Have you ever thought of this? We speak Zoology language in management. We have more animals that one would have expected statistically. Do we think we have a zoo?
Elephants (on the room): there are but we refuse to see them, to talk about them. But there are just big elephants in front of us
Sacred cows: can’t touch them! Applied to people, ideas, whole departments or products.
Boiling frogs: two ways to boil a frog, (a) cold water, the frog has a nice swim, does not feel any problem, suddenly is warmer, suddenly is boiled; (b) thrown into hot water, the frog jumps out and saves himself. This is ‘of course’ a Employee Engagement analogy
Tortoises: yes we do have
Monkeys, as in pass the monkey. Yes we do, we send problems down and up. Usually up
Laggards: they don’t like change, slow to move, slow to adopt
Hedgehog s and foxes.. The fox knows many things. The fox is a very astute ‘able to devise a myriad of complex strategies to sneak attack upon hedgehog’. ‘The hedgehog knows one big thing, rolling up into a perfect little ball thus becoming a sphere of sharp spikes, pointing outward in all directions. The hedgehog always wins despite the different tactics the fox uses’.
Snakes, oh yes, we do have snakes
I suspect the list is far for comprehensive
Funny enough I did not incorporate Zoology into the new Disciplines of Management [1]. Am I missing something?