By Ken Hollow, unwilling gardener of corporate metaphors
If one more brand manager tells me to “pick the low-hanging fruit,” I’m going to climb the corporate tree and throw the whole orchard at them. Business metaphors are the empty calories of corporate speak — they sound nourishing, but all they do is rot your brain and pad out PowerPoint slides.
The Metaphor Salad We All Choke On
Corporate language loves its metaphors. They’re tossed around like croutons in a meeting salad:
- “Low-hanging fruit” – Translation: Do the easiest thing, but let’s dress it up like strategy.
- “Boil the ocean” – Translation: Don’t attempt something ambitious. Stay small. Stay scared.
- “Move the needle” – Translation: Please make this meaningless KPI look slightly different by Q3.
- “Circle the wagons” – Translation: Panic, but with synergy.
- “Blue-sky thinking” – Translation: Brainstorm ideas that will die in a Google Doc no one opens again.
Every meeting is a game of metaphor bingo. I swear, if someone says “paradigm shift” one more time, I’m shifting into early retirement.
The PowerPoint Problem
Metaphors thrive in PowerPoints. Decks are corporate poetry, except the poet was paid by the buzzword. I’ve sat through entire presentations where the only actionable takeaway was “don’t fall asleep during slide transitions.”
One brand once asked Nana to deliver “authentic storytelling that leverages cultural capital while moving the needle.” She responded by setting the brief on fire and declaring, “The needle has already moved — into my enemies.” Honestly? Clearer than anything in the deck.
Why Metaphors Survive
They survive because:
- They make nonsense sound smart. “Optimize touchpoints” sounds more sophisticated than “post more often.”
- They delay accountability. It’s easier to talk about fruit than admit you have no plan.
- They’re contagious. Once one exec says “bandwidth,” everyone else nods like it means something.
Metaphors are corporate camouflage. They hide the fact that nobody in the room knows what’s actually happening.
Nana’s Take (Of Course)
Nana loves metaphors, but only because she takes them literally. When told to “pick the low-hanging fruit,” she once climbed an actual apple tree in her robe, came down sticky with cider, and demanded reimbursement. When asked for “blue-sky thinking,” she stared into the clouds for six hours and then invoiced the client.
She’s exhausting. And yet, still more effective than a dozen brand strategists with their wagons circled.
Final Thoughts From the Metaphor Orchard
Business metaphors aren’t strategy. They’re filler. They’re the corporate equivalent of saying “umm” for 45 minutes straight. And if you think they’re helping, you’re already lost in the orchard.
So stop telling me about fruit, oceans, or needles. Tell me what you actually want. Or better yet, email me in plain English. Because if I hear “let’s boil the ocean” again, I’m bringing salt.
Ken Hollow, metaphor assassin, survivor of 10,000 PowerPoints
Hi. I’m Ken. I run Two Second Solutions, a one-man agency that somehow landed a fox spirit influencer as a client. I drink too much coffee, blog when I need to vent, and regularly update my résumé just in case she sets the office on fire again. I’m not crying — it’s just spell residue.