CEOs do something most senior managers never do. They know exactly who shapes every important decision in their company. Not the names on the org chart. The actual influence map underneath it.
Call it operational awareness. If you're going to make change in any organisation, you have to know who can accelerate it and who can block it. The org chart will mislead you on both.
Power mapping is the discipline of building that picture for yourself. I run a version of this with every client in their first month, and it's the single exercise that produces the most "I had no idea" moments.
It takes about twenty minutes. Pen and paper works better than a digital tool. Here's the version I use.
Step one: List the decision
Pick one specific decision you want to influence in the next six months. Not a vague goal. A specific decision. The headcount budget for your team. Approval of a new initiative. Inclusion in a strategic working group. Your own promotion.
Write it at the top of the page. One sentence. "Approval to launch the customer success function in EMEA by Q2."
The exercise doesn't work for vague ambitions. It works for specific decisions with specific decision-makers attached.
Step two: Name the formal decider
Underneath the decision, write the name of the person whose signature, in formal terms, makes the decision happen. CFO. CEO. Your manager's manager. Whoever sits in the chair where the meeting concludes.
Now here's the catch. The formal decider is almost never the only person whose view matters. In most senior decisions, they're the last step in a process that's already been shaped by other people. By the time it reaches them, the answer is usually 70 per cent decided.
Step three: Map the influence ring
Around the formal decider, draw five circles. In each circle, write the name of someone whose view will shape what the decider thinks before they get to the moment of decision.
These are usually some combination of:
- The decider's most trusted peer (often a colleague at the same level they've worked with for years).
- The decider's most aggressive critic (someone who pushes back hard and whom they unconsciously calibrate against).
- The functional expert they defer to on this topic (the head of finance for financial decisions, the CTO for tech decisions).
- The person who briefs them before the decision meeting (often a Chief of Staff, executive assistant, or trusted lieutenant).
- The colleague whose opposition would be politically expensive (someone whose objection would force the decider to defend the call).
Identify those five for your specific decision. Write them by name. If you can't name all five, that's a signal. The gap in your map is the gap in your strategy.
Step four: Rate your current standing with each
Next to each name, write one of three letters.
S = Supporter. They'd probably argue for you in a closed-door conversation.
N = Neutral. They have no strong view. They could go either way.
B = Blocker. They'd push back, actively or passively.
Be brutally honest. The instinct is to round up. Most professionals rate everyone as Neutral when in fact they don't actually know what those people think. If you haven't had a real conversation with someone about the topic, they're Neutral at best, more likely Unknown.
Step five: Identify the lever
Look at the map. You're not trying to convert blockers to supporters in one go. You're looking for the smallest move that shifts the overall balance.
In most decisions, the move is about converting one neutral to a supporter, or neutralising one blocker. Those movements alter the pre-decision conversation the decider walks into.
The smallest useful action is usually a single conversation. Twenty minutes. Coffee or a focused video call. Not pitching. Asking. "I'm thinking about putting this forward in Q2. Before I do, I'd like to understand your perspective on what's worked and what hasn't in similar initiatives we've run."
That question costs nothing, generates real information, and almost always shifts how that person experiences you. They'll often start advocating for your idea without being asked, because they now feel ownership over its shape.
The line between mapping and manipulation
A clean test. If you'd be embarrassed to have the conversation overheard, you're not doing power mapping. You're doing something else.
Power mapping is just asking smart questions of people who have information you don't. It's the same thing you'd do if you were buying a house or hiring a team. The only reason it feels uncomfortable is that we've been taught to pretend offices are pure meritocracies. They aren't, and they never were.
"If you don't know who the sucker is at the table, you're the sucker." Warren Buffett said this about investing, but it applies just as cleanly to office decisions. If you don't know who the real decision-makers are in any room you're in, the answer is probably that everyone else in the room is operating on better information than you are.
Do the exercise this week for one decision. Twenty minutes. You'll thank yourself by month's end.
