The next wise move: from MAD Land to NO MAD Land

Our mental maps create our Landscapes, but we don't see them

The world we have created is the result of our Thinking. So, viable and exciting Futures depend on our abilities to transform our mental maps. But we need to admit that we are like the prisoners of Plato’s cave: we tend to mix our “ideas” with Reality. Our maps are invisible to us.

This is why we have created a Map which makes them visible. It is a metaphor of two very different countries: MAD Land and NO MAD Land (with 9 areas and 348 metaphorical perspectives). It can help you “redraw” your mental maps and adopt new points of view to shape a world you want more of.

• MAD LAND is the result of stories we have heard, prejudices we have developed, scenarios we have been led to accept as true. They all drive us to?Massive?Assured?Destruction
• NO MAD LAND is a preferable, desirable and actionable new territory fostering Mutually?Assisted?Development through new mindsets, paradigms, attitudes and objectives.

?As you can see, MAD LAND and NO MAD LAND are two different "Landscapes" created and sustained by completely different - and often unconscious – mental maps (worldviews, paradigms, perceptions, stories, mental models and values).

So, how can we think about an unpredictable Future and make wise choices?

What's in a B??The difference between Roadmapping and Broadmapping!

Roadmaps are a specific way to move from A to B (for instance from 4G to 5G). They are certainly fine when you need to deploy a project without taking uncertainties and new possibilities into account.

?BUT Reality rarely conforms itself to our plans.

The world in which your strategy used to work no longer exists.

As a decision-maker, you probably are under?enormous pressure?- intellectual and emotional - to make key strategic choices in such a turbulent world.

Our Future has an unknown flavor.

“Direction comes from altitude”

That's what said Bertrand Picard, who went around the world in a balloon. So, how can you make wise choices of direction in this world?

?By moving consciously from the Usual Roadmaps to …Broadmaps

Broadmaps offers a "helicopter" view to any person who wants to get a broader view on an issue, a project or any other situation where "altitude" is key. They help us expand our perspectives and seize the historical panorama. With an “Eye Hopener” view point.

That's what our map is all about.

New points of view to shape the Future everyday

Each location on the map offers the choice of a?new point of view to shape the Future every day. It metaphorically illustrates a way of looking at the world - not something we "are", not something "good or bad" - based on different assumptions, leading to an experience of being "stuck" or of being "unstuck".

?As an example, let’s see how, in this VUCA world, can we move from “The Search for Certainty Shadows and Fog” to the “Confidence in Uncertainty Bay”?

Let’s take some Altitude Attitude first!

We are in the purple area of the Map which says that either we are locked in the Regression Forces or we are able to activate the Opening forces.

As citizens and professionals, most of us are struggling, falling - without admitting it - into confusion, fear, anxiety, lack of imagination and a desire for Certainty, what we call?Regression forces. They lead to?preserve the old instead of shaping the new.

To get out of the mess we're in, we need to create the?opposite of Fear; i.e. Desire.

Now is the time to dare take a leap in Imagination to create counter-stories of the Future. Meaning-making stories that resonate with our deepest aspirations, arouse Hope, Courage and Desire, the only forces capable of overcoming Fear, Despair, Violence and Regression.?

And now let’s zoom in and see what might happen when you try this shift:

What is happening when a team is locked in the "Desire for Certainty Abbey"?

?Well! Here are some time-tested traditional approaches that won’t work

1. Rearranging?the furniture in the same room is pure waste of time
2. Reducing Strategy to short-term corrective measures is a dangerous?mistake
3. Considering the Future as an extrapolation of the Past is a dangerous?illusion
4. Making a rigid "plan"?(the Roadmap) which goes from A to B, based on the assumption that only ONE future context is going to emerge is a dangerous?bet

These approaches all indicate that a team is locked in a zone that we have called the "Desire for Certainty Abbey". Although we "KNOW" the world is unpredictable, we often “ACT”?in uncoherent ways, AS IF?the world were stable and predictable. Our "Desire for Certainty" is so strong that we keep old fashioned assumptions, approaches, tools and methods to?reduce Uncertainty,?at least in the 4 ways mentioned above.

It is so true that in many companies, the strategic plan that emerges is mostly based on a set of "forecasts" and ends up as a Roadmap.

Instead of raising good QUESTIONS and EXPLORING what COULD happen, teams come up with mostly predictable and repetitive ANSWERS, sometimes to the wrong questions, make "PLANS" and decide what they WANT to see happen, based on?wrong assumptions on what WILL happen.

As we say in our book Shapership, the desire for certainty leads us to write “RIGID plans” in which extrapolated data helps explain the Future, giving the illusion of control but toothless in the face of unpredictable forces operating in the world outside.

This is like writing motorcycle user manuals without knowing what a motorcycle is.

Now, let’s shift: make uncertainty a friend

Start by giving up the Illusion of predictability and control.

Just LOVE uncertainty.

Now you can adopt “The Altitude Attitude” and become a Shaper of the Future

Wouldn't it be nice if Leaders became Shapers of the Future, able to put their courage, Soul and Imagination to open transformative paths to a word we want more of?

That will help all of us to escape the regression forces and build the Future on Imagination and Desire.?

Here are some of the does and don’ts that might inspire you[1]

Conclusion: change your maps, shape the Landscape?

Viable and exciting Futures depend on our ability to escape from today's paradigms and transform our mental maps.

Like humans emerging from Plato’s cave of illusions, we have to realise that?Reality is a construction – and that we have the power and freedom to creatively and purposefully change our “Maps” so we can change the way we shape the Future.

This capacity to consciously shift our perspectives, perceptions and beliefs to craft new?realities is?what we call "Shapership: the Art of Shaping the Future."

Shapership will make your better future desirable, viable, and actionable.

It is our invitation to people of all ages who,?instead of focusing on repairing or fixing a dying MAD Land,?aspire to boost their Imagination, and actively shape a NO MAD Future for their family, communities, organizations, "territories" or field of practice.

One way to practice Shapership is the Shapership game.

As a conversation and coaching tool, it is supported by the Mad Land and NO MAD Land metaphorical Map and its deck of 174 "Mental Cards", each of which proposes two “contrasted” points of view, depending on the MAD or NO MAD worldview adopted.

Ignited by this powerful Metaphor, you can use the Shapership game to take a helicopter view on one of your issues, seriously and creatively play with your Mental maps and imagine the Future(s) you wish to see happen. It is a foresight game allowing you to play with the Future before it happens.

Results: move from “stuck” to “unstuck” and change the way you shape the world. Rather than forecasting, the game allows to move from RoadMaps to Broadmaps.

Discover more and get in touch for a guided conversation with the Shapership Game.

?[1] Extract from our book, Shapership, the Art of Shaping the Future, soon to be republished in English