Resilience can be built by translational leaders

In his 2012 book Resilience, Andrew Zolli states that strong communities that have proven resilient to crises, “we almost always found a very particular species of leader is almost always found at or near its core.”  The translational leaders Zolli found in his research could connect people from various different groups, and translate objectives, perspectives and knowledge.  This results in networks that can overcome differences, make and implement good decisions for their communities.

 Metaphor Mapping is a logical part of a translational leader’s toolkit.  It brings people together to share views and, thought conversation, build understanding and find common ground.  It is further useful to help leaders discuss the structure and operation of adaptive styles of governance for dealing with ad-hoc and crisis situations when it is not clear which organization is in charge.

You have the option of gamifying your Metaphor Mapping workshop.

At the outset of the Village Mapping visioning session, introduce the four competitive aspects of the game by describing these four symbols.

After small groups have built maps and reviewed, the full group decides which group contributed the most in each category and makes the award.  Each individual who contributed receives the related sticker and a gift decided by the organizer.

Today, business leaders are taking a hard look at how real conversations lead to problem-solving successes, and they want to know how to get their employees talking to take advantage of this news. The bottom line is that business leaders want to foster brainstorming that will target goals and spur solutions to keep their businesses growing.

Metaphor Mapping can help them to do that. Metaphor Mapping promotes teamwork and gets people to say what’s on their minds.  It makes tough work fun by providing a fame-like environment.  It galvanizes innovation through collaboration by eliminating some of the worry that’s commonly associated with social strictures in the workplace and that deters colleagues from sharing their valuable input.

Since reduction of anxiety is one of the most important factors for improving communication and creative problem-solving, Metaphor Mapping puts small teams together in a comfortable setting where everyone has a stake in the goings-on.

Teams get a thorough understanding of their assignments by using multi-sensory activities that appeal to the different learning styles of their members. They handle pictorial stickers and label them to identify, map out and discuss the key elements of the groups’ challenge, and together they figure out the best course of action to solve it.

A collaborative strategy setting ensures that participants perceive the environment as non-threatening and a safe place to offer insights and suggestions that can lead to sought-after solutions.

To generate a safe haven when forming groups, bring everyone together for a Metaphor Mapping workshop to define the issues they are working on and ensure that:

• Participants  share equal footing and refrain from assigning leaders
• Protocols give equal access to the discussion and to promote self-regulation
• Demonstrate respect for others’ opinions
• Ensure adequate time for effective discussions to take place.
• Introduce the practice of using appositives to bolster self-confidence

A well-planned collaborative strategy setting will promote the creation of multiple high performance teams that share a vision. Metaphor Mapping will give you that edge. It will encourage participants to brainstorm realistic solutions to the challenges that they openly and respectfully identify and acknowledge.

Using Metaphor Mapping, colleagues validate each other, and that validation serves to instill a more personal, even passionate, commitment to change to effectively secure the company’s desired goal or outcome.

For more information, please contact us.

Game playing is a great way to build relationships in a corporate setting. It encourages colleagues to let down their hair and make suggestions without that almost tangible fear of being scrutinized by co-workers and bosses.

Studies found that fear of rejection prevents participants from actively offering valid ideas, and it even impedes learning and understanding new information that’s presented by someone else.

Metaphor Mapping avoids this problem by engaging participants in a hands-on, everyone-is-part-of-the-team, game-playing fashion that can alleviate the tension. But that’s just part of it.

To set the stage for real camaraderie, the game players need to learn how to use language to really say what they mean, and sometimes that’s not easy.

Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” And, it’s true because words alone can’t always convey the message the way a communicator wants them to. And getting the wrong message or taking the wrong action can be devastating.

The trouble is that finding that right word or group of words can be daunting, especially in today’s society where the workforce contains such a wide range of skills, abilities, and, most especially, backgrounds. References don’t always click.

That’s why it’s important for team members to enhance communication among themselves using visual cues that map out how to get from point A to point B and to make time for clarification and reiteration so that all parties gain a clear sense of the issues at hand and can learn to explain their perspectives.

Today, corporate facilitators have to find ways to incorporate strategies that put everyone on the same page by providing opportunities for hands-on collaboration and fruitful peer discussions.

That’s where Metaphor Mapping comes in. It entails having small groups of workers place and label picture stickers on a map to explain and explore various topical issues that are integral to the development and success of their companies. The purpose is to clarify the issues and to identify and offer solutions to those challenges that might impede reaching goals in specific areas.

The cornerstone of this process rests with the collaborative strategy setting where metaphors can act as bridges to understanding. A mapping workshop is a safe haven for employees, a place where unfettered brainstorming will generate more productive discussions among peers, and that’s what successful corporations look for: discussions that will ultimately lead to problem-solving and other desired outcomes.

Most everyone knows that team development follows the  four stages of

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performing

If you have to develop a team and deliver results in short order, a month for example, you’ll be greatly hindered by the time lost in the first two stages (Organizational research tells us that three-fifths of team time is taken up by  forming and storming.)   Metaphor Mapping sessions can give you a jump-start by getting you clear on objectives and how to reach the, effectively completing the first three stages in a single session that can take from two hours to a full day.

