Growth + Continuity

The Origins of MAPS

MAPS did not emerge from futurist thinking, systems theory, or fashionable consulting frameworks. It comes from a much more concrete place: legal practice, and more specifically from the work involved in acquisitions, private and public financings, investments, restructurings, and major transformation transactions.

In these contexts, decisions cannot be made on intuition. Before an organization can buy, sell, finance, guarantee, transfer, merge, or restructure, a basic question must be answered: what exactly are we dealing with? In other words, what actually exists, who has the authority to commit what, where value truly sits, and which obligations are already embedded in the future. The role of the practitioner is not to project intent, but to make reality inspectable.

This is the purpose of due diligence. Checklists, frameworks, canvases, and structured reviews are used because an organization is not a story—it is a structure, a set of assets, and a series of commitments that produce consequences.

Other professions apply the same discipline using different tools. Accountants, for example, also map a situation in detail before evaluating, certifying, or recommending anything. MAPS follows this same logic: making explicit what already exists but is too often implicit.

The Three Maps Behind MAPS

MAPS is built around three fundamental maps. They already exist implicitly in professional reasoning, but they are rarely articulated as a simple, stable, and reusable system for guiding the organization.

1) The STRUCTURE Map

The first map addresses the organization’s real structure and answers a basic but unavoidable question: who has the authority to do what—and under which constraints? This map goes beyond the org chart. It captures operational reality: where decisions are actually made, how they move, who arbitrates when conflicts arise, and where coordination and control truly sit.

Without a clear structure, a transaction fails, stalls, or becomes invalid. More importantly, in day-to-day operations, an implicit structure leads to unclear decisions, diluted responsibility, and invisible dependencies.

2) The ASSETS Map

The second map focuses on assets and answers another simple question: what is actually being bought, financed, pledged, transferred, or exposed? This map is not limited to legal ownership. It makes visible what carries value, what carries risk, and what creates dependency.

This includes tangible assets, but also intangible and operational ones: customer relationships, contracts, data, critical skills, licenses, processes, brands, dependency chains, concentrations, and fragilities. The map does not only show what the organization owns—it shows what it depends on, and what could cause it to fail.

When assets are not visible, value is misjudged, risk is misplaced, and decisions are made on partial representations.

3) The TIME Map

The third map is often overlooked, yet it is present in every serious decision: time. Organizations carry future obligations, deadlines, clauses, maturities, conditions, regulatory commitments, and strategic option windows. Part of an organization’s reality does not exist only in what it is today, but in what it has already committed to in the future.

Mapping time means making explicit what holds now, what is transitional, and what will matter later. This reasoning already exists in professional practice, but most organizations do not structure it as a usable map.

This is precisely what the HORIZONS map makes visible: not predictions, but a clear distinction between present operations, transitions, and future constraints as decision factors.

Why MAPS Is Familiar—and Legitimate

MAPS does not invent a new discipline. It assembles, in a simple and reusable format, maps that are already used implicitly in contexts where mistakes are costly.

When structure is unclear, transactions fail or become invalid. When assets are misunderstood, value is mispriced and risk is misplaced. When future obligations are not identified, the future becomes a blind spot—and it always shows up eventually.

MAPS applies this same discipline to leadership decisions: do not decide without knowing what you are actually working with. This is not consulting. It is a discipline of responsibility.

From Default Structure to Visible Structure

Most organizations are not structurally designed. They are accumulated.

They start small, then grow, adjust, patch, and layer solutions over time in response to immediate needs. The result is neither good nor bad in itself. It is simply a fact: structure becomes implicit because it is built incrementally.

At first, a small group carries decisions, coordination, control, and direction. As tasks are delegated and functions appear, authority, coordination, and future-oriented responsibilities are often added informally. Eventually, scale, complexity, an acquisition, a financing, a market shift, a crisis, or a transformation exposes the limits of this implicit structure.

MAPS does not judge this evolution. It makes it visible, so the organization can finally see itself clearly instead of operating on assumptions.

From Default Structure to Visible Structure

Most organizations are not structurally designed. They are accumulated.

They start small, then grow, adjust, patch, and layer solutions over time in response to immediate needs. The result is neither good nor bad in itself. It is simply a fact: structure becomes implicit because it is built incrementally.

At first, a small group carries decisions, coordination, control, and direction. As tasks are delegated and functions appear, authority, coordination, and future-oriented responsibilities are often added informally. Eventually, scale, complexity, an acquisition, a financing, a market shift, a crisis, or a transformation exposes the limits of this implicit structure.

MAPS does not judge this evolution. It makes it visible, so the organization can finally see itself clearly instead of operating on assumptions.

What MAPS Brings in Practice

MAPS first produces something simple: structured visibility. The organization gains a clear map of its real structure, a broad map of its assets, and an explicit map of its horizons and future obligations.

This visibility changes the quality of decisions. It places issues where they belong. It prevents confusing structural problems with people problems. It reveals underused assets, missing assets, critical dependencies, risk concentrations, and opportunity areas that were invisible without a map.

Finally, MAPS provides a stable foundation for improvement—not because a model dictates an answer, but because the organization can now see what it actually does, what it truly depends on, and what it has already committed to in the future.

This can materially improve governance, decision-making, acquisition or financing readiness, and the organization’s ability to articulate risks and opportunities with precision instead of intuition.

What MAPS Delivers

Using MAPS produces effects that are immediately tangible for an organization. 

First, MAPS creates an exceptional level of clarity. It gives leaders a precise sense of where they are, how the organization actually works, and where issues, leverage points, and decisions truly sit. This clarity is not abstract: it localizes problems, responsibilities, opportunities, and risks instead of leaving them diffuse or debated.

Second, MAPS also provides a best-in-class structural foundation. By making the organization’s essential systems explicit, it reveals whether the organization is structurally sound, overstretched, misaligned, or fragile. In practice, this means leaders are no longer operating on inherited or accidental structures, but on a structure that can sustain scale, complexity, and change — comparable to the structure of a viable organization.

Third, MAPS delivers a detailed and actionable ASSETS map. Organizations consistently discover assets they already possess but underuse, misunderstand, or undervalue, as well as assets they implicitly rely on but do not formally recognize. Just as importantly, MAPS highlights missing or weak assets that limit growth, resilience, or strategic options. This alone can unlock significant hidden value.

Fourth, MAPS enables organizations to fully understand and use their horizons. Present operations, transitional initiatives, and future orientations are no longer confused or collapsed into a single conversation. Each horizon becomes visible as its own space, with its own objectives, constraints, and practices. This prevents short-term pressure from suffocating the future, and future ambition from destabilizing the present.

Fifth, MAPS consistently reveals unsuspected opportunities and risks. Because structure, assets, and time are mapped together, patterns emerge that are invisible when these dimensions are examined separately. Opportunities that were previously inaccessible become actionable, and risks that were previously dismissed or unnoticed become explicit and governable.

As a result, MAPS allows organizations to adopt and design better practices and strategies, grounded in reality rather than aspiration. Decisions improve because they are made with a clear view of what exists, what is constrained, and what is possible. Strategy becomes less speculative and more deliberate.

In practical terms, MAPS can significantly improve performance in management, leadership, acquisition preparation, financing readiness, and strategic positioning. It helps locate and qualify opportunities, anticipate risks, and provides leaders with a strong sense of direction — not as a slogan, but as a consequence of seeing the organization clearly.

MAPS does not promise success. It dramatically improves the conditions under which success can be pursued.