In my last post, I wrote about Astronaut Chris Hadfield's* view that you don’t need to be a hero to make a difference. In high-stakes situations, such as updating the maps we navigate by, it’s better to start as a “zero”—quietly competent, dependable, and not causing problems. Earn trust first. Only then, if the moment’s right, step up and become a “plus one.” Try too hard too soon, and you risk becoming a “minus one”—more harm than help.
*Chris Hadfield. “An Astronaut’s View of Life on Earth”
The Nature of Maps
“Mapping is never neutral.”
— Denis Wood, The Power of Maps (1992)
Maps are powerful things. Those who draw them up and control them define the boundaries within which we operate; who is inside and who is outside, and who controls the levers of power.
Christian Europe visualised the world through symbolic maps centred on Jerusalem, often depicting biblical and classical geography rather than scale or direction. They believed the Earth to be at the centre of a divinely ordered cosmos. The trouble for them started with the recovery of Greek texts, primarily through Islamic scholarship, which revived scientific inquiry. Scholars began to re-examine Aristotle and Ptolemy with a more critical lens.
Then, in 1492, Columbus managed to take credit for what Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, had discovered five hundred years earlier, and together with other findings, began to challenge medieval paradigms. Empirical geography took over from theological geography until, in 1543, Copernicus published “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium”, proposing heliocentricity, creating the conditions for no end of trouble with the Pope. (In 1616, the Catholic Church placed De revolutionibus on the Index of Forbidden Books, pending “corrections”) and changed how the world was understood.
He might have been right, but being right and power rarely mix well. Those who discover what's necessary to update maps are seldom the same people who control the current mapping systems.
I was reminded of this in a conversation during the week hosted by
on Niccolò Macchiavelli. We reflected that reading “The Prince” would remove most of the need for change consultants:"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who would be advantaged under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had long experience of them."
Niccolò Machiavelli. “The Prince”, Chapter 6
Those who discover what is needed to create better maps are different. They tend to be curious and follow interests more than objectives. They exhibit the opposite of “wilful blindness”; they are relentlessly questioning. They are Steve Jobs’ “Crazy Ones”….”The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently”……
Maybe Zeroes and Crazy Ones have a lot in common. Those who provide the energy for change are quiet, determined, interested, and rarely bothered with glory.
Those who take credit for it are often aspirant Plus Ones. “Plus Ones” are an inevitability, but on their own, without Zeroes, have little impact.
The Cartographer’s Trap
We all know Zeroes. If we’ve worked in corporates, they are the ones who get used by the Minus Ones in the pursuit of PlusOne status. As I write, they are being dispensed with in vast numbers in tech businesses, in the belief that aspirant Plus Ones can use AI to replace them and their “crazy one” idiosyncrasies.
Those of us outside the Corporate Walls, whether we have escaped, been defenestrated, or were wise enough never to go through the doors in the first place, know lots of Zeroes. I know many: engineers, accountants, poets, designers, programmers, scientists, all with a healthy dose of craziness in their DNA. The professional labels they wear are secondary to their attitudes and dispositions.
Zeroes often have no desire to be Plus Ones, even though their ideas are unlikely to get traction without Plus Ones. Equally, PlusOnes would not exist without Zeroes. They need each other.
How do we reconcile that? Perhaps maths can help us:
One is The Unit of Identity. It is the building block. Everything else is a multiple or a combination of one. One is the foundation of logic and computing: In binary, one represents presence, and is the flip side to zero.
Zero represents the Power of Absence. Zero defines nothingness — essential in algebra, calculus, and computer logic. It marks origins (0,0), baselines, and turning points. Without zero, negative numbers, zero-sum thinking, and mathematical neutrality wouldn’t exist.
Zero brings nothingness, silence, and potential. One brings something, identity and activation. Neither dominates. They are complementary absolutes, the yin and yang of mathematics. One defines existence; zero defines absence. Together, they give mathematics its shape and structure.
I think we’ve forgotten that about our communities as we pursue growth at all costs.