In that short time, all your members will be in agreement on

• The purpose of the team and the the significance of what you’re trying to accomplish
• Roles of the team members
• Schedule and how to work together

Metaphor mapping ensures team members are not quiet or reluctant to share their viewpoint.  You can’t map villages and rivers and be a wallflower!  Please contact us if you’d like to discuss a situation that needs both high performing teams and speed!

It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  That may be true.  But a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures.  Using metaphors in business might be a relatively new concept to some people, but it’s been in large businesses, international agencies and governments since 1988, with a track record of success.  One of the biggest benefits of using metaphors is that metaphors promote creativity.

Just take a moment to imagine your typical meeting.  You want to roll out a new project and your team is working to foresee problems and implement solutions to solve them.  In addition, they need to find opportunities to engage other employees, or customers, or clients and help them manage the change in an effective and least problematic way.  There might be notepads in your meeting, there’s probably a white board or a computer screen projection writing down ideas.  You might have 1/2 the team working productively throwing out ideas.  The ideas may be organized neatly, or you may find yourself having to re-explain what the idea was or the intention.  You come away from the meeting feeling somewhat defeated, hoping to have accomplished more in your meeting than what was done.  You schedule another meeting, and then another, hoping to get more clarity on the issue.

Metaphor mapping helps prevent wasted time, and makes process planning more effective by engaging all your team members in a creative project.  Using visual symbols and metaphors is engaging and turns on the creative portion of your team members’ brains and allows them to have more free thinking processes, giving them opportunities to visually see different paths, different problems, and new solutions.

This free thinking and creativity allows your meetings to be more effective and  involves people more deeply and prompts them to take ownership of the strategy and tasks.  Being involved and feeling like you’re a part of the solution is a huge step towards successfully implementing change within your company.

It’s hard to believe that such a simple strategy can be so successful, but it won’t take you long to become a believer in the metaphor mapping strategy.

For more ways our unique metaphor mapping can help your team meet your business needs and succeed, please contact us today!

A start up is a company that intends to grow quickly. There’s no map for growth, and one of the common pitfalls of this typical acceleration towards success is a loss of identity among the leaders in the organization.

Facilitating growth in a company begins with adopting a culture of creativity among the thought leaders in the organization. Once you’ve recruited the right people to propel your company to your next benchmark, you need to implement a set of values that everyone agrees on. It becomes necessary to have a series of conversations about who will fill which role in the company. Confusion in this particular area is common. It’s also deadly.

If you understand that patience is required to achieve your company’s goals, you may find yourself in a situation that many start ups face during their otherwise successful first years. No one knows who is supposed to be doing the next important thing.

Company culture that facilitates creativity is vital to the entity that is the fragile, mysterious, amazing start up. Don’t let it be damaged by your team’s confusion about what their individual roles are within the framework of growth.

It’s hard to read the label when you are inside the bottle.

Metaphors promote creativity, and creativity solves problems. In this case, metaphors also clarify the roles, responsibilities, and privileges of each of your team members.

Someone needs to be the designated leader. That leader will need a partner, and both the leader and her partner are going to need someone to implement the activities that the group has agreed on. The leader will make decisions, consult with her partner, and give authority to the person who is in charge of implementing the activity.

This structure makes sense to people who are ready to move forward, but are confused about their particular role.When the roles are described using metaphors, the way forward becomes crystal clear.

To learn more about our unique, simple, effective method for using metaphors to promote creativity and clarify roles in the typical start-up company, please contact us.

Mind Mapping and Team Alignment

The logical connections you make when developing a mind map help you organize your thoughts and clarify your situation or plan.  When you try to achieve the same clarity and insights with groups, the conventional techniques from Mind Mapping fall short.  Their lines and text work on paper or a computer screen, BUT, they don’t ensure cross-function or cross-culture communication, don’t stimulate intuition, draw people into conversation or develop teamwork.

Your group will become more than the sum of its members if you bring in visuals to promote spontaneity, symbols to bring instant meaning and metaphors to provide a syntax for the big picture discussion and promote creativity.  Taken together, you can achieve real teamwork and commitment to shared goals.

This is what Metaphor Mapping does for you.  Its four metaphors take your group along a path to think out its strategy, develop a plan, assign roles and responsibilities and deal with any problems of attitude or mindset.  The team can always take home digital images of their maps, tweak them and communicate with them throughout their project.

This post was contributed by a Six Sigma specialist in a major, mid-West USA based engineering and construction company>>>>

Last month I facilitated a Village Mapping exercise at the major global engineering/construction company that employs me. The objective was to develop a plan for implementing a knowledge transfer program in our biggest division. The division is facing the loss of a great deal of engineering knowledge because of retirements in the next few years. The mapping exercise helped the team look beyond immediate tactical concerns and understand the nature of relationships among the many organizational functions with a stake in knowledge transfer. One major ‘aha’ was how many functions the knowledge transfer process touches that have not been involved in the program heretofore. The result of the exercise was the creation of a basis for a longer range plan to ensure the success of the program.

This was not strictly speaking a Six Sigma initiative, but the mapping model does incorporate many of the concepts employed by the Six Sigma methodology. It deploys a systematic, team-based approach to defining the current process, identifying problems and opportunities embedded in the process, and visualizing creative solutions to streamline the process. It also highlights the importance of quality communication and control measures that satisfy the requirements of critical internal customer and stakeholder groups.
Finally, the exercise energized the team and kick-started a planning process that had been drifting for some time.