed and depend on a constant flow of customers. A long period of “drought” would make the business go bust.

2. LOCATION-CONNECTING SERVICES 
Shipping and delivery services resemble a camel.

A caravan of camels delivers goods across the desert and the goods have to survive the journey undamaged. Similarly, an Amazon Prime van makes a journey to deliver goods that remain unchanged in the process of transportation. Often there may be obstacles along the way: unclear caravan trails in the desert for the camel or heavy traffic for the delivery van, but as long as both are on the move, they keep serving their mission of connecting.

3. VIRTUAL SERVICES
Online services resemble a condor in the sky.

The condor soars in the clouds at extraordinary heights of more than 5,000 metres and covers vast distances in a single flight. In a similar way, virtual services like online banking are offered "in the cloud" and reach customers thousands of miles away. While both depend on a physical location for their nesting site or operations hub, both are also extremely mobile. Migrating birds can cross continents when the conditions require it, just like data can be moved between data centres across countries if national regulations change. 

Common Ash tree
(source: Wikipedia)

Bactrian Camel
(source: Wikipedia)

Andean Condor
(source: Wikipedia)

You can't fold paper more than 7 times, nor cut costs at a company beyond confines

Paper-folding and cost-cutting are impossible after a few iterations

CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 117

1. THE LIMITS TO FOLDING PAPER

“You can’t fold a piece of paper more than 7 times” is an internet meme you've probably heard before. The explanation is straightforward: with every fold, the piece of paper halves in length and doubles in thickness. So with a standard A4 sheet of paper, after the 7th fold you end up with a paper blob 1.3 cm thick. The exponential growth in thickness is the real constraint and soon the blob of paper offers too much resistance, which requires superhuman strength to fold any further. The Guinness World Record for the most folds done on a single piece of paper is 12, but this was achieved using a strip of thin tissue paper that was 1.2 km long. 

2. FOLDING PAPER MAY EXPLODE

What if you applied enormous force to eke out more rounds of folding? Well, it has been tried. This viral YouTube video shows what happens when an A3 piece of paper is folded 7 times. On the final fold, the immense pressure makes the piece of paper “explode”  as the cellulose fibres in paper get untangled and released from the structure that holds them together.

3. THE LIMITS TO COST-CUTTING

Folding a sheet of paper multiple times is analogous to cost-cutting in business. When a recession hits and company revenues collapse, management is forced to streamline operations and cut costs. Some companies have a lot of flab so costs can be cut by a lot (like folding a long sheet of paper that has a lot of excess material to fold). But lean and efficient companies have little flab and cost-cutting soon reaches the bone (which is like folding a small sheet of paper that cannot be folded any further).

4. DEATH SPIRAL IN COST-CUTTING
How many employees can a company lay off before product or service quality deteriorates to unacceptable levels and before employee morale reaches rock bottom? And how many unprofitable customers or product lines can a company discontinue? 

In accounting, the latter type of cutting is known as the "death spiral": the more customers or product lines a company gets rid of, the more fixed costs will weigh on the profitability of the remaining customers or products, tempting further cuts until there is nothing left to cut and the company has to literally fold, if you'll pardon the pun. Economic history contains multiple cases of companies imploding by entering a death spiral.

5. TAKEAWAYS

Paper folding can teach us a metaphorical lesson about cost-cutting. How much is too much?

A) Folding a sheet of paper more than 7 times makes the paper explode. 

B) Cost-cutting that goes too deep could make the company implode.

A4 sheet of paper
(image source: Wikipedia)

Standard job titles are Lego bricks. Non-standard titles are lumps of clay

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 116

Standard job titles are like Lego bricks. When a corporate executive launches a new project, this is like embarking on building a Lego castle or Lego spaceship. With the help of HR professionals and recruiters, the executive goes to the labour market to find the Lego pieces needed to complete the project.

Non-standard job titles, on the other hand, are like lumps of clay. They can be moulded into new shapes but the people who hold them cannot immediately fit in "like a square peg into a square hole".

So here is a question for those of you working in a corporate environment: When was the last time you modelled clay?

Lego bricks (Source: Wikipedia)

Corporate careers are nouns. Entrepreneurial ones are verbs

By George ILIEV

CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 115

Corporate careers are static: they resemble the nouns in language. 
Entrepreneurial careers are dynamic: they resemble the verbs. 

