Initiative Mapping: The Short Version
Whenever you are working with someone else, there are two things — above all — that you need to be clear about:
- Who is helping who?
- What is the helper helping with?
Because if you don’t know these two things, then you are not really working together. You’re just two people working near each other. Which isn’t the same thing at all. Working together means one person helping another.
If you do know these two things, then you know how to work together. And creative flow becomes possible. And, as you do the work, the only question either of you really needs to ask is:
Is this helping?
And when it’s not helping, you have to change what you’re doing.
And when it is helping, you carry on what you’re doing.
But how do you get clear on who is helping who?
And how do you get clear on what the helper is helping with?
The first thing to look for is who started what you’re working on. Because the person who started a thing is necessarily the person who is asking for help. Obviously.
So look for the exact moment where the thing started.
Whoever started the thing will remember the exact moment it started — because the feeling of starting a thing is a memorable feeling. The feeling of taking the initiative.
(If neither of you can remember that moment, you probably haven’t actually started yet. Most likely you’re still at the kicking-ideas-around-in-the-pub stage. That can last *years*.)
The second thing to look for is the moment where you committed to working together.
This isn’t the moment when you met. This isn’t the moment when you turned up at an office or workshop or wherever for the first time. This isn’t even the moment when one person asked the other for help.
The moment of commitment is the moment where the person asking for help has explained what they’re doing and what help they need and the person helping has actually taken responsibility for doing a part of what needs to be done.
This moment of commitment is also a very memorable moment. Because the feeling of taking responsibility is a memorable feeling.
(And, again, if you don’t remember that exact moment, then you’re probably not actually working together. And even if you think you’re helping, you’re most likely not helping and should stop because you’re probably doing more harm than good.)
If, on the other hand, you do remember these moments when someone takes the initiative to start something and these moments when someone takes responsibility for helping, then you can be very clear about how you work together. And working together gets much easier.
Keeping track of these moments — even when you have lots of people contributing to a very complex project — is a basic necessity if you want to work together well.
And keeping track of these moments is initiative mapping.
An initiative map is like a to-do list as a family tree, populated by people who want to do what needs to be done. You can use it to keep track of who is helping who with what — whether that’s a group of friends organising a party or 10,000 people collaborating in a multinational corporation.
This is number two in a series of short-as-possible articles on How To Be Clear. See also: Very Clear Ideas: The Short Version.
If you’d like to read more, read more.
If you’d like some help, get in touch.
If you want to know how to be clear: clear.be.
This is me: www.charlesdavies.com.
