ABSTRACT
It was 7:45 a.m. as Alex Taylor was arriving in the front parking lot. While his career direction had been quite frustrating to him over the last year, today was even more frustrating. As a member of Carl Garcia’s “Success is Assured” Mentor (SAM) team, Alex had been using Causal Mapping to analyze a team’s design of a new radar guidance and auto-braking system, and to gain an understanding of their knowledge gaps and their plan to resolve them effectively. Although technically challenging and providing him very broad exposure to lots of different design challenges, Alex really wanted to be able to lead a design from start to finish. He enjoyed getting projects back on track but rarely got to enjoy being on track. Unfortunately, Alex was really good at doing the Causal Mapping and coaching the teams. While he understood the importance of his role, it didn’t lessen his frustration. But sometimes, like that morning, there was additional frustration…
