Metaphors of Failure and the Failures of Metaphor: A Critical Study of Root Metaphors used by Bankers in Explaining the Banking Crisis

Abstract

This paper analyses the testimony of four banking CEOs to the Banking Crisis Inquiry of the Treasury Committee of the UK House of Commons in 2009. We explore the root metaphors they employed as they sought to explain the banking failures that had occurred. Our analysis identifies four such metaphors. First, ‘the wisdom of the crowd’, in that bankers were influenced by the behaviour of significant others. Second, the bankers depict themselves as at times being forced to be passive observers of events. Third, they characterize themselves as victims of the crisis, sharing in the widespread pain it produced. Fourth, they are penitent learners, able and willing to improve. The main intent seems to be to frame public discussion of the crisis in terms which diminishes their responsibility for what happened. We also argue that the bankers’ discourse had limited impact in terms of framing public debate, while the metaphors they employed have the potential to minimize learning from failure. The study of the metaphors of failure that they employed is therefore also the study of the failure of metaphor as an explanatory trope and an aid to organizational learning. In addition, we suggest that the impact of metaphors can be reconsidered in terms of what we term ‘the exclusion principle’. This suggests that, while they achieve some of their effects by a process of comparison between adjacent domains, and a consideration of differences between them, they also can exclude categories of meaning from consideration. Our paper therefore contributes to the literature on metaphor, as well as those considering organizational failure and associated attempts to draw lessons from the banking crisis.

Keywords

banking crisis metaphors of failure framing theory

Introduction

A severe worldwide economic downturn took place in 2008. Contributory factors included the creation of financial instruments that were difficult to value and price, the emergence of complex derivatives, little disclosure about the nature of such instruments and who was holding them, an absence of regulation, and weaknesses in risk management at institutional and government levels (Acharya & Richardson, 2009). These practices created immense amounts of ‘toxic debt’ and brought many of the banks that promoted them close to collapse. At this point, governments stepped in to prop up the failing banks with colossal amounts of public money. The Royal Bank of Scotland was by that stage in receipt of at least £54 billion (US$87.5 billion) in government cash, leaving UK taxpayers owning around 95% of the bank, and had posted a £24 billion (US$39 billion) loss, the largest in UK corporate history (Lanchester, 2009).

Responsibility for this was widely attributed by media commentators and the general public to the incompetence and greed of senior executives of major banking corporations. One account of the unfolding crisis by two respected UK commentators sums up this viewpoint in its title: The Gods That Failed: How the Financial Elite Have Gambled Away Our Futures (Elliott & Atkinson, 2009). Some academic analyses have reached similar conclusions (e.g. Clementi, Cooley, Richardson & Walter, 2009). Kerr and Robinson (2011) described the behaviour of senior Scottish bankers as ‘auto-destructive’, and suggested that competition among them for status and domination fuelled reckless behaviour. Ultimately, as they highlight, the numerous inter-connected and often unintended effects of this led to a squeeze on credit that brought wider economic growth to a convulsive halt.

On Tuesday 10 February 2009, four senior bankers from major banking corporations in the UK were called to give evidence to the Banking Crisis Inquiry of the Treasury Committee of the UK House of Commons. They were Sir Tom McKillop, former Chairman of RBS Group plc, Sir Fred Goodwin, former Chief Executive of RBS Group plc, Lord Stevenson, former Chairman of HBOS plc, and Mr Andy Hornby, former Chief Executive of HBOS plc. The transcript of the Inquiry was posted on the House of Commons Treasury website (2009a). The portion of it dealing with the bankers testimony runs to 31,725 words. This paper explores the root metaphors that emerge in the bankers’ testimony which seek to explain the crisis, deal with their role within it, and respond to the torrent of criticism with which they had been engulfed. There has been little study of the use of metaphors in the context of explanations for failure by powerful organizational actors, and its implications for how failure is conceptualized. We seek here to remedy this deficit. Thus, we first consider the role of metaphors in organizational discourse and theorizing, and how the use of metaphors can be considered as framing devices to shape wider opinion. We then subject the testimony of the bankers to systematic analysis, in order to identify the root metaphors that infused their discourse, and consider their impact.

The Importance of Metaphor in Organizational Discourse

The importance of metaphor in everyday life, in organizational discourse, and in organizational theorizing has been increasingly recognized over the past three decades (Boxenbaum & Rouleau, 2011). For example, Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p. 3) argued that:

The concepts that govern our thoughts are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.

The ubiquity of metaphors in everyday discourse means we are often oblivious to their occurrence, and the rhetorical intentions that underlie them (Lakoff, 2004). We are thus largely unaware that our views and beliefs are being framed by powerful organizational actors through the subtle and not so subtle use of metaphors, to shape our perception of particular events and circumstances. The study of metaphors employed by those in leadership positions of major organizations is therefore of critical importance. But precisely how they are defined and how they achieve their effects is much less clear. One key question here is whether metaphors are a form of exceptional use of language to be studied separately, or a normal and indeed essential part of language use per se. Linked to this is whether metaphors are be taken to mean what the literal words denote, or interpreted as a form of second-order meaning. As shown by Song (1998, p. 87), ‘The answers to these questions vary from scholar to scholar.’ For example, Grice (1975) characterized metaphors as instances of breaches of the maxim of quality. Thus, if someone says ‘Jon is a pig’ the literal interpretation is clearly not operative and so a metaphoric interpretation is triggered. Searle (1993) elaborated on Grice’s construal by arguing that when an utterance is defective if taken literally, the listener searches for a meaning separate from the literal one through the concept of ‘similarity’ – looking for a meaning similar to yet different from the literal one. Searle’s position is that the core distinction is between the speaker’s meaning and the literal meaning of a statement. However, whether and to what extent metaphors are always dependent upon the failure of literal interpretation is a matter for considerable debate, as is the issue of precisely how such a process is instantiated.

As discussed by Derrida (1982, p. 270), ‘the philosophical evaluation of metaphor has always been ambiguous: metaphor is dangerous and foreign as concerns intuition (vision or contact), concept (the grasping or proper presence of the signified), and consciousness (proximity or self-presence).’ Indeed, debate about the exact nature of metaphor has a very long and rich tradition. The term itself is derived from the Greek metapherein, meaning transference. Thus, Aristotle in his Poetics (circa 335 bc/1984), stated: ‘Metaphor is the application of an alien name by transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion.’ The influence of this definition can be traced through to the comparison model, which suggests that metaphors ‘involve the transfer of information from a relatively familiar domain (variously referred to as a source or base domain) to a new and relatively unknown domain (usually referred to as target domain)’ (Tsoukas, 1991, p. 568). Meaning occurs through ‘the familiarity of the links between two domains – a source and a target’ (Oswick, Putnam & Keenoy, 2004, p. 109). However, ‘Good analysis rests not on just spotting… “which metaphor fits best”, but in using metaphor to unravel multiple patterns of significance and their interrelations’ (Morgan, 1986, p. 342). Thus, metaphors do more than neutrally depict an external reality. They help to constitute that reality in the minds of the audience and often prescribe (or seek to prescribe) how reality should be viewed and evaluated (e.g. Cornelissen, 2004; Harré, 1984). As expressed by Lakoff and Johnson (1993, p. 112), ‘metaphors can be self-fulfilling prophecies … Since much of our social reality is understood in metaphorical terms … metaphor plays a very significant role in determining what is real for us’. We therefore concur with the view that the metaphors used by leaders ‘are not linguistic decoration or verbal artistry: instead, metaphors are indicative of leaders’ thinking and form a basis of their actions’ (Oberlechner & Mayer-Schoenberger, 2002, p. 5).

