I
The Map
How do you preserve what matters while Mike is still here to ask?
No Successor Required
The Blank Page
“We should get Mike to write some of this down.”
He can write the steps. What may never reach the page is the pause before a hard answer, the rule he bends, or the customer he calls before trouble has a name.
The founder still makes the decisions no one else wants to own.
A retirement date has begun to feel close.
The old line only restarts when one operator is in the room.
Too many important decisions still end with one name.
Open the Old Cases
The route appears inside the decisions Mike still remembers.
Return to the customer almost lost, the expensive mistake, the day the usual answer failed. Ask what Mike noticed and why he moved. That is where judgment leaves a trace.
One hard decision can be slowed into five visible turns.
A detail catches attention — a number, a silence, a phrasing — before it is consciously analyzed.
It resembles something seen many times before. Experience supplies the reference case.
Something breaks the pattern. This one is not quite like the others.
Enough accumulates to act — or to wait. The line is rarely written down.
The decision, and the reasons that would let someone else arrive at it the same way.
Why a manual misses it
of the expert fireground decisions in Klein’s study followed recognition. Experience supplied a familiar pattern before a list of choices did.
Klein et al., Rapid Decision Making on the Fire Ground (1986)(opens in a new tab)of the value of the world’s leading companies is intangible—including knowledge, relationships and reputation.
WIPO, World Intellectual Property Report 2024(opens in a new tab)The Next Question
The route can be preserved. What if someone else has to carry it?
The Passage lets a successor face the old decisions while Mike is still there to compare notes.
See The PassageWhat The Map Leaves Behind
A record the company can use after Mike leaves.
Four parts hold the old decisions, the people around them, what still depends on Mike and what should be left behind.
01
The Casebook
Real decisions, reconstructed with the clues and exceptions that changed the answer.
02
People & Promises
The history, commitments and trust that should not disappear with one person.
03
What Still Depends on Them
The decisions and relationships where the company still reaches for Mike.
04
What We Leave Behind
Old rules and assumptions that helped once, but should not be handed forward.
When the Ink Dries
Now the company can point to what would leave with Mike.
The unease has names: the decisions, relationships, exceptions and old lessons that still depend on him.
Before — everyone knows Mike matters
Few can say exactly what would leave with him.
The Map answers what should be preserved. It leaves one question open: can another person make the decision?
Commission
$100,000 US dollars
Engagements begin at this figure.
Typical Timeline
8–12 weeks
Availability
Next starts · Q1 2027
How much one person carries and how far the old cases need to be followed.
Frequently Asked
Questions about this engagement
Do we need a named successor for The Map?
No. The Map is designed to reconstruct and preserve important parts of a critical leader’s judgment before a successor has been selected.
What does The Map leave behind?
A working Casebook of important decisions, the clues and exceptions behind them, the relationships around them, and an honest view of what still depends on one person.
Does The Map show that a successor is ready?
No. The Map preserves the route. The Passage is where a successor practices those decisions and shows which ones they can carry alone.
The route is visible.
Can someone else make the decision?
The road ahead should remember how the company came this far.