Your Strategy Needs a Visual Metaphor

Even the most brilliant strategy is without merit if employees do not understand and commit to it. Strategy implementation is seen by many as the Achilles heel of strategic management, with numerous examples of execution falling short of plan—from the “One HP” strategy and Yahoo’s turnaround to Bumble’s refocus strategy. One of the key success factors for strategy implementation is how well the strategy is conveyed to stakeholders to gain credibility and commitment. When designed with clear principles, such as a horizontal layout, a visible hierarchy, and labeled connections, strategy visuals can significantly improve clarity and credibility. And while adhering to these principles can greatly improve your strategy with external stakeholders, in our research and work with dozens of organizations, we found that when it comes to internal strategy communication, clarity alone does not ensure success. Without employee engagement, even the clearest strategy struggles to gain traction. For employees to support and implement a strategy, they must not only understand it, they must connect with it. This requires more than abstract diagrams. It requires metaphor and storytelling. Below, we draw upon our research and extensive work with firms to provide guidelines on creating strategy visualizations that will resonate with your employees. Doing so will help ensure that your staff understands and buys in to your ideas, accelerating strategy adoption. The Research Abstract visualizations are great at showing the big picture and reducing cognitive overload. They help people grasp complex relationships and strategic priorities. But clarity itself does not mobilize organizational energy. To build real alignment and commitment, strategy visuals must also be concrete, inspiring, and capable of triggering the imagination. Metaphors play a crucial role in this process. When an organization is depicted as a ship navigating rough seas, a team climbing toward a summit, or a machine being upgraded for the future, strategy becomes tangible. Such symbolic representations turn abstract plans into relatable experiences. Storytelling (as a transformation sequence) strengthens this effect by framing strategy as a journey—from a current state to a desired future. To test whether this approach truly makes a difference, we conducted two large-scale online experiments involving a total of 2,026 working professionals and experienced managers from the United States. In both studies, participants were randomly assigned to view one of two versions of a strategy visualization for a fictitious bank. Both versions followed the same design principles and were identical in content and visual quality. The only difference was the style: One presented the strategy as a structured diagram, while the other used a visual metaphor and narrative structure . See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals After exposure to one of the versions, participants reported how interesting, exciting, and engaging they found it. They also reported on how easy they found it to understand. Based on our prior research, we assessed engagement using three items measured on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (uninteresting/boring/unexciting) to 7 (interesting/engaging/exciting). Responses across the three items were averaged to create a composite engagement score. Across both experiments, participants exposed to the metaphor-based visualization reported significantly higher engagement than those who saw the diagram-based version. Notably, this effect remained robust after accounting for participants’ age, gender, and professional experience. At the same time, there were no meaningful differences in how the strategy itself was perceived. Participants reported similar levels of understanding and felt it was equally easy to retrieve information across both versions. The only substantial difference was engagement—and higher engagement was significantly associated with stronger intentions to support strategy implementation. These intentions were measured using four statements that asked participants to imagine themselves as employees of the organization (e.g., “I would do what I can to help this strategy be successful” and “I would be fully supportive of this strategy”). Participants indicated their agreement with each statement on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 7 (“strongly agree”). Taken together, metaphor and storytelling did not change what people understood; they changed how much they cared. These findings mirror what we observe in practice. In our consulting work with organizations such as Coca-Cola, Lufthansa, UBS, BMW, and several insurance providers, leaders consistently report to us that metaphor- and story-based strategy visualizations help translate abstract goals into shared meaning. Dominik Hug, Head of Strategy and Controlling at Helsana (Switzerland‘s largest health insurance company), described how a balloon-journey metaphor became a central and consistent tool for clearly conveying strategic priorities. His positive assessment of the effect of the strategy metaphor is also supported by an employee survey, in which 96% of respondents agreed that management had informed them well about