Over the years, I have used many frameworks, models, and diagnostics with clients. Most are helpful, but few have a lasting impact after the engagement ends.
However, two tools, the Growth Map and People Map, more than any others, have demonstrated lasting value with my clients and a recent conversation reminded me of their importance, and I believe it is worth sharing.
A few years ago, I visited a former client and as I was leaving, he said, “Do you remember that map we built together?”
He walked over to an old flip chart in his office, flipped through several pages, and pointed to the original Growth Map we had created. It was about 2 years old, hand-drawn, annotated and numbered along the spokes. He had kept it, tucked away but never discarded.
Circling the map, he said, “Every now and then, I come back to this to check whether we’re still on track.”
I was genuinely surprised that it was still there, still in use years after our last meeting.
That image has stayed with me: a flip chart in the corner of a busy office, a leader checking in with his own future.
Clients rarely remember presentations, reports, or strategy documents, but that’s not the case with visual tools that clarified what they didn’t even know how to articulate.
The Growth Map addresses a common but rarely stated challenge among leaders. They sense the need for change, yet when asked to describe what they want, they’re unable to explain it clearly. It’s often, I’ll know it when I see it kind of thing.
The Growth Map is simple in principle yet powerful in practice. It is a radial visual with the firm at the centre, eight measurements radiating outward, and three rings representing time horizons from now to three years ahead. The leader marks current positions, then desired future states. This process creates many aha’s.
The shift is not about the diagram itself, but about what it provides, clarity. Most strategic planning starts with the present and projects forward, anchoring decisions in current constraints. The Growth Map starts with the future and works backwards.
Very hard to do initially, as thinking backwards is not the way it’s normally done, as it asks leaders to describe a future state as if it already exists. That discomfort is what makes the tool effective.
I’ve found that creating this act on paper opens their eyes and minds to what’s been running around in their heads but hasn’t been able to communicate.
I am often met with statements like , ‘this is amazing, to see it all on one page like this, really puts it all into perspective. You cannot achieve this with conversation alone.
Alternatively, the People Map addresses a different but even more common challenge in established firms. Managing your peole.
By the time a business grows to twenty or more people, leaders develop a detailed and honest, yet often unspoken, understanding of every member of their team. They know who exceeds expectations, who is coasting, whose potential is underused, who creates friction, and who may no longer fit.
They are aware of these dynamics, often for some time, but have not openly voiced or documented them or made the decision to have that difficult conversation.
The People Map creates that opportunity. Adapted from the BCG Growth Matrix, it applies the framework to people and performance within organisations. Four quadrants: Dependable, Star, Cause for Concern, and what I call This is for the Best, represent different performers in your organisation.
You place each member in the relevant quadrant. I am often amazed when I do this exercise and explain it fully, because without fail, they can place every single one of their immediate reports in a relevant quadrant on the map.
It is the model they repeatedly refer to whenever talking about someone in their team. “Do you remember the grid you showed us?” They would say, “Well, Mary (not her real name) is a cause for concern. We would then discuss their options.
The value of these exercises is the honesty they encourage. Often, it’s nothing new, just a visual confirmation of what was always there.
These two tools belong together because a business with a clear direction but the wrong team will not succeed. A well-led, aligned team headed in the wrong direction will work hard but reach the wrong outcome. These problems are distinct but rarely separate.
In my experience, firms that are truly stuck are almost always facing both issues at once. The direction has drifted, and the team picture has become too complex to address directly. Neither problem is resolved because each feels too large to tackle without first addressing the other.
With the Dual Framework, the Growth Map is done first as it establishes a clear direction for the leadership team. The People Map then assesses the team honestly against that direction, so questions about development and fit are anchored to the firm’s actual goals rather than considered in the abstract.
When the direction is clear, the people map reads differently. The question in each quadrant is no longer simply where this person sits; it is where they sit in relation to where we have committed to go. It is a transformative process.
The most significant breakthroughs come not from discovering something new, but from finally seeing clearly what was already present.
If you are leading a firm of twenty, thirty, or more people and recognise these challenges, the direction that feels right but is hard to articulate, the team picture you carry privately but have never documented, then this message is for you.
Not because you need another framework, but because the clarity you seek is almost certainly already within your business. It is found in your proudest work, your most trusted clients, and the decisions you knew were right or wrong. That clarity exists; it simply needs a structured moment to become visible.
That is what these tools provide, which is why they remain on the flip chart years later.
The Dual Framework: The Growth Map and the People Map delivered together is a structured engagement for senior leadership teams at a point of transition.
If you are interested in exploring this for your firm, reply to this email directly.
Until we meet.
Morton