Yet, there are no limits to who can be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is like the English and the Chinese language: most nouns can also be verbs, with no changes required: to turn, to spin, to fly; a turn, a spin, a fly. 

And even in languages where the verbs and the nouns differ in form (e.g. German, Russian, Spanish), the root of the word is what the two have in common. So almost any root can be shaped into either a corporate noun, or an entrepreneurial verb. 

In five words: Entrepreneurship is an open door. 

Open doorway (Source: Wikipedia)

Humans can learn from animals and professional photographers how to apply Strategy

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 114

We are all decent photographers nowadays, given how easy it is to use a smartphone and take pictures that are well lit and in focus. But then there are the professional photographers. On a professional photograph, only the key object is in focus, while the background is unfocused, even blurred.

The same principle applies to strategy. The real strategist focuses on one thing, to the exclusion of everything else. "Strategy is what you don't do" - says Michael Porter, the creator of the Five Forces model in strategy. The blurred background is where all the elements of "what you don't do" blend in.

Animals are micro-strategists: they prioritise and focus on doing one thing at a time: eating, drinking, hunting or escaping a predator. Perhaps this is because they don't have the mental capacity to do more than one thing. Or perhaps they only live in the present and for the present as they don't understand abstract concepts like the future.

Humans, on the other hand, with our larger mental capacity, can live in the past, present and future at the same time and end up preoccupied with multiple objectives. Picking one thing to do and focusing on doing it well is very difficult. Yet "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" - says Leonardo da Vinci.

Focus in Photography (Source: Wikipedia)

How long should you work for a company or brew a cup of tea? "Not too long" is the right answer

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 113

This piece of science is shocking: if you keep the tea bag in a cup of hot water longer than 5 minutes, your tea will start getting weaker. "Steep Tea for a Short Time to Get More Caffeine" seems to be the scientific advice to tea drinkers who like their tea strong. If you keep infusing the tea bag, compounds called thearubigins start to seep out and bind to the caffeine, which weakens the tea.

Have you noticed that the same principle applies to employees who stay too long with the same company? When you start a new job, everything is novel, challenging and interesting. After a few years, you start working on "auto pilot": the enthusiasm fizzles out and boredom wades in.

What is the ideal duration then? Five minutes for a cup of tea, five years for a human employee, perhaps?

Tea bag (Source: Wikipedia)

How to win against rip currents and Asian competitors? - Differentiate and specialise!

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 112

How do you escape a rip current at sea? Never swim straight back towards the beach and directly against the rip. Instead, swim sideways along the beach for 100 metres and then head towards land. Rip currents are narrow flows and should be avoided, not fought.

The same is true of global trends. If you are a western company or university, there is no point in fighting against the rise of Asian competitors. Instead, simply do things differently. If you have just fallen out of the Global Top 100 because five more Chinese entities have entered the ranking and displaced you, don't just fight back head on, on all fronts. Instead, decide in which direction you can differentiate and specialise, and focus on cornering the market in that particular field. It is unlikely that you will have to make a choice between more than two possible ways forward. 

Isn't this just like at a beach with a rip current: all you need to do is swim along the beach either to one side, or to the other.

Rip current diagram (Source: Wikipedia)

Humans may have been forced to walk on two feet; Entrepreneurs are often pushed to launch a startup

By George ILIEV

CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 111

In evolution, we are often told that our human ancestors in Africa chose to go down from the trees and venture into the savannah walking on two feet. Recent research shows they may not have had a choice when the forest cover on the continent started disappearing 2-3 million years ago.

Similarly, many entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs not by choice but out of necessity: after conflict in the workplace, losing their job, or out of frustration with their current job.

When push comes to shove, the entrepreneurs simply pick up the shovel.

Man with shovel (Source: Wikipedia)

Note: The research quoted is from The Economist, May 30, 2019: Human beings may owe their existence to nearby supernovas. Cosmic rays from them would have changed the world’s vegetation.

Is your career a bird cage or a shark cage?

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 110

A career builds two cages around you: a bird cage and a shark cage. You may think that a bird cage sounds better than a shark cage but think about it:

The bird cage limits you: from soaring in the sky.

The shark cage protects you: from being eaten by the sharks outside.

