If the way to create genuine freedom for all the people in your business – and still have a successful business – is to create a map…

A map of what?

A map of your business. How it works, from the perspective of an outsider coming into it as a prospect, staying for a while as a client and enthusiast, leaving somewhat regretfully, as whatever they wanted to be when they arrived.

What goes on it?

The map should show the major routes clients can take through your business to get to their ultimate destination together with guidance for your team on how to accompany a traveller on their journey. These routes describe what has to happen, with pointers (but not instructions) for how to make it happen.

Like most maps, this map is a simplification. With enough information to make it useful, without making it bewildering.

Maps are always about giving context. Your business map is about allowing people to understand a situation well enough to take their orders from it.

That means you and your team are free (but not obliged) to tailor the journey to suit the individual needs and preferences of a specific traveller. They’re also free to create diversions, shortcuts or even completely new routes, to accommodate the unexpected, or meet new needs – even if that means extending the boundaries of the map.

Ideally, what would also go on it is information about where particular travellers currently are, so you and your team can see how the whole business is working, predicting and addressing problems before they happen, rather than waiting for a pile-up at a known black spot.

What gets left off?

Everything about how your business internally organises itself to support clients on their journey.

Unless of course, what you do is what they get. In which case the map works for your team as well as for your clients, for management as well as operations.

The map becomes the discipline behind the business. The discipline that enables you to take a break when you need it. The discipline that allows upsides to be exploited whenever and wherever they occur, while protecting the business from downside.

The discipline that makes daring possible.