The Corporate Menagerie – Why the Menagerie? Why Animals?
I blame my Mother – God rest her soul. She used to describe people as animals and would hoot at her own imagination. It must have penetrated my subconscious because I have tended to do the same – for my sins!
Then, of course, we use metaphors in everyday language e.g. brave as a lion, quiet as a mouse etc. So the ideas were already planted, I suppose. At the time that the Menagerie first formed in my mind I was designing and delivering soft skills training programmes on behalf of my business, Training Concepts and I always tried to make the classroom delivery interesting, motivational and Innovative, because people learn best when they are fully engaged.
I started to introduce animal characters into my Programmes with short two-line rhymes to describe them and these characters formed some really useful learning exercises. It wasn’t too long before it occurred to me that I could write a really interesting, educational and entertaining Book around these creatures. The title seemed logical but I didn’t estimate it would take me six years!
Next blog post: So why did it take so long, Tom?