Lead Yourself, 2nd Edition

choice three

map your map

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did

at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

Muhammad Ali

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THINK ABOUT where you are at the moment. Are you able

to step back and take a view of the world as it is rather than

how you think you see it? Do you see other people’s points of

view and accept them as reasonable? Are you able to step

outside any entrenched view of yourself and others and take

a fresh look at who you are and what you want to be? Maybe

you believe that you are able to look at every situation afresh,

but for the most part people have slipped into a singular and

biased way of looking at themselves and others without ever

realizing it.

Imagine your plane is coming in to land at Heathrow airport,

and suddenly the pilot announces that the undercarriage is

stuck and the plane will have to make an emergency landing.

When the plane lands, you’re instructed to leave the plane

rapidly, as a fire may break out. Do you leave quickly and

safely as instructed, or, as is the reality in many crashes, do

you put your life at risk by waiting to get your things out of

the overhead luggage rack?

Most people still follow the mental map programmed for a

normal landing. The standard map is, on landing, everyone

stands up and waits to get their possessions, and only once

this task is achieved do they leave the plane. In an emergency,

momentum lead yourself

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however, speed is of the essence, and the quickest person out

of the plane has the greatest chance of survival. Evidence

suggests that those who survive are the people who ignore

the existing map of self-imposed rules, and look for ways to

circumvent the normal landing procedures. They do this by

increasing the level of variety in the maps used to make sense

of the world.

Rich variety: get spoilt for choice

We need to always have sufficient variety to generate new

ideas and look at ourselves and the world in new and fresh

ways. This approach is known as Ashby’s law of requisite

variety. Ross Ashby suggested that any regulator must have

as much or more variety than the system it regulates. In a

game of chess, the variety of moves you have available must

be greater than the variety of moves available to your

opponent. The same can be seen in football, the stock market

or a children’s painting competition. In any situation, you

have to understand how much choice and variety exists, and

then be able to match or exceed this level. The person with the

most flexibility will influence and lead the environment.

Think back to when you were a child, desperate for the latest

toy. You wanted it badly. It was the most important thing in

the world. But your mum refused, so you went to your dad.

He in turn refused, so you pressured your grandparents and

favourite aunties and uncles. After this failed to work you

adopted different strategies: sulking, sobbing, screaming and

scratching the brand new furniture. This went on and on until

choice three map your map

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your strategies worked. Even though the grown-ups tried to

respond to all your strategies with their own responses,

ultimately you outdid them. You had the staying power to try

more and more ways to get want you wanted from them. As

a parent, there are only so many punishments you can invoke,

but as a child the options available are mind blowing. At this

point both you and your parents experienced the awesome

power of rich variety.

Your persistence can be summarized as ‘if what you’re doing

doesn’t work, do something else’. The head dimension uses

this as its primary ethos and argues that we must increase the

variety of ways in which we lead ourselves and others. We

use the variety in two ways. First, we use the diversity to see

life from more than just a unitary standpoint. Second, life is

movement and movement is change. If we are to change

ourselves and others successfully, we must learn how to map

our maps and change how we change.

To enhance your personal leadership you have to look

beyond the standard solutions and learn how to originate

new ideas and alternatives. The person who has only

restricted variety in their armoury will fall by the wayside as

other competitors come along and offer more diverse, rich

and imaginative solutions.

Restricted variety

So, how do we know when a person, team or organization has

a restricted mental map? Think of the typical political

interview. The pattern is generally consistent. The politician is

asked a question by the interviewer and promptly responds

momentum lead yourself

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