The study of metaphors in the broad terrain of organization studies has expanded enormously (Heracleous & Jacobs, 2008; Putnam & Fairhurst, 2001). Metaphor has been described as ‘a primal, generative process that is fundamental to the creation of human understanding and meaning in all aspects of life’ (Morgan, 1996, p. 228). In the organizational sphere, Fleming (2005, p. 48) noted that ‘The use of metaphor in scholarship is an important dimension of theory development and empirical analysis that enables researchers to visualize organizational processes from multiple perspectives.’ In this way, metaphor analysis offers scope for providing rich insights into the intentions of those who create them, and their likely impact on the cognitive processes of the message recipients.

The exclusion principle

It has been acknowledged that dissimilarities between concepts are important in the production of meanings through the use of metaphor (Cornelissen, 2005). However, we would suggest that metaphors also sometimes work through what we have chosen to term ‘the exclusion principle’. By this we mean that, while dissimilarities between two categories of meaning are sometimes apparent and are considered when we ascribe meaning to the metaphor in question, metaphors also can work by excluding categories of meaning from comprehension and discussion. In other words, those who encode metaphors and those who decode them may register comparisons and differences between domains, but may also exclude partially or completely other categories of meaning from consideration by reliance on particular metaphors. This notion is consistent with Searle’s criticism of what he termed ‘simile’ explanations for metaphor impact, which stress the similarities intrinsic to a metaphor’s source domain and its target domain. As he points out, there are many metaphors ‘in which there is no underlying literal similarity adequate to explain the metaphorical utterance meaning’ (Searle, 1993, p. 101). Fraser (1993) invokes principles drawn from pragmatics to partially explain this, indicating that the context of speech and the manner in which it is delivered are crucial to appreciating the significance of metaphors employed.

From our perspective, it follows that metaphors work by an awareness of difference, by a creative and iterative process of comparison between the two, and therefore also by a process of exclusion. As powerful organizational actors seek to frame categories of meaning for wide audiences, this process of exclusion may be particularly important, and is one which we suggest has been under-studied in organization theory. Our approach is also consistent with the deconstructionist project initiated by Derrida (1967), which draws attention to the multiple meanings as well as the intended meanings inherent to any text, and to the categories of thought and interpretation which they sometimes seek to exclude. Conscious use of the exclusion principle in metaphor analysis helps us to more attentively seek out such points of ambiguity and provide alternate readings that are essential to a fuller understanding of a metaphor’s impact. Thus, in our analysis, we identified and analysed categories of meaning that the metaphors employed by the bankers were attempting to exclude.

We therefore suggest that message recipients actively construct a relationship between the explicit semantic domains contained in terms used and the concepts that they seek to evoke. They cannot therefore be reduced to literal propositions (Cornelissen, 2006; Oswick, Keenoy & Grant, 2002). Rather, metaphors are often embedded in the deep structure of a text, rather than stated overtly. As Fairhurst (2011a, p. 181) summarizes it, ‘Their remarkable power lies in the ability to create and privilege new understandings while obscuring others as they become the scaffolding around which thoughts cohere.’ Consequently, they challenge analysts to tease out their implied and explicit inferences, their paradoxes and outright contradictions, as well as their formal content and intent. Viewed as such, metaphors produce powerful, vivid and evocative imagery (Oswick & Grant, 1996a), unless they are so superficial that they add little new meaning (Oswick & Grant, 1996b). They enable recipients to perceive events as if they were something else, and help them to imagine or reconstitute ‘a given world view in a particular context’ (Oswick et al., 2004, p. 110).

Metaphors as framing devices

Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. According to Entman (1993), frames perform four important functions – they define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgements and suggest remedies. Framing theory posits that communicators, such as the bankers testifying here, make conscious or unconscious framing judgements in deciding what to say, guided by frames that organize their belief systems. Their text contains frames, which are manifested by the presence or absence of certain keywords, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgements.

As Fairhurst (2011b) demonstrates, these frames are frequently embedded in both simple and complex metaphors, as an indispensible and all-pervasive part of speech. In particular, root metaphors have been described as symbolic frames that create a base from which more specific, detailed and discrete attitudes can be discerned (Levinson, 1983). Fairhurst (2011b) illustrates this, by citing a senior manager’s account of problems implicit to a merger process, in which he resorted to the root metaphor of the dating process, to draw comparisons between the level of disclosure and wide range of behaviour that he and his colleagues experienced during a merger. His metaphor framed the merger process in terms of such issues as disclosure, seduction, long-term cohabitation and day-to-day living. Arguably, therefore, metaphors are powerful precisely because of their capacity to frame perceptions of events, and are often used with that intent to the fore.

Thus, framing is important because an ‘audience’s interpretation of and reaction to a person, event, or discourse can be shaped by the frame in which that information is viewed’ (Benoit, 2001, p. 72). The frames in any text help ‘provide background understanding for events’ (Goffman, 1986, p. 22); enable leaders to construct ‘meaning by influencing how events are perceived and interpreted through symbolic and linguistic tools’ (Buzzanell, 1996, p. 243); and influence the ‘quality of communication that causes others to accept one meaning over another’ (Fairhurst & Sarr, 1996, p. xi). We subscribe to the view that a frame is a conceptual structure used in thinking (Lakoff, 1993), so that the repeated use of a metaphor in a particular corpus of discourse serves an important framing function.

Our analysis occurs in the context of crisis, and crisis communication. As shown by Coombs (2007, p. 167), ‘A crisis manager tries to establish or shape the crisis frame by emphasizing certain cues.’ A central issue is to explore the strategies that people ‘employ for repudiating or taking on responsibility and thus displaying agency or lack of it’ (Harré, 1995, p. 129). The present study investigates a situation where the senior executives of corporations were using post-crisis communication strategies in an attempt to frame favourable categories of meaning, while also excluding more critical categories from the semantic domain. The study of their use of root metaphors therefore provides valuable insights into the way in which they frame the banking crisis and their role within it.

Root metaphors as framing devices

Although various interpretative prisms are used by different readers to enhance understanding of any text, there is a strong need to explore the ‘deeper level’ of that text. Our concern is to identify fundamental root metaphors – that is, metaphors which provide rich summaries of the world and reveal dominant and powerful ways of seeing. As Smith and Eisenberg (1987, p. 369) express it, ‘They capture a fundamental, underlying world view, but are often unobtrusive with regard to their frequency of usage in ordinary discourse.’

