{"id":107,"date":"2009-01-14T07:51:10","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T15:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/?page_id=107"},"modified":"2009-04-13T18:30:16","modified_gmt":"2009-04-14T02:30:16","slug":"mapping-the-natural-territory","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/?page_id=107","title":{"rendered":"Mapping the Natural Territory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA new paradigm involves an X-factor — a principle that was present all along but unknown to us.\u00a0 It includes the old as a partial truth, one aspect of How Things Work, while allowing for things to work in other ways as well.<\/em>\u201d – Marilyn Ferguson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The importance of a new way of mapping the territory.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Navy-generated epiphany (see HOW WAS THIS SITE\u2019S KNOWLEDGE CREATED?<\/a>) about the relationship of maps and territories made it easier to accept Korzybski and Senge’s reminder that “the map is not the territory<\/em>.”\u00a0 It made sense to me since in Senge\u2019s terms, “maps” are the mental models we use to frame and make sense of the world around us.<\/p>\n

This is not a newly discovered need as the decade-old quote below indicates.<\/p>\n

\u2026America already knows enough to fundamentally change the ways schools function, \u2026the problem instead is that our society needs to look at its schools through a different lens<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cWithout a sense of the whole<\/em>, we end up with what has become a familiar cycle of patchwork improvement and disappointment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using What We Have to Get the Schools We Need:
\nA Productivity Focus for American Education.
\nConsortium on Productivity in the Schools<\/em>, 1996<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So why does it seem so hard to draw an organizational map that reflects the natural conditions of a familiar territory within which we dwell?<\/p>\n

How do maps and territories differ?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A territory<\/em> has unchanging<\/strong> features.\u00a0 In geography, these are natural<\/em> conditions that will be encountered and can\u2019t be ignored.\u00a0 They provide the context for the journey. (The things we keep bumping into if even if we think we have no way to deal with them.)\u00a0 Whether or not they are considered positive or negative may depend upon whether they are recognized and that knowledge used to further that journey.<\/p>\n

Maps<\/em> are created from assumptions<\/strong> and beliefs<\/strong> about those natural<\/em> features.\u00a0 These maps represent what we think<\/em> we see, or have the knowledge<\/em> to understand, there.\u00a0 On these maps we \u201cdraw lines\u201d to connect what we believe are the territory\u2019s unchanging elements and their requirements.\u00a0 In our work settings we similarly build organizational \u201cpathways\u201d of relationships and information flow to sustain the interactive requirements of the traffic that must navigate the territory.<\/p>\n

Without realizing it, these \u201cmaps\u201d become the plot boards for organizational problem-solving.\u00a0 Paper versions called organization charts can be found in every organization.\u00a0 Their ubiquitousness and acceptance derives from their pre-existence as an embedded mental model in everyone\u2019s mind<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But, as will be noted later, while they have some value, their limitations are a major factor when organizations try to use them to frame their thinking about how to respond to the problems they face today.\u00a0 For example:<\/p>\n