Navigate Your People Future with the Role Map
We rolled out our business framework, the Growth Method, 3 years ago.
Since then, one of the most common questions I’ve received is this: Why is it called a Role Map?
If you need to get up to speed quickly, the Role Map is our answer to the traditional org chart. It helps you identify the roles your business needs and what each role is accountable for. Then, and only then, do you start plugging people into those roles.
(You can do a deeper dive into the Role Map with this webinar.)
Critically, though, a Role Map doesn’t only represent the current state of your business (although it may start there).
It is, literally, a map to your company’s future.
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Pull up your favorite navigation app, and you’ll see that it asks you for two pieces of information:
- Where are you now?
- Where do you want to go?
Plug that data in, and the algorithm automatically generates a route to get you from here to there.
You can even add in additional criteria: avoid highways, avoid tolls, traveling during rush hour, etc. The route changes accordingly.
And if you don’t like the proposed route, the app will often present several alternatives.
This is a great metaphor for the Role Map.
Where you are now is the current state of your business. It’s the roles you have, the people in those roles. It’s your products/services, your monthly run rate, your current marketing plan.
Where you want to go is the company’s future. That’s defined by an overarching goal like your North Star, guided by your Mission, and determined by your company strategy.
Now, here’s the big difference.
Unfortunately, we’re not yet at the point where we can plug your data into an app and get a route from A to B.
That’s what our consulting team helps clients create.
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The people that help you get from A to B are 90% of your success.
And if you have ambitious growth goals, you must iterate your team the same way you iterate everything else in the business.
Start with a picture of what the business needs today. That’s a moment in time, maybe good for 6 months.
The Role Map captures that snapshot. *Click*
Now comes the next leg of the journey. In 6 months, you’ll need a different structure. You determine that should carry you through the next 2 years.
A second Role Map captures that snapshot. *Click*
And so on, and so on.
You build the map out as far as you can into the future.
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When you build your Role Map, you’re making educated guesses. Some of your predictions will be wrong.
Those are the unexpected barricades, the detours, the gas stations that are inexplicably closed on the way from A to B.
It’s the right person in the wrong seat. The leader whose role has outgrown their capabilities. The unexpected departure of a key team member.
The bumps are part of every journey.
You won’t get every detail of your future company right. You will, however, be far more accurate than if you never undertook this exercise at all.
The Role Map isn’t as easy as using Google Maps (maybe with the help of AI, one day it will be). But creating Role Maps does give you a literal sense of direction for growing the people function of your business.
Direction leads to clarity, alignment, focus—and success.
Can our consulting team help you build out or tweak your Role Map? Reply to this email, and I’ll connect you.