Smith and Eisenberg’s (1987) study of Disneyland explores, for example, the root metaphor of ‘the Disney experience as drama’. While the word ‘drama’ rarely occurred in the language of their interviewees, they talked frequently of ‘the show’, ‘the script’, ‘costuming’ and of making people ‘feel they’re in another world’. As with the image of a tree implied in the notion of root metaphor, these metaphors branch off from the primary conceptual framework of drama. In their study of venture capitalists, Cannice and Bell (2010, p. 4) explained that their aim was ‘to locate the dominant families of figurative language by which industry leaders – venture capitalists, in our case – attempt to craft communications full of implication, suggestion, qualification and persuasive appeal’. In our study, we seek to do likewise by exploring the shaping power of root metaphors as employed by the bankers in the construction of explanations for the crisis, their role within it, and the criticisms which they had attracted.

Metaphors of failure

Organizational failure and decline are complex processes (Pretorius, 2008). They generally result from ‘an accumulation of decisions, actions and commitments that become entangled in self-perpetuating workplace dynamics’ (Moss Kanter, 2003, p. 61). A growing volume of research attempts to explore how top management teams deal with failure, and have proposed such constructs as rationality and bounded rationality (Eisenhardt & Zbaracki, 1992), attribution theory (Barker & Barr, 2002), anti-failure bias (McGrath, 1999) and threat rigidity theory (Barker & Mone, 1998). Collectively, these explore how senior managers attempt to make sense of, and explain, management failure to themselves and others.

However, root metaphors that find traction with the public must seek to reduce this complexity to accessible and simple formats that will be easily understood, remembered and reproduced in everyday discourse. Various accounts of failure often therefore deploy metaphors to describe the phenomenon. For example, Richardson, Nwankwo and Richardson (1994) use a four-frog metaphor (boiled frog, drowned frog, bullfrog and tadpole) to describe various preconditions that lead to failure. But few studies have actually explored the metaphors that business leaders themselves use to describe failure, and with which they seek to frame debate on the issue. We seek, here, to remedy this deficit by exploring how metaphors are employed by powerful organizational actors to frame failure, particularly by the exclusion of specific categories of meaning, and we consider the implications for how failure is conceptualized, explained and learned from.

Methods

Jäger (2001) outlines an approach to data analysis that is consistent with the protocols for critical discourse analysis suggested by Leitch and Palmer (2010), and which we employed in the present study. This methodology also conforms with the approach to metaphor analysis outlined by Cornelissen (2006), and employed by Amernic, Craig and Tourish (2007) in their analysis of root metaphors in Jack Welch’s letters to stockholders when he was CEO of General Electric. Thus, we first delineated clearly the text that we chose to focus on. While the UK Treasury Committee held 17 hearings in all, this particular hearing was the only one in which the top bankers appeared as a group. It is therefore widely accepted that the production of accounts seeking to explain the banking failures and determine degrees of responsibility, the animating concerns of our research, would be particularly foregrounded on this occasion (Mueller & Whittle, 2011). The transcript of their testimony, as with all other sessions, was published by the House of Commons Treasury Committee (2009a).

The transcript of the bankers’ testimony was read and re-read with the intent of identifying metaphors-in-use, since ‘metaphor is rhetorically constituted. No metaphor is spoken or written except in the context of a socio-historically bound communicative situation’ (Eubanks, 1999, p. 195). Specifically, each author read the entire text for sections that explicitly addressed the causes of the banking crisis. The earmarked text was further read to identify those portions which allocated responsibility, either to the bankers themselves, or to other factors such as general market behaviour, unwise borrowing practices or inadequate regulation. At this stage, a doctorally qualified communication academic also repeatedly read the text to help determine the extent of discussion of these issues. The final agreed text incorporating such discussion was then read independently by the authors and the content coded in terms of metaphors that addressed the issues we have identified.

Root metaphors were mapped and detailed examples of each were compiled. This process involved a word by word, line by line and paragraph by paragraph reading and re-reading of the text (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009), and the enumeration of fresh metaphor categories where clear instances of metaphors occurred that did not fit a previously existing category. The process of ‘close reading’ is particularly useful for the identification of metaphors (Amernic et al., 2010; Turnage, 2010). Flowing from this, samples of discourse containing metaphors were grouped under the most suitable root metaphor that had emerged.

On this basis, several emergent categories were then refined and integrated, again by the authors independently. After these independent readings, interpretations of metaphor throughout the 31,725-word corpus were reconciled. This task was accomplished by the lead author laying the categories and examples next to one another, amalgamating some categories and examples, and circulating this fresh analysis for further elaboration to the second author. The process was repeated on three further occasions, until agreement was reached on the major root metaphors that we intended to use for analysis. Where agreement could not be obtained on suggested individual examples of metaphor, these were dropped from the analysis.

The analytic lens then is one of the failure of the banking system, with a more in-depth consideration of the mindsets implied by the metaphors utilized. Alvesson and Skoldberg (2009) point out that any textual or discourse analysis can never fully assert what beliefs or meanings people ‘really hold’. But ‘it is possible to focus on utterances which reflect attitudes, and to ask oneself the following questions. On what occasions are the different attitudes expressed? How are the utterances constructed? In what contexts are they included and what functions do they fulfil?’ (p. 232). Our analysis of metaphors in use seeks to address these questions in the context of a study into accounts of organizational failure and financial crisis.

Analysis

In Table 1 we identify key root metaphors, provide some illustrative samples from the discourse concerned and identify the framing intentions that, in this particular context, they suggest. We then unpack these in detail in the analysis which follows. We illustrate how the bankers’ discourse is characterized by four over-arching root metaphors. These are, first, that of the banking crisis as the product of the wisdom of the crowd. Second, and flowing from the first, they also utilized the root metaphor of being forced to be relatively passive observers rather than agents when confronted at times by overwhelming market forces. Third, these root metaphors were reinforced with the repeated suggestion that they also shared in the problems which had arisen and were therefore, to some extent, its victims. Fourthly, their metaphors depicted them as penitent learners, bound by the inherent limitations faced by everyone. We now explore each of these in detail.

Table 1.