The two cages usually come in a package. But do you have any influence on how much of your cage will be a bird cage or a shark cage?

Shark cage (Source: Wikipedia)

Scratching around a mosquito bite is the English way of avoiding confrontation

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 109

What is the best way to scratch a mosquito bite? Scratching the bite right in the middle will make it even bigger and more sore and itchy. What you can do instead is scratch in a circle around the bite with the tip of a pen or pencil. Miraculously, you would get the same relief from the scratching without exacerbating the soreness of the bite itself, as the signals fed to your brain by the touch receptors on the skin do not tell apart two points of pressure if they are less than 1 cm away from each other (apart from on the face, hands and feet). Basically that's what I call "to beat around the bush."

Metaphorically, the rule "always scratch a mosquito bite indirectly" directly applies to the English. The English typically avoid direct confrontation, probably as a vestige of a class society (could the butler contradict his master?) that only started to change after World War 2. With great elegance, the English manage to communicate what they want and pursue their interest in a polite and non-confrontation way. English corporate culture is also notorious for people "sitting on the fence": why get into a fight or take sides if your vital interests are not at stake (as is the case most of the time).

This can also explain why Brexit has spiralled into such a nightmare: it is a major divergence from the English way of doing things. The English are simply in terra incognita in the bust-up with Brussels.

If you don't believe me about English culture, read "Watching the English" by anthropologist Kate Fox. As for the mosquito bite, try it on your skin next time you spot one.

Insect bite (Source: Wikipedia)

Fainting helps humans regain consciousness; Administration helps companies avoid bankruptcy

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 108

If you faint, you fall to the ground. Fainting is usually caused by insufficient blood flow to the brain (e.g. from low blood pressure), so when you inadvertently assume a horizontal position, this naturally increases the blood pressure in the head and leads to regaining consciousness. Thus fainting becomes a self-stabilising or auto-correcting mechanism.

In a similar way, when a company goes into administration (or Chapter 11 in the USA), it is given some protection from creditors as a last-ditch attempt to recover from past losses and avoid bankruptcy. General Motors and Chrysler both went into Chapter 11 in 2009 but subsequently recovered. So did Delta Air Lines (2005) and United Airlines (2002). Let's see if the forthcoming metaphorical fainting (administration) of British Steel will save the company.

Fainting (Source: Wikipedia)

Cats and customer segments sometimes never meet or intersect

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 107

Google Streetview recently took a photo of a cat jumping over the wall into the back yard of our house. It was a tabby cat I had never seen before. I knew the other two black and white cats that stroll in our garden but I didn't know about this one. I asked cat experts and it turns out cats are territorial so in areas densely populated with cats, they share space by agreeing on "usage rights" of the same space at different times of day for the different cats. In this way, the cats that share our garden never meet - but they know and respect each other's visitation hours. 

Customer segments can be similar to cats: if your company has a product that sells to different audiences, these audiences may be so different that they don't intersect at all. For example, Apple iPhones are bought by trendy young people who want to have the latest technology as well as by chief executives who appreciate the convenience of the phone and its security features.

The tabby cat I had not seen before was always coming in the late morning when I am away. Google Streetview let the cat out of the bag.

Tabby cat (Source: Wikipedia)

Buildings on bedrock or sand need foundations of different depth. So does a tower of knowledge

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 106

Do you need to have read Karl Marx in the original to be knowledgeable about Marxism? Or can you rely on the analyses of Marx by other authors as a shortcut?

This is like the foundations of buildings: buildings in New York City rest on granite, as this is the bedrock underneath the city; while the foundations of buildings in Shanghai rest on alluvial mud and sand.

Both types of buildings can be stable. The only difference is that when you are building on granite, you need fairly shallow foundations; while building on mud requires deep foundations. Monopile foundations for wind turbines in offshore areas sometimes go down 25 meters deep under the seabed.

Similarly, you knowledge of Marx (or Aristotle, or anyone else for that matter) can be based directly on their works only (like a building on granite) or it can be derived from other people's works on Marx (like a building on mud and sand). However, if you are relying on others, you need to dig deeper and cover a variety of sources. Otherwise your foundations may turn out shallow and your "tower of knowledge" may collapse.

Building foundations (Source: Wikipedia)