the business strategy. The survey further indicated that employees particularly appreciated the clarity and comprehensibility with which the strategy was communicated. In a different follow-up employee survey at the international kitchen appliances and coffee systems group Franke, the employee’s engagement score rose by 20 percentage points after the metaphor strategy was introduced. Eighty-two percent of respondents indicated that they perceived significant progress in the company’s culture; 75% said they used the provided strategy material in physical form (such as strategy posters); and 64% reported that they understood the company’s strategic direction and ambition significantly better than before. Together, these insights point to what we call a “second level” of visualization power. The first level focuses on clarity: making strategic elements visible, structured, and logically connected. The second level builds on this foundation by adding emotional and narrative depth. Strong metaphors connect with people’s imagination. Story structures create continuity and momentum. And the visual journey can be updated over time, reinforcing progress and keeping the strategy alive in everyday work. What Makes a Compelling Metaphor for Your Strategy In our work with firms, we found that a successful visual strategy metaphor has to pass what we call the 4 Fs test: It must fit the leadership style, culture, and situation of the organization; feel familiar, yet fresh to employees; and facilitate understanding about the strategy and its elements. Fitting Visual metaphors are not universally effective. From our consulting work, we have learned that metaphors should be related not only to the strategy itself but also to the organization’s industry, culture, and leadership style. Ideally, they are found within the organization rather than imposed on it. In one company, external consultants developed a complex jungle metaphor together with the strategy and communications teams. When the concept was presented to the CEO, he was not convinced. The metaphor felt disconnected from the company’s context and strategic aspiration. As the strategic ambition was to become the third-largest insurer in Switzerland and the company was a well-known sponsor of winter sports, he opted for a narrative about conquering the country’s third-tallest mountain: the Matterhorn. In another example, a global and diversified industrial conglomerate chose an Olympic Games Tournament as a guiding metaphor for the company’s strategy. It resonated well with the decentralized and competitive staff. To check your strategy metaphor’s fit, ask the following questions: Does the metaphor help communicate what the organization wants to achieve, or does it create tension by suggesting goals, values, or priorities that do not fit? Is the metaphor in line with the organization’s general leadership style and (current or aspired) corporate culture? Does the metaphor align with how success is usually talked about in the organization? Is the metaphor compatible with the organization’s sense of hierarchy and decision style? Feeling familiar, yet fresh While they may be a good fit with a company’s leadership style, some metaphors run the risk of feeling overused and culturally exhausted. From our work with a streaming platform, we have learned to aim for the “edge of familiarity.” The idea is to build on stories and styles that people recognize while adding enough novelty to keep them engaged. To test this, run an internal focus group to see how employees react to the strategy visualization (without explaining it): Does it strike the right balance between cultural resonance and originality, between familiarity and freshness? Examples from the realms of team sports, mountaineering, or vehicles (CEOs seem to love sailboats and rockets) can be helpful when it comes to explaining and engaging audiences in a strategy, but how they are used can feel a bit old. So, paradoxically, the act of familiarizing yourself with a metaphor can make it feel fresh again. Which is why one approach, after you’ve found a fitting image, is to play with a metaphor, explore its fringes with employees, and fuel discussion about how metaphors are being interpreted. In one strategy implementation process, we used a balloon journey metaphor and invited employees to play with this image and connect it with elements from their daily work: What should be thrown overboard to lose weight? What else could make us soar faster? In the end, playing with the metaphor and its elements added freshness and novelty. The metaphor helped advance the strategy in multiple ways, from lean execution and accelerated product development to better stakeholder management. Another way is to choose a metaphor that has a good cultural fit but employs a counterintuitive narrative arc. A cost-cutting strategy, for example, does not have to be framed in terms of limitation or austerity; it can be communicated as a journey of exploration or reorientation. By contrast, a strategy centered on expansion and large-scale investment can appear more credible and actionable when visualized through a grounded, sober metaphor, rather than imagery of heroism or excess. A construction site where new buildings (or doors and windows) are added to an