Root Metaphors in Bankers’ Testimony

Root metaphors	Representations	Examples	FRAMING EFFECTS
1. The ‘wisdom of the crowd’	• Just one tranche of the many decision makers involved • The collective voice, evidenced by widespread shareholder and board support for key decisions • CEOs within the communal enclave of interested parties • Just one part of the milieu, who all shared the bankers’ perceptions of risk • ‘Herd’ mentality • Everyone is influenced by experts (such as Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board)	• Lord Stevenson: ‘I would say HBOS had very elaborate systems of risk management and stress testing… and, it is not too much to say, hand in hand with our regulator, who was present at the time… there would be very few Board meetings where risk was not considered along with the risk director present briefing the Board… there were three levels of risk management below it, it was carefully structured’ • McKillop: ‘…but we received 94% shareholder approval; we received regulatory approvals; there was a very good financial case.’ • Goodwin: ‘It’s very much a culture thing.’ • Lord Stevenson: ‘…of course you take note of what the major regulators say and what the opinion leaders say… yes, Chairman, the prevailing views best exemplified by Mr Greenspan’s testimony on the Hill, which I remember watching regularly, is bound to have an influence on us and most other people in the world…’	• Social proof – i.e. most key decision makers shared bankers’ view, which made it rational at the time • Responsibility filtered • Blame diluted • Face saved, since responsibility distributed through many groups and among wide range of individuals
2. Bankers forced to be passive observers when confronted by market forces beyond human agency	• Events occurring too rapidly to permit preventive action • Casualties of the huge blow caused by the sudden speed of unexpected events that left the world in ruins • Crisis happening to banks, rather than being caused by bankers’ decisions • Passengers on a vibrant market vehicle being brought to a shuddering halt by the immovable force of extraordinary market conditions	• Lord Stevenson: ‘As our evidence to you made clear, we got hit by… the first market failure in wholesale markets.’ • Goodwin: ‘It was not that our business was premised on everything continuing to go upwards forever, but that things could turn as quickly as they did… Everyone I think saw that it was to turn at some point, but for it to turn in the way it has and so profoundly and globally I think is the part which has just caught everyone out, and it was not possible at the time to envisage…’ • Goodwin: ‘We posted trading results in March and the situation changed rapidly.’ • McKillop: ‘I think that it is indicative of the scale of dramatic change that has taken place that has affected many banks around the world.’ • Hornby: ‘We are very sorry for the turn of events that has brought it about…’ • Hornby: ‘…we found those wholesale markets even harder to satisfy.’ • Goodwin: ‘The funding markets came to a complete halt and it was a crisis of confidence that brought this about.’ • Goodwin: ‘As market conditions continued to tighten up…’	• Bankers framed as at times having to be unfortunate observers rather than active agents in an inescapable economic event • Dilution of bankers’ accountability • Bankers confronted by an unexpected standstill of the markets
3. Bankers as victims	• The CEOs as financial sufferers and people who have also been punished in the crisis	• Hornby: ‘I have lost more money in my shares than I have been paid.’ • Goodwin: ‘I too have been penalised.’ • Goodwin: ‘I have lost a lot of money.’ • Hornby: ‘…in the two years that I have been Chief Executive I have lost considerably more money in my shares than I have been paid.’	• Bankers similar to ‘ordinary’ people who have suffered in the crisis • Bankers as distressed as other members of the community • Dissipating the intensity of public ire and indignation
4. Bankers as penitent learners, rather than pedagogues	• Willingness to learn • Not yet in full command of all the facts and issues • The facts obscured at the time decisions were being made	• Lord Stevenson: ‘We must improve…’ • Lord Stevenson: ‘I would like to think I have invested the time to go up the learning curve.’ • McKillop: ‘I could not tell you. We did not break it down explicitly I do not think.’ • Goodwin: ‘Again, that may have seemed hard to believe, but at the time, that fitted into the context.’ • Goodwin: ‘It’s easier to go back and see things but we did not see it.’ • Goodwin: ‘It is buried within all the figures’	• Bankers bound by the inherent limits of being fallible human beings • Their own accountability mitigated by unawareness of various situations • Bankers penitent, and willing to learn important lessons

1. The wisdom of the crowd

Consistent with this root metaphor, the bankers frequently employed the tactic of ‘social proof’, which demonstrates the acceptability of a response by illustrating that it is used by significant others (Hargie, 2011), thus indicating that their perception of events had been widely shared throughout the previous period. For example, Fred Goodwin stated:

I do not think anyone saw. I do not think, in fairness even to the Bank of England, that they really saw that it was going to turn this quickly … I think is the part which has just caught everyone out. (Ev 222)¹

Here he refers to authority by asserting than not even the Bank of England foresaw what was about to happen, and this is why it just caught everyone out. He further responded as follows in the face of questioning about the wisdom of his bank’s takeover of ABN Amro, and which contributed significantly to its losses:

Our shareholders approved the transaction in August of 2007. Barclays’ shareholders approved it in the middle of September 2007. After the Barclays shareholders approved it – and Barclays stayed in the fight to get ABN Amro right to the end and revised their bid terms up … that may seem hard to believe now, but at the time that fitted into the context. (Ev 226)

Goodwin’s argument here is that all of the best experts thought as they did (our shareholders, Barclays, ABN Amro), and it would therefore have been irrational to question the prevailing wisdom of the crowd. This strategy is an example of the use of referent power as an influencing tactic, a process whereby the speaker refers to the similar behaviour of significant others to justify their own actions. The fact that the acquisition received a favourable market reaction reinforces this metaphor:

There was due diligence done earlier in the year on ABN Amro. These were statements that were made to the public market. We raised funds for the ABN Amro transaction in late September – they were eight times oversubscribed. So the view at the time, and we could only work based on the view at the time … (Ev 226, Ev 227)

Here, the consensus effect is invoked, by emphasizing that so many people were willing to buy shares (eight times oversubscribed), to strengthen his argument that this particular acquisition made sense, at least at the time when it took place. The metaphor therefore minimizes responsibility, and legitimizes their actions, depicting the bankers as one small part of a ‘herd’ making judgement calls that unfortunately proved to be wrong. However, this opened up other problems. Those questioning the bankers were keen to discuss how well they managed risk, and the bankers in turn were anxious to convey the impression that everything which could be done on this front had been done, as the following excerpt shows:

Lord Stevenson of Coddenham: I would say HBOS had very elaborate systems of risk management and stress testing, worked out over the years and, it is not too much to say, hand-in-hand with our regulator, who was present all the time … I do think we will not be the only bank in the world which had very elaborate risk management systems, where indeed the Board was involved heavily (which is the thrust of your point), but where in truth we failed to consider some of the extreme scenarios that have actually happened. (Ev 227)

Once more, responsibility for events is distributed throughout the system – in this case encompassing all those involved in risk management and scenario planning. The acceptance of responsibility for how the crisis was managed, or the detailed business models that provoked it, is excluded by the suggestion that everyone had throughout the build-up to the crisis thought in identical terms to the bankers. Thus, Tom McKillop asserted:

Securitisation, the originate and distribute model, was seen as a stabilising influence in the financial systems. It has been discussed in many forums that I have participated in. This was distributing risk. This was making the whole system more stable. It has not turned out that way. It has turned out completely the opposite to expectations. Everyone has been surprised about that, the regulators, the companies and the banks involved in it. (Ev 240, Ev 241)

It is here suggested that whatever happened was in spite of the bankers’ best efforts; they did what they could; they had elaborate systems in place to forestall crisis; they merely failed to consider some ‘extreme scenarios’ that by definition lay beyond any rational expectation of occurrence, and for which the collective wisdom of the crowd was inadequate. Agency is simultaneously affirmed and denied. That is, it is affirmed in terms of a stress on sound processes and rational decisions, but excluded in terms of acknowledging responsibility for the outcomes that derived from these processes and decisions. The affirmations of agency that occur may thus be considered agons – that is, they are in opposition to the main terms being used (denial of agency), and thus denote some kind of symbolic conflict in the language of the bankers (Foss, 2009).

