Chapter 14. Maps are Weapons
A small group of Hungarian troops were camped in the Alps during the First World War. Their commander, a young lieutenant, decided to send out a small group of men on a scouting mission. Shortly after the scouting group left it began to snow, and it snowed steadily for two days. The scouting squad did not return, and the young officer, something of an intellectual and an idealist, suffered a paroxysm of guilt over having sent his men to their death. In his torment he questioned not only his decision to send out the scouting mission, but also the war itself and his own role in it.
He was a man tormented.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, on the third day the long-overdue scouting squad returned. There was great joy, great relief in the camp, and the young commander questioned his men eagerly. “Where were you?” he asked. “How did you survive, how did you find your way back?” The sergeant who had led the scouts replied: “We were lost in the snow and we had given up hope, had resigned ourselves to die. Then one of the men found a map in his pocket. With its help we knew we could find our way back. We made camp, waited for the snow to stop, and then as soon as we could travel we returned here.” The young commander asked to see this wonderful map.
It was a map not of the Alps but of the Pyrenees.[1]
Maps enable people to orientate themselves — to find their position and identify options for movement. And any map is better than no map at all as even a wrong map encourages people to have the deeper discussions they need to align around a common direction. Maps work as a common language — “do we all agree this is where we currently are?” — and allow people to challenge assumptions they can all clearly see — “wouldn’t it be quicker going that way rather than this?” — which aids alignment and learning. The use of maps for strategic discussions — “why are we making this move here and not that move there?” — means that leaders can explore options and learn together with their teams, rather than feeling the pressure to prove their authority by crafting water-tight narratives beforehand about the right course of action to take. Maps activate collective intelligence, increasing the likelihood of spotting unorthodox moves and addressing the equally important questions of implementation early. It is this that, ultimately, brings victory.
Fig. 31: Leaders Discussing Strategic Moves With Teams
Maps enable people to find better moves through a Landscape and course correct along the way as new information comes to light. And in an uncertain world — where we often have to start to act without all the information we wished we had — having a systematic way to incorporate new information and adapt in real-time is an essential skill because ‘sticking to a plan’ built on incomplete information is not the attribute of a determined[2] leader but of an inflexible and stubborn one.
Yet most organisations don’t have maps,[3] meaning many leaders are making moves blindly, leaping without looking.[4] Modern organisations are too complex for any leader to keep their entire business Landscape and all its moving parts in mind. Even if they could they still need a clear way to communicate intent to their team and, if you have any doubt as to how difficult this is, try to give someone instructions to a far away location, then compare how much easier this is to do with a map. The reason leaders in most walks of life use maps is that they increase situational awareness — the ability to seeing what’s going on around you and find options. It’s time business leaders caught up.
Six Characteristics of Maps
A map, of course, is not the Landscape. But a reasonable map of a Landscape enables you to understand the current situation and where your options for action are. This is because maps are:
1. Visual
2. Context-specific
3. Have an anchor
4. Show relevant components
5. Show the position of components relative to the anchor
6. Reveal options for movement.
1. Maps are Visual
With a map you can quickly scan a huge Landscape (think of Themistocles taking in the entirety of Greece in his deliberations). And the visual nature of maps means that many people can easily see the wider situation, challenge assumptions and learn together (for example, the Greeks didn’t lay an ambush at the Vale of Tempe as the Macedonian king explained there was a secret pass around the Vale and everyone could see the implications of this). Maps therefore enable people to comprehend a wider situation and compare options for action — why this move here is better than that move there (why sending forces North to Thermopylae is better than retreating South).
Yet the business world prefers narratives presented in powerpoint, built on top of assumptions in spreadsheets, even though these tightly-woven stories are difficult to challenge. To explain why tis is a problem let’s return to our example in chapter 12 where a hotel receptionist is giving you detailed instructions about how to get to where you need to go in an unknown city. You have to concentrate hard on following their instructions and have no way of challenging them, because you don’t know the situation (i.e. this city) as well as they do. But, with the aid of a map you could ask challenge assumptions (“why should I go this way when that way there takes me along the river?” you may ask. “Ah” says the receptionist “I assumed you wanted the quickest route. But if you have time of course go along the river, it’s a much more pleasant walk, even if it’s a bit longer”).