existing one may resonate more strongly than a rocket embarking on space exploration. To check your metaphor’s familiarity and freshness, ask the following questions: Does the metaphor rely heavily on familiar or culturally exhausted imagery, even cliché? If so, is there a viable, novel alternative? Does it strike a balance between recognizability and surprise, seriousness and playfulness? Can you explore the fringes of the metaphor with your staff and use this to improve strategy execution? Can leaders and teams expand or adapt the metaphor over time without replacing it? Facilitating Finally, a strategy metaphor must actively support understanding and facilitate execution. Its visual elements and internal structure should clarify strategic priorities and relationships and ideally enhance memorability. One key design decision concerns the role of time and transformation. Metaphors such as journeys, races, expeditions, or treasure hunts naturally foreground process and implementation. Static metaphors, like the overused strategy temple or strategy house, spark little engagement and therefore do not ideally facilitate conversations about the strategy (unless one uses the aforementioned construction-site metaphor). Ideally, the metaphor can then be used over the course of several strategy periods and become part of the organization’s ongoing sensemaking practices. Case in point from one of our projects: Following the merger of two organizations operating homes for elderly people, two airships became one large airship traveling to a distant planet. Several years later, leadership reused the same story and imagery: The organization had arrived on said planet but was now facing the challenge of making it more inhabitable. We have also learned that understanding an organization’s strategy without information about its underlying business logic can be difficult. This is why metaphors that allow such logic to be made visible are particularly helpful. In one example, the aforementioned ship journey was complemented by a second visualization that zoomed into the ship itself, showing the organizational structure and key business processes. It was loosely based on Porter’s Value Chain, with supporting activities represented as engine rooms at the bottom and management processes located on the bridge. To check the strategy metaphor’s facilitating function, ask these questions: Does the metaphor help clarify the strategy and the relationships between different initiatives or goals? Can the visual logic of the abstract strategy visualization be meaningfully mapped onto the metaphor? Can the metaphor be used to show the underlying business logic or organizational structure? Can employees across different divisions clearly see themselves in the metaphor and understand the different phases of the strategy—and how they fit within it? How to Get Started Paying attention to these elements can increase the chances that the strategy visualization will resonate with employees and spark useful dialogues about how to advance the strategy. In applying the 4 Fs to real-world strategy implementation processes, we found the following three-step roadmap useful: 1. Locate the right metaphor. Locate existing metaphors, images, and rhetorical figures in conversations with leaders and employees. Look for metaphors that people already use to explain complexity or change. Listen to your gut and to what feels “already there”—metaphors often emerge from the unconscious. 2. Prototype several options. Select two to three metaphor candidates for prototype creation. Create the prototypes by mapping the elements of your abstract strategy visualization onto each metaphor candidate. Check these prototypes against the 4Fs: Fitting, Familiar, yet Fresh, and Facilitating. Check the prototypes with small focus groups (ideally including people from different departments or units) for understanding, engagement, memorability, and commitment. Choose the metaphor that resonated most with employees and feels most natural for the organization’s leaders to use in their daily strategy implementation work. 3. Apply consistently and frequently. Apply the metaphor consistently and frequently in indirect and direct leadership communication (e.g., posters, videos, presentations, discussions, workshops, onboarding). Act as a role model by using the strategy map with different teams in facilitated sessions where employees can jointly explore and extend the metaphor. Regularly adapt the metaphorical strategy map to the changing territory. . . . Of course, this roadmap needs to be adapted to the organization’s context and to the required speed of strategy execution. The broader conclusion from our research and more than 10 years of strategy visualization is clear, however: Abstract strategy visualizations create cognitive clarity. But successful strategy implementation requires more than understanding—it requires engagement. By combining clear design with resonant metaphors and compelling story structures, organizations can engage not only minds, but also hearts and hands. That engagement, in turn, makes the difference between a strategy that is merely understood and one that is implemented.

Your Strategy Needs a Visual Metaphor

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