Copyright 1997-2015, JD Eveland. All rights reserved. GLUE, LUBE, AND MONEY: ALTERNATIVE METAPHORS FOR MAKING SENSE OF ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION JD Eveland Working Paper, jdeveland.com The process of making sense of all the manifest oddness of how organizations communicate and use information is singularly complicated by the fact that such descriptions must be conveyed in the same medium that is responsible for introducing much of the complexity -- that is, ordinary language. Such language is a frequently blinding combination of literal reference and figurative expression -- the latter to the degree that, as Lakoff and Johnson (1980) expressed it, we "live by" it. Figures of speech are so embedded in the framework of our terminology that we are often unaware that we are using them -- or the degree to which our ideas, reactions, and formative utterances are shaped by the association of such figures. Analysts of organizational communication and information processing are as affected by this phenomenon as anyone else. When we try to dissect the structure, processes, and function of information flows and effects, we must employ the same kinds of figurative language that we use to describe our most ordinary experiences (Marshak, 1993). Despite the urging of some analysts (e.g., Pinder and Bourgeois, 1982), it seems fairly clear that there is no way to avoid the use of linguistic figures -- and it would be a bad choice to try. The real choice is simply how well and how consciously we employ them (Morgan, 1982). Thus, we continually face the challenge of finding ways to express our understanding that will suggest as well as denote what we intend to convey. Another complicating factor is the degree to which organizational information processing is in fact the defining feature of organizations (Schall, 1983). That is, there is no way to effectively separate a description of any organizational phenomenon from a description of the ways in which the organization exchanges and manages information. Take away information and communication, and what is left? A conglomerate of individual persons each pursuing personal purposes, a mix of machines, buildings, and bank accounts, a legacy of paper. Coordination, interaction, common direction -- virtually all the things that give meaning to the term "organization" are in fact properties of its communications systems. Thus, we are reduced in large measure to a kind of circular definition, in which organization is communication and communication is organization. This is not to suggest that there are not aspects of either topic that can be expressed in language not directly derivative from the other. It is true, however, it is difficult to make many statements about organization that do not involve at least implicit statements about information and/or information processing.