Leader as Map maker

Leadership is a journey and an effective leader brings along a map. Maps are useful tools to helping us understand where we are, where we want to be and what route we need to take when journeying from where we are, to where we want to be.

A key leadership practice is that of leading change. Leading change requires that we shape people’s thinking. Thinking guides action….. resulting in either great or mediocre performance. Thinking and reflecting results in robust mental maps and robust mental maps leads to effective action. Shaping thinking is about, shaping the maps of current reality and that of future destinations that people carry around in their heads.

As leaders, we are responsible for the mental maps we develop for ourselves and others. These mental maps are used to guide our journey. Peter Senge in his best selling book “The Fifth Discipline” called these mental maps, mental models, which he defined as follows:

“’Mental models’ are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. Very often, we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects they have on our behavior.” - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

Mental models or as I like to refer to them mental maps, are the maps of how we see the world and how we understand, the way that the world around us works. These are maps and frameworks which reflect our understanding of the critical aspects of reality. Why is all of this important? Well, the key reason, requires us to understand that we all make decisions, resulting in actions, based on the mental maps we hold of reality. Poor maps lead to poor results. The more effective the mental maps we hold, the more effective is our action, resulting to better results.

• If you get the facts wrong, you get the map wrong
• If you get the map wrong, you do the wrong things and take the wrong action

As leaders we need robust mental maps that help to ensure that we take action that produces positive results. The three steps detailed below describe how we go about building robust mental maps.

1. Map reading through sensemaking: I have posted on the importance of sensemaking to leaders on this blog in the past. The MIT Leadership Center article “Making a Difference by Making Sense” makes the following observation concerning sensemaking.

“As a leadership capability, sensemaking closely resembles map making. At the MIT Leadership Center dialogue on sensemaking, academics and practitioners spoke of places, observations, and directions, of ‘where we are,’ ‘where and why we are going,’ and ‘what we should look for as we go.’… Like cartographers, sensemakers create consequences with their maps. The way they understand and then describe an environment has ramifications, because this understanding guides future action.”

As we travel through life we read the landscape of people, events and consequences. Interpreting and assigning meaning and importance to events and behaviours. Through this process of observation, we begin to develop a picture of how the world works and how we need to behaviour to be effective in it. It’s conclusions that form the beginning of our leadership map.

2. Map making through inquiry: We develop and build upon our initial mental maps though a process of further inquiry and learning. This is how our comprehension of reality and possible futures are developed. Inquiry is not something that just happens, we need to make conscious effort to inquire and build our maps. The inquiry we do may be in the form of research, reading, interviewing other or the observation of cause and effect relationships of everyday life. Some of the best learning happens when we reflect on life’s experiences and the consequences of decisions we make.

3. Map testing through experimentation: Map reading through sensemaking, leads to map making, resulting in insight and understanding, leading to map testing through experimentation. Experimentation with our ideas and insights are important, as poor maps lead to poor results. We need to ensure that we have our maps right. When we act, we act within the context of the leadership map we have developed. Through experimentation we test our maps, testing whether we are getting the results we expected when acting based on our leadership map. After evaluating the effectiveness of our actions, we get an idea of the effectiveness of our mental maps. If, after some experimentation, we are not getting the results we expect, then the map is wrong and requires adjustment.

As leaders, we need to ensure that we are leading from a mental map that results in effective action.

• Do you have a clear mental map as to what is effective leadership?
• Do you consciously use this map to guide your actions?
• Do you test your mental map through experimentation?
• Do have a mental map that is shared with others to align organizational action?