We provide an overview of metaphor theory and explore implications for systems practice by building on claims that metaphors are central to our ways of understanding. As stakeholders will have different understandings, each metaphor will reveal and conceal different aspects of their understandings. These differences need to be accommodated within systems practice. Our contribution in this paper is to show how metaphors can explain, appreciate and create different understandings. Further, new understandings can emerge from considering different metaphors