This creates what we might call the "cartographer's trap." Those who discover the need for map updates, the explorers, the edge-dwellers, those with vocations face Machiavelli’s “Active enemies”. Current map-controllers who profit from existing navigation systems, “Lukewarm allies” who might benefit from better maps but are afraid to support an untested system and a “Fickle populace”. People who are "changeable" and "generally do not want to trust something until it is firmly established"
For zeroes to do their work, they need space to operate, resources and connections outside the conventional shallow measures and motivations we use in performance environments. Zeroes are likely to be those with vocations and drives deeper than money, who inhabit the worlds that we are exploring in
.So Many Maps
There are so many maps being redrawn right now. Today's maps face unprecedented complexity as they simultaneously organise physical space, cultural meaning, and commercial value. Climate change, digital surveillance, education, careers, and platform capitalism create new pressures for cartographic redrawing across all these interconnected domains.
I think one of the reasons so many of us feel disoriented is that we’re using out-of-date maps, when we need new ones to address so many emerging questions:
When did you last consciously choose which map to follow versus having one chosen for you?
How are our work maps evolving?
What does it mean to be "cartographically literate"?
Are we living in territories we've never actually agreed to inhabit?
Are we witnessing the emergence of new forms of unelected territorial governance? If so, are we already living in an age of "cartographic totalitarianism," and what would resistance look like?
Zeroing In
I suspect we face something of a conundrum. The people who can help us annotate our existing maps and create new ones from them are not the “Plus One” leaders we are told we need. They are quieter, more circumspect, thoughtful and considered. Their practices and work habits resemble those of a craft more than an entrepreneurial mindset. They do the groundwork.
In last Friday’s
post, I wrote about the idea of creating new maps as a process of discovery, of stepping stones, rather than analysis. What John Boyd terms observation, then orientation, before decision and action.The challenge then is to create the space for zeroes to gather - perhaps something like a modern-day atelier or craft workshop, where they can bring their work, their piece of the jigsaw, and work with others doing the same to create new maps from the pieces. It asks of us a different approach to the “head down pursuit of goals” that characterise most of our work.
Traditionally, an atelier is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist or architect, where a principal and a team of assistants, students, and apprentices collaborate to produce creative work. For a painter, the atelier smells of paint. An atelier for zeroes reeks of ideas and experiments that cannot find a home in the more industrial workshops of organisations, which pursue growth and profit above all else.
Small, intimate spaces, built on trust, purpose and curiosity. Hosted by people such as
, , and Sue Heatherington. They host, curate and inspire the curiosity that enables us to create new maps, not just for ourselves, but for others.We can help them by bringing them to the attention of the zeroes we know.
Wandering with Purpose
I have a long-standing aversion to rules and frameworks that I have not helped create. At the same time, I recognise that they have value as heuristics, or stepping stones, as we move from old maps to new ones.
At
we are using the NOTICE framework as a way to orient ourselves to new realities. I’m going to do something similar here on Outside the Walls, to scaffold my writing over the next few weeks, and keep my writing here and at New Artisans coordinated to a degree, something less structured than NOTICE, but with enough substance to act as a temporary container.So I’m offering a sort of “anti framework”; WANDER, as a heuristic to help observe what is going on around us:
W: Witness the edges, not the centre. Look for boundaries that are shifting.
A: Allow ourselves to be productively disoriented. Embrace ignorance.
N: Navigate using questions, not what we think we know.
D: Dialogue across difference. Work in groups and challenge.
E: Embrace Thresholds. Make Camp for a while.
R: Return with Gifts. Not treasure.
I’ll use it to guide my posts over the next few weeks, and then pause to take my bearings.
Next week, I’ll start with edges:
"Where the known world ends, the interesting questions begin"
In the meantime, have a great week.
Love the idea of “an atelier for zeroes”. What that could look like is going to bounce around my head for a while Richard…
Thanks for the “honourable mention” Richard. My favourite part of the session on Machiavelli was this brief AI generated summary: “Machiavelli didn’t invent Machiavellianism —
he just watched Cesare Borgia and took really good notes.”