Today I was having a think about planning. Having a ‘think’ is something I find enjoyable, and for me usually comes as a result of getting all the “ducks lined up in a row” – with the “reward” of having a bit of a loaf – and a “think”.
I have been listening to and reading a very wide range of topics in the last few weeks – for two reasons. Firstly – I like it, which is my favourite reason for doing anything. Secondly I find there is often a kind of “synthetic creativity” that happens – and ideas from different areas interlock to give me insights. And I like insights too.
The mixture of reading was across hypnosis, sales, nlp and Donald Trump’s book “how to think like a Billionaire”. Then some “Culture Code” by Clotaire Rapaille, then some research on the diving reflex, hypercapnia and high pressure oxygen as a method of health improvement.
The insight that jumped out of this quagmire of cross fertilization is about the idea of “maps”.
Everyone who creates a map – does so for a purpose. The early maps of the explorers in the 18th Century – were created both so to not get lost – and also to claim the lands discovered for whichever country they sailed for. Another example is the use of maps for the American settlers to “purchase” territory from the locals.
More commonly we just create a map for someone – so they can find something. eg your house or the movie theatre.
Or it might be a “treasure map” with a big X.
In business terms a “map” is the same as a geographical map – in that it (hopefully) takes us from where we are to where we want to go. And in the simplest terms for businesses – this means having some measures in place with current scores – and our scores will change as we approach the business state or ‘location’ we choose as our ‘target’ or ‘X’.
The measures might be financial ones like sales or profit or ROI or EBIT or Revenue per employee, or bank balance. Or might be activity measures like number of sales, number of proposals, conversion rates, productivity, tons of output/day, number of customers and so on – or combinations.
With one most excellent client the key measures proved to be daily margin on parts and daily productivity % on labour. The daily scores are on the board for all to see, next to last weeks score and month to date. So there are just two main things on the “map”. And it took a great deal of time and analysis to discover these were the best items [so far] to have on the map.
The insight was that in creating a map – for whatever purpose – has at least two vital components. The first is to know the purpose of the map. Whether it is to do a land grab in early USA, or whether it is to build a successful business, or to become a person of excellent health. It is vital to know the purpose of the map.
The second component is the realization that it is not only the “putting things on the map” that is important as a guide to achieving the purpose of the map – it is also the “leaving things off the map” that have an impact. With the business example above – having only two key criteria made the map easy to follow. If there were 16 daily measurements plus weekly aggregates on the board – the team would get “lost”. One of the key determinants of whether the map will take us where we want to go – is therefore what we leave off.
In the creation of the map it can help to determine where we want to finish – and work backwards – especially with everything other than geography. There is delightful tool called PERT which does this very elegantly – more about that in a later post.
The big insight was that people are often busy following their maps – often without realizing that they even have a map – and rarely ever stop to have a ‘think’ about whether their map is taking them to a place they want to go. And to check that the right sort of guides are on the map – so it will work better. One example might be an individuals “Wealth map”. Firstly – people mostly don’t realize they have one – and generally have not educated themselves on what needs to be on that map. eg a quarterly review of your personal balance sheet? And secondly – history gives us the appalling stats on average wealth of people at retirement age – and not having one is a reflection of the ‘lack of purpose’ of that map. In this instance – the purpose of “being at some particular level of wealth”.
It sort of comes back to one of my over-used statements – if you don’t have goals and a plan – you will get what you are given – and you may not like it.
The things we put on our map when we are designing it – are the things we usually end up with in the long term. If there is no “X” on your map for each of the areas of life – guess what you are most likely going to get in that area.
So my new project is to recreate visual maps (with a predetermined purpose) for each of the areas of my life. I will use PERT – which as I understand it is the basis of the power of “The Secret”.
More soon.
James Hooper
Townsville Business Coach