Metaphor is a tool that helps the speaker to explain clearly and vividly, and the listener to understand the essence of things.

What is a Metaphor for?

To Explain a Complex Issue to the Audience

To transfer the properties of an image familiar to the audience to a complex entity that needs to be explained.

This will not give 100% understanding of the issue, but it will form an imagery that the audience can consider and use in the moment.

For example, using a metaphor, you can easily explain to a person not from the world of science what a photon is: "Imagine that energy is a Lego constructor. And its smallest piece, the smallest fraction of energy, is a photon."

For Visualization

Allows you to create a concrete image of a complex issue and reflect it on slides.

For example, business processes can be metaphorically visualized as a paper boat running along a stream. It can be affected by external factors (weather, current, children) and internal factors (fragility of the structure).

Combining Different Entities into a System

Helps to combine many complex concepts into one image understandable to the audience.

Every company has different business processes, so when speaking to an audience of entrepreneurs, it is difficult to choose an example that is relevant to all of them at once. Using a metaphor helps to generalize these processes, and each listener will remember the one that is closest to them.

Algorithm for Creating a Metaphor

It's difficult to come up with a metaphor at the moment without practicing, so we recommend doing this when preparing your speech.

1. Highlight the part you want to highlight. It is better to select something one, it will help not to lose focus and not atomize all the complex entities in the speech.
2. At the expense of what can you simplify the essence? The main thing is that this simplification does not harm the speech, its goals and objectives.
3. Think of an analogy — what can you compare the part with simplification? What is it like in life and at the expense of what?

How to Distinguish a Good Metaphor From a Bad One?

The task of a good metaphor is to explain the essence of things through a clear image or system of images. If it fails to do this (the metaphor complicates rather than simplifies understanding), it is a bad metaphor.

To avoid the situation when the audience does not understand the image you have chosen for the metaphor, it is recommended to conduct an audience analysis at the preparation stage. It will help you to be in the same context with the audience and use examples and metaphors that are understandable to them.

Another problem can arise from a metaphor that is too vivid, which takes all the attention and turns from a tool-helper into the highlight of the program (instead of the main content).

In What Parts of a Speech do Metaphors Work Best?

• At the beginning of the speech. To create a surface understanding that will unfold and elaborate in the main context of the speech.
• At the end of the speech. To return to the image, recall it, trace the transformation and organically exit the topic with it.