Moreover, the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ metaphor encompasses the suggestion that any damaging behaviour the bankers had sanctioned emerged directly from the pressure of others. McKillop in particular drew attention to the pressure applied by institutional investors for greater returns. This metaphor, then, also suggests the notion that ‘the wisdom of the crowd’ in this instance amounted to the behaviour of a herd, stampeding in a particular direction and compelling the bankers to go along with it. Lord Stevenson expressed this most clearly, at an early stage of the Inquiry’s deliberations, in response to a question exploring whether the bankers had thought low interest rates, low inflation and easy access to credit would endure indefinitely:

Lord Stevenson of Coddenham: The question is: did we believe the view which came out not so much of Ben Bernanke but Mr Greenspan and indeed, let us face it, most people throughout the world, that we were in a permanent state of cheap money, and everything was the best in the best of all possible worlds? I have to say, speaking for myself, of course you take note of what the major regulators say and what the opinion leaders say and, yes, that period of a decade, where the supposed Chinese deflation lowered rates of interest et cetera, that was quite a compelling argument. I would not want you to think, however, that we slavishly worshipped that doctrine. If I take you back three years, or thereabouts, for example, we took a decision which was widely criticised at the time on all sides to lower our share of the housing market from 30% to 20% just when the views you have summarised were prevailing, and we took that out of good countercyclical caution; and there have been a number of other decisions of that kind. I think I referred in our memorandum to the fact that about five years ago we deliberately took a P&L hit so as to lengthen the maturity in wholesale markets: but yes, Chairman, the prevailing views best exemplified by Mr Greenspan’s testimony on the Hill, which I remember watching regularly, is bound to have an influence on us and most other people in the world. (Ev 221, Ev 222)

Interestingly, the metaphor of a herd mentality is invoked throughout this exchange. Furthermore world authorities, such as Mr Greenspan, as well as major regulators, opinion leaders and indeed most other people in the world were all running with the herd. While it is acknowledged that these prevailing views must impact on the bankers’ own thought processes, care is also taken to suggest that on some level they began to question it. A religious metaphor is used to underline the fact that due care was being paid to events: I would not want you to think, however, that we slavishly worshipped that doctrine. Thus, agency is both affirmed and denied, in a manner that stresses the bankers’ insight rather than any analytic deficiencies they may have displayed.

2. Bankers forced to be passive observers when confronted by market forces beyond human agency

A distinction has been made by Morris, Sheldon, Ames and Young (2007) between agent and object metaphors. In analysing these two types of metaphor, they show how evidence from cognitive science indicates that humans have highly developed schemas for interpreting action in two spheres – the behaviour of animals and humans, and the movements of inanimate objects (such as rocks). These schemas in turn lead to either agent or object metaphors. Agent metaphors portray events as volitional actions that reflect agency and internality. They include anthropomorphic description as well as similes to animal behaviour, and also emphasize an ascending trajectory (e.g. ‘we fought like lions to get our share price up to where it is’). By contrast, object metaphors signal external causality and depict events as being controlled by others. They portray events in terms of inanimate objects buffeted by outside forces, and are usually characterized by a descending trajectory (e.g. ‘because of the prevailing conditions our share price dropped like a stone’).

The bankers employed an underlying root metaphor that depicted themselves as, at crucial periods, passive objects when faced with rapidly cascading events beyond anyone’s control. At these times they were forced to become observers of events caused by the actions of others. Mention is made right at the outset of the bankers’ testimony of the phrase turn of events to indicate that what occurred was sudden, unpredictable and overwhelming. When asked by the Chairman if they would apologize for their role in the banking collapse, Lord Stevenson of Coddenham replies: ‘…we are profoundly and, I think I would say, unreservedly sorry at the turn of events’. When Hornby responds to the same question, he uses exactly the same phrase: ‘we are extremely sorry for the turn of events that has brought it about’. Note that the bankers do not apologize for their actions. They were sorry for what happened, rather than what they did. Personal responsibility is therefore avoided. The turn of events appears to have arisen in no way from any action by the bankers – rather it was a situation beyond their control, and that no one could have predicted.

At an early stage in proceedings, the Chairman of the Treasury Committee, John McFall, cited the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a bank as ‘an organisation offering financial services, especially the safe keeping of customers’ money until required and making loans at interest’. He wanted to know whether the bankers felt they had sufficiently lived up to this. The response from Lord Stevenson was:

We certainly aspired to. As our evidence to you made clear, we got hit by … (Ev 222)

His response was immediately interrupted by the Chairman, but the passive object metaphor of being hit by suggests that the crisis occurred due to events over which they had no control. In terms of the exclusion principle that we have suggested, this seeks to block the notion that they were active agents in the developing crisis. It depicts the bankers as the passive subjects of processes for which they had no personal responsibility. Passive metaphors were used by Sir Fred Goodwin in response to a question about why his bank had to access public funds:

… the spotlight shone on us for that very key moment at the beginning of December when we saw the share price come down and when rumours did leak about banks being supported in the UK, and our line was that we were going to need to support, the spotlight fell on us and our share price dropped 60% or so in two days. (Ev 222)

Here, Goodwin uses object metaphors of passivity, which include a descending trajectory (the spotlight fell on us, our share price dropped) and depict the bankers as observers of outside events: we saw the share price come down. There is no account of who or what caused the share price to fall or an acknowledgement that this might have been related to, or in part caused by, the actions of the bankers. Hornby also uses passive metaphors in his description of events:

… the difficulty that HBOS encountered was significant reduction in availability of wholesale funding from August 2007 onwards, and it got much steeper … and following the collapse of Lehmans we found those wholesale markets even harder to satisfy. (Ev 227)

Once again there is a descending trajectory, where the reductions in funding got much steeper, and Lehmans eventually collapsed. It was outside forces that resulted in the markets becoming harder to satisfy. There is no explanation of why the wholesale markets became harder to satisfy or of how the actions of the bankers may have been involved. Goodwin makes a similar response when asked about his role at RBS:

I would imagine that there are others out there who think, “There but for the grace of God”. It was a fact, and all the more numbing, that after a rights issue, right through until the middle of September, we were moving forward positively. It was post-Lehman’s that the collapse in confidence, the collapse in markets, just came round and hit us and we were caught at that point. It was very sudden and very sharp. It could have happened to others. (Ev 228)

Here, the agency metaphor of going forward positively is replaced by the object one of being hit and being caught by something very sudden and sharp causing a collapse. Again, the fact is underlined that they were powerless to do anything about it – it could have happened to others, who are now thinking ‘There but for the grace of God.’

The bankers also represented themselves as at times being the passive recipients of practices which had largely originated elsewhere. The following quotation from Goodwin, responding to the suggestion that the heavy use of bonuses by the banks exacerbated the urge to take too much risk, illustrates the point:

Many of the remuneration practices have been imported from the United States. As London has emerged as more and more of a global financial services centre … It is very difficult for an individual institution to make a change unilaterally. (Ev 225)

While people and organizations generally decide to import products and services, here the act of importing is described using object metaphors which are couched in passive, reactive terms – e.g. the remuneration practices have been imported from the United States. The bankers had no choice but to go along with somewhat ‘foreign’ practices originating elsewhere, in the interests of remaining competitive, as it was very difficult for an individual institution to make a change. This approach is consistent with a recurring theme of diminished agency.

