A coaching client brought up that he had hit a roadblock in a negotiation. He was in talks with representatives of a school district he had been working with. They were interested in purchasing his training curriculum, but the talks had broken down due to one individual. He had read The Lateral Lens series on influence mapping and was wondering if we could apply it to his situation. I said, “Sure, that’s what it’s for!”
We did an hour session where we talked through the situation, listed the key players, rated their levels of influence and support, and then mapped out their interrelationships and levels of permission. Often the idea here is to first establish the lay of the land and then to iteratively “work” the map, thereby building sufficient support for the decision or initiative at play (prior to taking action).
Here, just the process of mapping out the stakeholders and the permission paths was enough. Instead of attempting to persuade the person playing gatekeeper directly, the coachee immediately realized, just by looking at the map, whom he should send as an emissary. He took this information and reported back that the conflict was successfully resolved and the deal finalized for $500k!
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Charles Lambdin 