Juggling of metaphors as a dynamic key to elusive challenges of governance

Governance as "juggling" -- Juggling as "governance" (Part #8)

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The Open University offers a course on managing complexity which features juggling (Systems Practice: unpacking the juggler metaphor). The benefits of teaching students how to juggle is held to be that it embodies system thinking and grounds environmental metaphors, thereby helping to transcend paradigms, and promote well-being (Brendon M. H. Larson, Embodying the path of sustainability: reflections on "learning to juggle" in environmental pedagogy (Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2015) .

Other examples include:

• Kevin Eikenberry: Leadership and Juggling: the unlikely lessons (Leadership and Learning, 17 June 2013)
• Philip N. Cohen: A lot of juggling metaphors in the air -- but what are people juggling? (Family Inequality, 19 July 2012)
• Bill Giduz: Trickle Down Juggling: Buzan and Gelb Try to Change the World by Teaching Juggling to the Corporate Elite (International Jugglers Association, Winter 1994-95)
• J. F. M. Hugo: Teaching consultation skills using juggling as a metaphor (South African Family Practice, 48, 2006, 5)
• Margaret W. Ferguson: Juggling the Categories of Race, Class and Gender (In: A. R. Jones and Betty S. Travitsky, Women in the Renaissance: An Interdisciplinary Forum, 1991)

The arguments to this point tend to emphasize that what is juggled is either extremely loosely defined (when the term is loosely used) or is very well-defined -- appropriately symbolized in the latter case by the similar balls which are typically juggled in practice. Those skills of course extend to objects of disparate form -- clubs, and the like.

The argument may however be taken further by exploring the situation in which the objects are not bounded like balls through being well-defined, even if of a conceptual nature. Their boundaries may be more permeable and fluid as is characteristic of conditions when they are susceptible to definitional nuances, potentially even a source of fundamental disagreement. In such a case, as with fundamental particles, their definition may be subject to an uncertainty principle. They may then be better handled conceptually through one or more metaphors -- as with an electron distinguished either as a wave or as a particle.

Further insight into the process is available through the arguments of Douglas Hofstadter (Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: computer models of the fundamental mechanisms of thought, 1995). This notably includes an introductory chapter on The Unconscious Juggling of Conceptual Objects (1995). Unfortunately, other than being implied, this theme is not developed in a subsequent study (Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander, Surfaces and Essences: analogy as the fuel and fire of thinking, 2013). The original emphasis on flow is consistent with the emphasis on flow in juggling as practiced, readily framed in aesthetic terms (Todd Strong, Juggling and Flow, Perceptual Motion)

The point can be explored through the arguments of Edward de Bono (Six Thinking Hats, 1985; Six Action Shoes: designing or choosing an appropriate course of action, 1991; Six Value Medals, 2005). In each case it is a matter of engaging through the metaphor with contrasting cognitive modalities. A major merit of his framework is that the contrasting modalities are understood to be complementary. Ironically, some jugglers would indeed be able to juggle hats and shoes in practice -- rather than metaphorically.

From this perspective, there is a case for exploring the schema of governance as having been overdefined. Typically this would be evident through the sets of labels which are held to be unambiguous -- possibly having been strictly defined in legal documents. This applies as much to the naming of government ministries, departments, and international agencies as to the sets of categories through which the challenges of governance are framed by management consultants. There are many examples of the latter, typically associated with the franchised use of such schema (Team Role Inventories, etc).

Rather than considering the functions to be neatly and unambiguous defined in this way, there is a case for considering each function to be framed by one or more metaphors -- possibly such as to elicit even more. The challenge of governance can then be understood as one of juggling such metaphors -- whichever are preferred and however they are communicated. Such use of "juggling" can of course be readily deprecated if it is communicated. However it is clear that any leader is free to juggle such metaphors personally in using them as cognitive lenses through which to frame the challenges faced.

The metaphors can be shared for rhetorical purposes or treated as confidential -- if not recognized to be of significant proprietary value, as separately discussed (Future Coping Strategies: beyond the constraints of proprietary metaphors, 1992). Hypothetically, very powerful metaphors may be of very high strategic value -- justifying their existence and use as secret, as has been done with the geographic maps of centuries past.

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