Michael Lissack
for careful preparation before major organizational changes, transcending its cultural origins to provide insight for leaders worldwide. By deliberately employing landscape imagery, leaders can leverage these cognitive advantages to develop more nuanced, dynamic, and emo- tionally engaging understandings of complex business challenges. Gaps and Bridges Among the most powerful landscape metaphors for business chal- lenges are gaps and bridges. This conceptual framework, developed by communication scholar Brenda Dervin, provides a vivid way to under- stand how individuals and organizations navigate discontinuities in their journeys.
The Gap Metaphor
Dervin suggests that we could picture individuals as continually mak- ing sense as they move through time and space in an ongoing life journey. In this metaphor, the person is moving through a landscape, taking steps through experiences. Each new moment requires a new step. Movement continues smoothly until the person encounters a gap—a discontinuity in the landscape that prevents forward progress. These gaps represent moments when existing knowledge, processes, or mental models prove inadequate for the current situation. The person must make sense of the gap before they can continue moving forward. This metaphor proves remarkably useful for understanding organiza- tional challenges. Companies frequently encounter different types of gaps: Decision gaps : Having multiple possible paths forward without clear criteria for choosing: “We could expand into Europe or Asia first—both offer compelling opportunities but require different approaches.” Barrier gaps : Having a clear path forward that’s blocked by an obsta- cle: “We know digital transformation is essential, but our legacy systems make implementation nearly impossible.”
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