Alongside this sat the notion that the bankers had done their best to provide for every logical contingency. For example, some of RBS’s major problems arose from the purchase of ABN Amro at hugely inflated prices. McKillop dealt with this as follows:

We had a plan. When we acquired ABN Amro there was a capital plan and a funding plan in place. The problem was, no sooner had we acquired ABN Amro then the world changed dramatically and we were unable to implement that plan. (Ev 226)

Thus, while asserting that they had formulated a plan, he uses an object metaphor where the world changed dramatically so that they were not able to implement this plan. In this way, the crisis is described as something that is happening to the bankers rather than as being caused by them. Again, the emphasis is upon object rather than agent metaphors. Their behaviours are framed as a series of reactions to fast-moving and deteriorating processes which no one could have been expected to anticipate, and which by their rapidity pre-empted the possibility of preventive action. Human agency is thus excluded as an explanatory variable, in favour of an object metaphor of passivity.

Accounts of organizational success by leaders, in contrast, are characterized by agent metaphors which ascribe responsibility for the success to their own role and wisdom. These stress agency and power. For example, Amernic et al.’s (2007) analysis of root metaphors in Jack Welch’s annual letters to shareholders when in charge of General Electric show that he frequently resorted to those depicting himself as a pedagogue, physician, architect, commander and saint. However, these data show at least some leaders resorting to radically different metaphorical constructs when placed in a context of difficulty. While there are numerous other instances of these metaphors in action, they are particularly evident in the following excerpt, where we highlight their occurrence:

Sir Fred Goodwin: … I think of necessity this was all happening at an extremely rapid rate. The rate of deterioration which took place – and you will have heard from many other witnesses about the impact of Lehmans on 15 September and the catalogue of failures which came after that – by the time we got through into that week, Monday 6 October, the 6^th and 7^th saw a collapse in bank share price, a collapse in our price, a collapse in the FTSE, and a real collapse in confidence. Leading up to that over the preceding three weeks or so there has been an increasingly frequent interaction between the banks generally and the tripartite authorities, and the banks collectively and the tripartite authorities as people were becoming more concerned about how the market was developing, and in that week it just tipped over the edge. I think in a perfect world the tripartite authority would have liked a little bit longer to pull the plan together, but it was very clear to everyone that it had to happen there and then and there was an enormous amount of effort put into it. (Ev 230–Ev 231)

Consistent with our analysis, object metaphors are prevalent when describing the crisis. Goodwin portrays himself as an observer of seismic events, where in essence the financial world was forced to watch a market growing out of control with a rapid rate of deterioration – they saw a collapse of a market that eventually tipped over the edge. In fact there was a collapse of almost everything – bank share price, their share price, the FTSE and confidence. There is the suggestion that the bankers had worked incredibly hard, with others, to avert what occurred – there was an enormous amount of effort put into it. So, whatever went wrong was outside of their control, and despite their best efforts. Thus, the bankers themselves invested a great deal of effort in mitigating its effects, in the process sharing the pain of the wider community since by that stage people were becoming more concerned about how the market was developing. Goodwin here depicts himself as at times being forced to be passive (the victim of circumstances), but also, where possible, engaged and active (attempting to avert total meltdown). There is denial of individual agency for negative outcomes and a diffusion of responsibility by invoking third parties – the banks collectively and the tripartite authority – as the decision-making bodies.

3. Bankers as victims

Not only were the bankers somehow passive in the face of overwhelming events, they also sought to frame themselves as among its victims. The strategy of ‘victimage’ (i.e. pointing out that the speaker has been a victim and has suffered as well, and so can understand and share the pain) is one that is often used in attempts to restore reputation following a crisis (Coombs, 2007). As the reputation of the bankers was under severe threat in this public Inquiry, it is no surprise that they would invoke victimage. This theme was established very early in the proceedings when, in his third question, the Chairman asks Sir Fred Goodwin if he thinks the crisis has affected ordinary people, and Goodwin replies, ‘It has affected everyone.’ His implication, which they later expand upon, is that the bankers have also suffered. This can be seen in Goodwin’s response to a question (Q820) about the pension of over £8 million that he had just received, when he points out:

…I have lost a lot of money. Between the end of 2007 and now I would estimate I have lost somewhere in the region of over £5 million in the decline in value on shares that I have put into the company. I bought shares on the day we completed the ABN Amro transaction – more than a year’s salary. So the decline in share price in RBS has affected me. I am not complaining but it is highly germane to this conversation. (Ev 229)

Here, he aligns himself with the victims, by portraying himself as a casualty too, who has personally suffered considerably from the catastrophic events that occurred, having lost in the region of over £5 million. Furthermore, the picture he paints is one of a brave victim, since although he has suffered substantial personal losses he is not complaining. As a further instance of this metaphor, we cite here the response of Nick Hornby to a question about bank bonuses:

… executive directors were encouraged to take all of their cash bonuses in shares. To put it in perspective, in the two years that I have been Chief Executive I have lost considerably more money in my shares than I have been paid. I think that is showing I have been aligned with shareholders’ interests. (Ev 223)

Thus, while his interests were aligned with shareholders’ interests, who had also shared in the expectation of ongoing prosperity, in the course of doing their best for shareholders the bankers had lost substantially (Hornby says he lost considerably more money in my shares than I have been paid) thereby rendering them also victims of a crisis that no one could have been expected to predict. Victims normally merit sympathy rather than reproach. This particular metaphor may thus be seen as part of an attempt to frame the public’s response in this way, by excluding the possibility that the bankers were substantially the agents of the economic misfortunes being discussed. In fact, one of the Panel members recognized this tactic, leading to the following exchange:

Mr Todd: You are presenting yourselves gently as victims in this process?

Lord Stevenson of Coddenham: No. What can be quite plain, the denial, absolutely not. What is is what is. (Ev 242)

Although Lord Stevenson denies, in a rather convoluted fashion, that the bankers were portraying themselves as victims, the text illustrates that Mr Todd was in fact correct. Indeed, in the Report into the banking crisis (House of Commons Treasury Committee, 2009b), the conclusion is reached that ‘These witnesses betrayed a degree of self-pity, portraying themselves as the unlucky victims of external circumstances’ (p. 49). Furthermore, this aspect of deliberate image portrayal was raised by the Chairman during the hearing.

Q837. Chairman: Could I just pick up a point Andy Hornby made to John Mann. You said, “I don’t feel I am particularly personally culpable”. What exactly are you apologising for? We have been told that you have coached extensively, meticulously by PR people and lots of money has been spent. The papers tell us that, Sir Tom. Are you expressing sympathy because your PR advisers advise you to do so?

Mr Hornby: No, let me just stress, I have already apologised several times on behalf of myself and the whole Board for what has happened. The precise question I was asked of whether I felt purely personally culpable, I think we all take responsibility for what has happened in the two years I have been running the company. I fully accept my own role within all of that … (Ev 230)

Thus, Hornby placed himself in the position of apologizing for what had happened (to him and to his colleagues), rather than for what he and his colleagues had done. While accepting his own role, he declines to spell this out in any detail. The dominant metaphor remains one of well-intentioned people who were victims of events beyond their control, but sufficiently moved to apologize for the effects of a crisis which had also gripped them (they too were its victims). Furthermore, a third party entity, the Board, was centrally responsible for the key decisions.

