1. The football coach told the players that they had been lazy all summer but that he was going to lick them into shape before the first game of the season.
2. We don’t have much time left, and this report is due tomorrow. Do you think we have enough time to whip it into shape ?

This expression comes from the very old belief that bear cubs were born misshapen and had to literally be licked into shape by their mothers and fathers. By the late 1600s, this phrase was being used with the figurative meaning it has now.