![]() ![]() What matters in business has nothing to do with what matters in golf. It is awful because there are no real parallels between performance in business and performance in golf. Golf, however, is a perfectly awful metaphor in business. These metaphors lack something in freshness and creativity, but they make up for it in clarity and color. Tip of the iceberg conjures up a superficial observation. A well-oiled machine suggests an operation running smoothly. Low-hanging fruit refers to easy, early solutions. Some common metaphors in business work well. Executives who use golf as a metaphor for business success are trying to be creative, and that is fine. A well-chosen metaphor can be terrific for a speech or presentation. A metaphor (and its like-as cousin, the simile) is a comparison for the sake of shedding light on something. ![]() In contrast, metaphors can be good or bad. There are hundreds of them, Lord help us all. Business is full of clichés, too: walking the talk, win-win solution, thinking outside the box, synergy, paradigm shift, pushing the envelope, today's highly competitive marketplace, proactive, a perfect storm, leverage-and we're just getting started. A cliché is just an overused and typically tin-sounding word or phrase that has lost whatever zest it once had. That's what we mean by using golf as a metaphor for business.īy metaphor we are not referring to clichés, which are another problem altogether. Maybe the speaker will even step away from the lectern and pretend to size up that 20-foot putt for a birdie on the 18th hole, and then go on to expound on the parallels between golf and business. Sooner or later almost every manager will find himself in a town-hall meeting or a skip-level luncheon or an after-dinner speech when a senior executive-his own boss, perhaps-begins to wax eloquent on golf as the perfect comparison for business. They give license to so many executives to use this wonderful game as a metaphor, absurd though it is, for business performance. There's just one problem with major golf tournaments and with golf in general. You need not be a golfer-I myself haven't swung a driver in 23 years-indeed, you need not even enjoy sports to find special beauty in the magnolias, dogwoods, and azaleas of the Augusta National Golf Course and in the glorious traditions of The Masters. This week the best golfers in the world converge on Augusta, Georgia, to compete in The Masters. Have a beautiful weekend.Regular readers with a good memory have requested that we rerun this essay on The Masters, golf, and other bad metaphors for business. Farrago is a song about pushing through those experiences and learning to trust yourself and your reality again. Even without another person, self doubt can be a persuasive voice that holds you back. The extent of that can be catastrophic - take gaslighting and manipulation, the toll that has on your emotional health. Sometimes you meet people in life that make you question yourself. I started writing Farrago in 2018, when circumstances were a little different but my resolve was the same. The Special Vinyl will be with us in a couple more weeks as will the Detour 7" for our Annual Music Club Members. We're very grateful for the support & patience & hope you enjoy the record in all it's formats. Just a big ink shortage & hardly any pressing plants to choose from. We're really sorry about the delay and at the same time, we know there's nothing we could have done differently. The latest update is that certain items are starting to despatch. I'm hoping that some of you start receiving vinyl and CDs this week.
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