This latter exchange raises another relevant matter – the extent to which the bankers were responding ‘naturally’ or were giving rehearsed answers following extensive coaching by ‘PR people’. A related issue is the extent to which their metaphors were used with conscious intent. The bankers had been trained by communications experts in terms of the answers they would give to probable questions from Committee members (King, 2009) and thus perhaps not accidently demonstrated a remarkable degree of inter-banker consistency in their responses to questioning. However, it is most unlikely that they could have consciously and consistently employed a complete system of metaphors to explain their actions throughout what was for them a difficult experience, and one not unlike being a defendant in a public trial. While it may be possible to deliberatively and repeatedly use a metaphor, such as when delivering a carefully scripted speech, in complicated and stressful interactions it is exceedingly difficult to overtly control one’s use of metaphor. As discussed by Lakoff (1997, p. 105), when employing a particular metaphor, ‘there is no way to achieve conscious control over all unconscious uses of that metaphor’. Thus, it is our contention that the metaphors employed by the bankers may at times have been used consciously but in many instances they would have been employed unconsciously, so that their metaphors reflect both a conscious attempt by them to shape the message being conveyed and an unconscious reflection of their internal cognitive systems.

4. Bankers as penitent learners, rather than pedagogues

Spicer and Alvesson (2011) noted that the metaphor of ‘the leader as pedagogue’ has become common. It implies a leadership role akin to teaching or, at the very least, the leader as imparting wisdom to others rather than being its recipient. This reading emphasizes similarities between a target domain (in the case of the leader as pedagogue metaphor, leadership), and a source domain (in this case, pedagogy). As we noted above, it has been identified as a core root metaphor in Jack Welch’s letters to shareholders over a 20-year period, emphasizing agency, power and conscious intention (Amernic et al., 2007). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was largely absent in the testimony of the bankers. Rather, their discourse was framed in terms of a root metaphor of penitent and indeed chastened learners rather than pedagogues, willing to acknowledge gaps in knowledge but determined to learn and improve. This is evident in the following excerpt, where Sir Fred Goodwin points out that they have carefully re-examined the events that occurred in an attempt to understand the causes:

We have looked back at that very specific issue and obviously we have done a lot of work to try and understand what happened, how it happened and why it happened. (Ev 224)

Similarly, Lord Stevenson in the following instances acknowledges the need for improvement, and assures the Committee that he personally has invested the time to achieve this.

We must improve…; I would like to think I have invested the time to go up the learning curve. (Ev 224, Ev 248)

In response to the issue of bank bonuses, Nick Hornby portrayed himself as someone who had already learned definite lessons from his experience. In the following excerpt he acknowledges the errors in the previous system of paying short-term bonuses and the need to link bonuses to share ownership over a longer period.

There is no doubt that the bonus systems in many banks around the world have been proven to be wrong in the last 24 months, in that if people are … paid very substantial short-term cash bonuses without it being clear whether those decisions over the next three to five years have been proven to be correct, that is not rewarding the right type of behaviour … that should be a philosophy generally and that some way of making sure that annual cash bonuses are not paid in isolation but are tied into share ownership over the next three to five years. (Ev 223)

Later in the proceedings he is further pressed about his role, in the following exchange:

Mr Breed: But that was all too late. If you had taken notice of what was being said to you a couple of years earlier you might not have got into that position.

Mr Hornby: … when I took over as CEO, we did try and preserve capital, we stopped the buyback programme, we reduced asset growth and we pulled back on mortgage market share. Of course, looking back, I would have liked to have done even more … I believe there are very few people in the world who foresaw the complete collapse and I regret that because clearly I would have tried to pull back even more. (Ev 233)

Here, while he again raises the point that what happened was well-nigh impossible to foresee, he stresses that he did make efforts to mitigate the consequences – they did try and preserve capital, stopped the buyback programme, reduced asset growth and pulled back on mortgage market share. However, he also recognizes that he would have liked to have done even more and expresses regret for this failure. Thus, although mistakes were made, lessons have been learned to rectify these in the future.

Learners are likely to be accorded less blame than powerful pedagogues for errors and misjudgements. Moreover, it is less reasonable to expect them to have full knowledge or provide a comprehensive account of whatever has occurred. This reading is consistent with the observation above that, while key organizational actors appear willing to claim agency in times of success, and employ powerful root metaphors to assist this (such as the notion of the leader as pedagogue), times of crisis produce much more passive root metaphors that frame accounts of failure in terms of diminished agency. We summarize the framing effects of this in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Root Metaphors used by Bankers to Account for Failure

The root metaphors we have identified were underpinned by a clear narrative structure and explanatory framework, guided by the overall imperative to offer an explanation of the events in question, but to do so in a manner that helped preserve or restore the bankers’ somewhat tarnished reputations. The first imperative was to offer some kind of explanation for the crisis. The notion of the wisdom of the crowd does so but, as we have shown above, also distributes responsibility among many other significant individuals, groups and institutions. The second imperative was therefore to suggest that there was a certain inevitability to the crisis, in that once it began (despite concerted efforts to avert its worst effects), events moved so rapidly that the situation was beyond anyone’s control. Like most of those centrally involved, the bankers therefore became at times passive observers engulfed in an overwhelming crisis. Third, the notion of bankers as victims suggests that they too had suffered, and so should therefore be viewed in a suitably sympathetic light. Of equal importance, fourth, it was necessary for the bankers to show that they had learned valuable lessons from the crisis, captured in the root metaphor of themselves as willing and penitent learners.

Discussion and Conclusion

Our analysis reveals a number of interrelated root metaphors in the discourse of the banking CEOs that, collectively, highlight what part they play in shaping perceptions of their role in the crisis. Their own sense of agency emphasizes intensive efforts to manage risk before it occurred, and concerted attempts to resolve the problems once they had arisen. It is well documented that attempts to diminish responsibility and shift blame to others are common strategies in the face of crises, even when it is unlikely to succeed, or may inflict further reputational damage (Conrad, 2011).² Consistent with this, the metaphors used by the CEOs conveyed the view that the perceptions they held of the unfolding events were widely shared by other key actors in the drama – the wisdom of the crowd. This, in turn, mitigates their personal responsibility: if everyone of significance shared a common world view, then it would be difficult to allocate the bankers a particular culpability for what happened. This was complemented by related root metaphors that portrayed them as, at times, passive observers and victims of the crisis. It is supplemented by the notion that they are learners rather than pedagogues, and are willing to improve.

