What is Mapping?

In business, it is sometimes difficult to know what is wrong. Issues are often systemic and hard to disentangle. Sorting out the important from the trivial may prove a difficult task. Before launching scattered initiatives in the strategy, process, technology or leadership areas, one is often well advised to conduct a general diagnosis of the issues at hand. This is the role of Mapping.

The Mapping process identifies which issues stand in the way of better performance. It is a workshop-based approach, aimed at facilitating the discovery of the organization's problems by a group of executives. Mapping produces clarity, focus and alignment on what problems to tackle, and how to tackle them.

Where does Mapping come from?

The intellectual property tied to Mapping originates in two areas. First, John Caswell, founding member of Group Partners in London, has developed an insightful mapping methodology known as the Progressive Framework. David Butter is John Caswell's partner at Group Partners, and is also a Consulting Partner in the MAC Partnership. The Progressive Framework lays out in highly visual form the company's existing view of twelve key components of its strategy and capabilities. The executives participating in the workshop discover on-line the systemic nature of the problem they face, identify the major disconnects, and build an implementation plan that addresses those disconnects.

Another source of intellectual property in Mapping lies with Anthony Willoughby and his CFA Mapping -- CFA stands for Clarity, Focus and Alignment. Jo Owen, a MAC Partnership Consulting Partner, works in close partnership with Anthony Willoughby. CFA Mapping was originally inspired by the clarity of focus that exists with African tribes in drawing their territory. CFA Mapping process invites executives to draw free-hand a picture of the issues they face, aiming for the simplicity of representation provided by African tribe leaders. These maps are then used to align the group around which issues to tackle, and how to solve them.

What's the difference between Mapping and other approaches to the framing of issues in business?

The framing of issues inside organizations often requires a long and painful process of alignment. It often requires invasive interviews, surveys, organizational diagnostics, team or town meetings, and multiple executive workshops. Mapping collapses both the time and cost associated with these approaches.

By providing a highly visual representation of the issues, Mapping methodologies allow us to "cut to the chase" faster than any other process. Instead of meandering through endless description of issues, the simple drawings provided highlight the problem and facilitate the framing of its solution. Through the live experience of a workshop, Mapping provides both a left-brained representation of the benefits of solving the problem, and a right-brained commitment to producing the required outcomes.

Most importantly, Mapping addresses each problem in the context of the whole company, rather than inviting the framing of each issue as requiring the intervention of a specialist. Specialist approaches to business issues – while commonly used by many organizations – are often prohibitively expensive and often fail to address the holistic nature of corporate alignment.

For companies that prefer a slightly more structured approach, the Progressive Framework will supply a useful guide to leading the workshop. For organizations that prefer a totally unconstrained representation of the issues at hand, the CFA Mapping approach will rapidly provide fodder for a constructive discussion.

Who should sponsor Mapping initiatives?

Mapping is most effective when sponsored at the CEO or General Manager level. This is particularly true for the Progressive Framework approach, which requires that the group assembled be in a position to describe issues along the continuum of external and internal issues faced by the entire business. Because the CFA Mapping approach does not rely on any particular structuring of the problem, it can also be used below the CEO or General Manager level. For both approaches, heads of Organizational or Leadership Development often also play a sponsoring role in launching Mapping initiatives.