Challenging tightly-crafted narratives backed up by spreadsheets and delivered in powerpoint is neither simple because, (like the receptionist) the people presenting know the situation better than you do, nor is it encouraged as a significant amount of time and money has usually gone into crafting it. The expectation is that you passively agree to the ‘brilliant plan’ being put forward and, if it fails, blame the “doers”[5] who couldn’t execute properly. But, we must remember that, “every failure of implementation is, by definition, also a failure of formulation”[6].
2. Maps are Context-specific
Themistocles used a map of Greece to determine his options, not a map of France, despite France also having mountains, a coastline and cities. This is because each Landscape is unique — no two coastlines are the same, no two mountain ranges have exactly the same features and no two cities are located in exactly the same place. Yet many organisations try to imitate success by directly copying the actions of others, whilst failing to recognise their context (or Landscape) is different. Copying what Apple did might bring some success if you’re also a global tech giant on the US West-coast,[7] but will be less useful the more different your context is. You can (should) learn from others but you can’t copy them and expect the same results as you’re operating in a different Landscape.[8]
Just as Themistocles didn’t use a map of France to identify moves to counter the Persian invasion of Greece, your organisation shouldn’t imitate moves made by someone else, somewhere else, at some other time. Your Landscape is different (a different market, different customers, different cultures, different regulations, different rivals) and you need to discover moves that are relevant to the opportunities and threats you face now. This is why you need a map that is context-specific, showing you where you are and what surrounds you today.
3. Maps have an Anchor
All maps have an anchor, which enables you to orientate[9] yourself. For example, geographical maps show North so, when the likes of King Leonidas set off to defend the narrow passage at Thermopylae, they head off in the right direction. The North Star for modern organisations — your anchor — should be user needs, because it’s only by satisfying the needs of various users (customers, employees, shareholders, citizens etc.) that you attract sufficient quantities and qualities of those things you need to prosper (revenue, labour, capital, goodwill etc). Organisations that do not orientate themselves around user needs often struggle with internal battles over power and resources as there is no common aim or direction uniting these disparate forces.
4. Maps show Components
Geographical maps show natural features — mountains, deserts, jungles, rivers, lakes or forests. City maps show man-made features — buildings, streets, parks and the various transport systems. Ordinance survey maps show contours — so hikers know where the heights and depths in the landscape are. All of these are components are relevant to their particular context, (hence why we don’t use ordinance survey maps to navigate around a city or vice versa). For a map of a business Landscape the components will be products or services provided by the market, the supplies and practices needed to make those, and the underlying technologies being used.
5. Maps show Position
The map’s anchor shows the position of various components. For example, Themistocles could see that Thermopylae was North of Athens and on the Persians invasion path, making it a good place to lay an ambush. And a map of you business Landscape will also show the position of your components relative to your users, with the ones closest to them (products or services) being the most visible and therefore the ones they care about most. While the components needed to make those products and services (supplies, practices, underlying technologies) are largely invisible to users, so they care about these less. This is why selling your products and services by emphasising how you make them isn’t a great marketing strategy (as users simply don’t care). Far better instead to emphasise how your products and services will help satisfy users’ needs.
6. Maps reveal potential for Movement
The previous five characteristics of maps — that they’re visual, context-specific, have an anchor and show components and their relative position) — produce the final characteristic, key characteristic of maps: They provide the potential for movement. Once the Greeks understood, with the aid of a map, the multiple wheres they could confront the Persians (at the Isthmus, in the Vale or at the Hot Gates) they could compare them, which helped them answer the most important question in strategy — why should we make this move here and not that move there.[10]
This series of books I’m writing is concerned with this one question: How can we learn how to out-manoeuvre rivals. It starts with being able to out-think them. And a map of the Landscape is the first step in helping us do this.
Fig. 32: Maps Are Weapons
1 This was a story shared at a medical conference in 1972 by Nobel Laureate, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi who, whilst a medical student in Budapest, served in World War https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2012/04/23/any-old-map-will-do-meets-god-is-in-every-leaf-of-every-tree/
2 See Book One, chapter 8
3 Most organisations of course have many things they call maps (mind maps, road maps, process maps etc) but, as we’ll show in chapter 18, these are not real maps.
4 See chapter 12, figure 24
5 See Book One, chapter 1
6 Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning.
Henry Mintzberg (1994) p59
7 However, even this might make you look like a copycat company and a poor imitator of an innovative player, so would unlikely to generate the same successes.
8 We also explained why in more detail in the Introduction to Book One.
9 We get the expression to ‘orientate’ ourselves from early maps, which used to indicate where East was as this is the direction from which the sun rises.
10 The Hierarchy of Strategic Thinking, see Chapter 11.