The explanations given by the bankers are consistent with research on self-serving biases, which shows that most of us exaggerate our contribution to organizational success while minimizing our responsibility for failure (Rogoff, Lee & Suh, 2004). They also align with findings pertaining to the fundamental attribution error, wherein when explaining personal failure actors tend to highlight the significance of situational factors and downplay the role of dispositional causes. As noted by Fairhurst (2011b), part of this process involves senior executives frequently constructing the realities to which they then portray themselves as being forced to respond. The leaders thus explain their own failed actions in terms of dealing with an impossible situation – there was no other choice but to act as they did. Attributions enable individuals to rationalize, interpret and explain their behaviour (Winkler, 2010). An important advantage of metaphor analysis is that it can provide deeper insights into the attribution processes employed by others. Thus, our analysis of metaphors in this study not only confirms the existence of the attribution error in the accounts of the senior bankers, but also details four specific themes they employed to attribute their role in the failure.

The metaphors of failure that we have explored are an implicit challenge to those accounts of organizational action which frame success in terms of leader action and volition. If top leaders are to present themselves as relatively passive and/or powerless in the context of adversity, they are also undermining their claims to agency in times of success. It is difficult to see how people can frame themselves as powerful at one conjuncture of events, but as simultaneously powerless when dealing with challenges that have arisen in close proximity to other periods of triumph. This is to suggest that the impact of their preferred metaphors was limited – a failure of metaphor, as judged by their explanatory power. Moreover, it appears that the media and general public continued to still hold them responsible for what had occurred (Hargie, Stapleton & Tourish, 2010). The eventual report of the Treasury Committee certainly did so, asserting that ‘Bankers have made an astonishing mess of the financial system’, and that ‘some of the banks have been the principal authors of their own demise’ (House of Commons Treasury Committee, 2009c, p. 3). This analysis was mirrored in an eventual report by the main UK regulatory agency responsible for overseeing the financial sector, which highlighted ‘the errors of judgement and execution made by RBS executive and management’ (Financial Services Authority, 2011, p. 8) as key ingredients in the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Equally scathing conclusions were drawn by this body about the collapse of HBOS, when it concluded that the bank had contravened regulatory requirements and issued a formal notice of censure (Financial Services Authority, 2012). Thus, the use of these root metaphors by the bankers to frame the discussion in terms of their diminished responsibility for the crisis appear to have largely failed.

The results of the present study have implications beyond the immediate situation and the sensemaking efforts of the bankers (Whittle & Mueller, 2012). In terms of failure, Cannon and Edmondson (2005) suggest that learning from it requires that we identify its occurrence, analyse what produced it and experiment with failure, so we can learn appropriate lessons and improve future practice. The ongoing and highly publicized debate about huge bonuses, still being paid by banks (including RBS) to senior executives for rather mediocre performance, indicates that bankers are continuing to behave as they have done for over 30 years despite the financial meltdown (Bones, 2012). We suggest, here, that the metaphors we have identified in this paper constitute obstacles to learning. If failure is framed in terms of a collective group mindset, with those in key leadership positions viewing themselves as passive observers in an overwhelming event or victims of an (in retrospect) mistaken wisdom of the crowd, they are less likely to seriously consider how they could improve their practice in the future. Their conscious or unconscious use of the root metaphors discussed may therefore be considered as one means by which what has been described as ‘voluntary organizational forgetting’ (de Holan, 2011) occurs: that is, categories of meaning that are or could be readily available become excluded from consideration, and therefore prevent knowledge accumulation, organizational learning and changed behaviour.

Such an outcome would have long-term importance. Our analysis suggests that the major root metaphors in their discourse weakens any drive to draw deep lessons from what had happened, and fundamentally change practice as a result. For example, Mueller and Whittle (2011) identify the policy implications which flow from whether the bankers’ account of events is accepted or rejected. In one variant, in which the crisis can be explained by ‘unbounded agency’ on the part of the bankers, greater regulation might be an appropriate response. But ‘a discourse of external constraints and unpredictable events, outside the realm of human control, sets up a different kind of response: perhaps the need to stop “the blame game” and allow a “return to normal”’ (Mueller & Whittle, 2011, p. 31). While the bankers do not claim that everything was for the best in the best of all possible worlds, neither do they express a strong desire for remedial action. Further failure, in part facilitated by metaphors of failure, may thus lie in prospect.

Theoretical implications

First, our analysis illuminates issues that arise when considering the impact of root metaphors. We have proposed the exclusion principle to help account for their impact. Metaphors may work, we suggest, partly through drawing on the similarity between two conjoined domains, partly through an awareness of their differences, and partly through attempts to exclude important categories of meaning. We have offered examples of this dynamic in action throughout the present paper. The ‘exclusion principle’ that we have proposed therefore has the potential to aid metaphor analysis beyond the present study.

But we have also suggested that any intention to exclude some categories of meaning that there may have been was not always realized. Public opinion still seems to hold the bankers at the centre of this discourse largely responsible for the events being discussed. This outcome suggests that the strength or otherwise of metaphors is not merely a linguistic artifact. This is consistent with the view that ‘the nature and impact of metaphors vary’ (Pablo & Hardy, 2009, p. 824). Strong metaphors in linguistic terms – those that cannot be readily substituted for others, and which seek to impose sharp boundaries around various cognitive constructs – may nevertheless be weak in framing complex issues in the manner desired by organizational actors. Context appears to be crucial, and merits greater attention in organizationally situated analyses of metaphors in action.

Second, we have suggested that previous research on organizational failure has neglected to fully explore the role of metaphors in attributionally activated accounts of failure. Our analysis shows that, at least in the case of the bankers’ accounts of the recent economic crisis, these metaphors seek to dilute their responsibility for the failures in question. In the process, the bankers emphasized what they thought they had done correctly in terms of the management of risk. While the use of such metaphors is explicable in terms of attempts to frame the public debate taking place, we suggest that they also impede the possibility of learning from the failures under discussion. The general literature on failure needs, therefore, to take much more account of the language that CEOs and other senior executives use when describing it, particularly in terms of the root metaphors that they employ. It may well be that the sensemaking processes often employed in describing failure inhibit learning, and in turn increase the likelihood of further failures in the future. In that sense, the metaphors of failure that we have explored in this paper may also be considered as examples of the failure of metaphor.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the invaluable feedback received from the three anonymous reviewers on earlier versions of this paper. We also would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance received from Dr Naheed Tourish with the data analysis that it contains.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial of not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biography

Dennis Tourish is Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at the School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Fellow of the Leadership Trust Foundation. He has published extensively on leadership and organizational communication issues, in journals such as Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, Organization, Leadership, British Journal of Management and Long Range Planning. His current research interests centre on problems with leadership practice, leadership and discourse, debates around the notion of evidence-based management, and social influence processes within organizations.

Owen Hargie is Professor in the School of Communication at the University of Ulster and Associate Professor at the University of Chester, England and Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland. He is Vice-Chair of the ‘Interpersonal Communication and Social Interaction Section’ of the European Communication Research and Education Association and an Elected Member of the prestigious Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. He has published some 20 books, 50 book chapters and over 100 articles in refereed journals. He was recently awarded a Senior Distinguished Research Fellowship by the University of Ulster in recognition of his extensive research achievements. Address: School of Communication, University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim BT37 0QB, Northern Ireland. Email: Odw.Hargie@ulster.ac.uk

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