When I stepped into a Chief of Staff role at a company where I’d already spent a decade, I thought I knew everything. Every function, every system, every unwritten rule. If anyone had a mental map of how the business actually worked, it was me.

My first move was an organizational audit. I kept it low-key. I told every director I was just trying to get a real feel for where we were so I could help iron out wrinkles and stitch up gaps. I asked them to document their team’s responsibilities, partners, dependencies, tools, and internal customers. All of it, in writing.

The results exposed a company I didn’t actually know. Massive overlap between departments. Ghost responsibilities consuming time and headcount. Mission-critical work with no clear owner. I’d been there ten years, and I was operating from a perception map, not a reality map.

If I couldn’t see it after a decade inside, what does that say about leaders stepping into new companies, whether as full-time hires or interim operators? Most are working from perception, not reality. And they don’t know the gap exists.

Perception vs. Reality

Most executives operate from perception maps. They inherit org charts, strategy decks, and narratives about how the company works. They assume the map matches the territory. It almost never does.

This is why building a reality map is a critical step between crisis mitigation and stabilization. You can stop the bleeding without knowing every detail of the operation. But you cannot stabilize what you cannot see. And you definitely cannot build a durable turnaround on assumptions and inherited narratives.

The reality map becomes your operating system. It shows where ownership is unclear, where work overlaps, where critical functions have no real owner, and where zombie work consumes capacity without delivering value. Without it, you’re guessing. With it, you’re operating from ground truth.

The Quiet Fix

Most of my peers were skeptical at first. But once the map was built, it changed everything. We could finally see the pain points, the inefficiencies, the gaps in ownership and accountability.

That map became the foundation for six months of quiet, deliberate work. We fixed ownership. We clarified who actually did what. We retired work that no longer mattered. It wasn’t dramatic. We didn’t announce it. We just worked the map systematically, as a leadership team.

That discipline positioned the company for durability. It set the stage for pivoting the business model and exploring investment options. The operational clarity came first. Everything else followed.

How to Build the Reality Map

The process doesn’t need to be complicated or dramatic. Keep it low-key. Frame it as getting a baseline so you know where to help. Ask every leader to document what their team actually does. Responsibilities, partners, dependencies, tools, internal customers. Not strategy. Not goals. The work itself.

What comes back will surprise you. Overlaps you didn’t know existed. Work that no one owns. Critical functions buried in the wrong place. Responsibilities that made sense five years ago but don’t anymore.

That map becomes your operating system for stabilization and turnaround. You don’t fix everything at once. You work it quietly over time. Fix ownership first. Clarify accountability. Retire zombie work. Build discipline into the operation.

This diagnostic work comes before stabilization. Without it, you’re building on perception instead of reality. And perception breaks under pressure.

The Invisible Risk

Leaders who operate from perception maps make decisions that look right on paper but break in execution. They restructure based on narratives, not workflows. They set accountability for work that isn’t clearly owned. They measure outputs from processes they don’t actually understand.

The longer you operate from perception, the deeper the gap grows. Decisions compound on faulty assumptions. The org chart drifts further from reality. Teams lose clarity about what actually matters.

If you’ve been in a company for ten years and the map still surprises you, what does that tell you about the leader who just arrived? They don’t know what they don’t know.

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Chris Briggs works inside B2B services, SaaS, and PE portfolio companies to stabilize teams, fix fundamentals, and use AI to extend strong people and processes. One new client per quarter. Interim and embedded.

Connect: cb@chris-briggs.com | LinkedIn | 30-Minute Intro Call