1. THE JOURNEY METAPHOR
Jay Martin Hays
The Journey (or Explorer) Metaphor is a device designed to
communicate about the change process and to help prepare people
about to undergo change. It uses the language and imagery of the
early explorers to create a sense of direction and predictability for a
process that often must seem haphazard. It serves to remind people
that they are at the helm of the ship, or at least up on deck, looking
forward, instead of being powerless victims locked away in the hold
where it’s dark, damp, and miserable.
Figure 1. The Journey Metaphor.
Since exploring, by definition, takes you into places you’ve never been, how do you prepare for the
trip? That is the purpose of the metaphor: to get people thinking and talking about what they need to do to
safely undertake a journey to a destination that cannot be firmly and completely described beforehand.
Most people “connect” immediately with the metaphor, which
makes it simple to use from the facilitator’s perspective. It is easy for
workshop participants to see how the steps of the metaphor apply in the
real world. The metaphor provides a common language and frame of
reference for change. Later, they can use the familiar steps of the
metaphor to identify where they are in the process. This helps them to
know what to expect and to focus attention on productive things they
might be able to do.
ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
Some of the issues and challenges posed by taking a journey to a place a team or organisation has never
been include:
 preparing/planning for the unknowable;
 identifying potential risks and having suitable responses;
 creating a culture of exploring and the explorer mindset;
Defining the
Destination
Charting
the Course
Selecting
Explorers
Setting Off
Preparing
Explorers
Ports o’ Call
Journey
Milestones
Arrival!
Evaluation
& Lessons
LearnedHail and
Farewell!
The Journey Metaphor:
Improving Processes in the Time of Cook
Exploring Unchartered Territory

2.  keeping in contact with home; and
 keeping the faith; dealing with mutiny.
KEEPING ON COURSE IN UNCHARTERED TERRITORY
Some of the principles that experience have proven helpful in undertaking a journey to a place no one has
ever been include the following:
 Agree to and understand the destination and process for getting there (framework):
 Vision, Imperative, Objectives; and
 flexible “roadmap” and experienced guides.
 Know where you are at any given time (measure):
 against vision and milestones (roadmap), risks, CSFs, and Key Performance Indicators; and
 document Progress (Map) and Lessons Learned (ship’s log).
 Keep people involved, excited, and “fit” (participation):
 provide the tools, techniques, and skills people need;
 empower with authority and legitimacy;
 charge with responsibility; and
 install / use an infrastructure for people “back home”.
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE STEPS
This section identifies some of the specifics involved at each step in the journey.
Step 1—Defining the Destination
Step 1 involves:
 Developing and communicating the context for change. Why is it that change is
necessary? Why are we undertaking this journey at this time?
 Articulating the vision (values; principles). How are things going to be better when
we get through this? What values and principles will govern our journey; how will
they be fulfilled in the new world? What is that beacon toward which we sail?
 Specifying the mission. What must we achieve? What is the overall purpose of this
journey? Who/what group has overall responsibility for the success of the mission?
 Setting clear objectives. What specific goals must we accomplish?
 Assessing readiness. How “fit” are we to undertake this journey? What must we do to prepare
ourselves? Who has taken such a journey before, from whom we can learn?
 Developing the general approach / roadmap. Given
we are going to some place we’ve never been, what
can we do to make our journey as safe and
predictable as possible? How definite and clear can
we make our map? Where do we even start? How
will we know what to do when?
 Clarifying sponsorship. Who is the most senior
authority sponsoring us? What is this person’s role in
supporting us along the way? How can we stay “connected?”

3. Step 2—Making Ready
Step 2 involves:
 High-level project planning. Even though you’ve never been to
the destination before or taken this exact route, proper planning
is necessary. People have travelled; you know what the generic
tasks are. The best plans for trips never previously taken build
in extra checkpoints. You should know what the Critical
Success Factors are and have given thought to measures of
success, so that you can make course corrections early—before
it’s too late.
 Understanding journey risks. Along with identifying CSFs and
performance measures, you must pay particular attention to risks, even those assumed to have a low
probability of occurring. The more people think about risks and contingencies, the better prepared and
coordinated they are if they find they must respond to an emergency.
 Setting explorer criteria. With destination in mind and having considered task requirements and risks,
it is time to determine the kind of individuals you need to have along.
While a mix of skills and strengths is necessary, people possessing
certain characteristics have been found to be invaluable on journeys of
change, enthusiasm, flexibility, and persistence are three of them. It is
also useful to have experienced explorers; people who know what to
expect; who can read the signs. The ability to see oneself as a team
member and to work well as part of a team is essential.
 Selecting team members. You may have found the criteria above
helpful; you may have other criteria, as well. But use real and useful
criteria to pick team members. Availability is not a useful criterion (by
itself).
 Chartering the team/teams. Chartering teams is crucial to their
ultimate survival and success. Chartering is essentially a project team start-up activity, and is often the
best investment in team-building. Chartering can be more or less formal, depending on purpose of the
team, the complexity of its work, and the length of time the team is expected to be together. Many of
those elements already covered in this section can be dealt with in the context of chartering. Possible
elements of a team charter mightr include1
: membership, mission/purpose, values, schedule, roles and
responsibilities, reporting structure, scope, critical success factors, deliverables, objective measures of
success, risks and risk management, and operating norms (working together).
 Building teamwork and exploring skills. Teamwork training begins with chartering, as explained
above. More teamwork skills training may be necessary, depending on the mix of people you have, and
their experience in teams and the interpersonal/communications skills they possess. Exploring skills are
practical skills, knowledge, and awareness relating to organisational change, specifically going
whereon one has gone before. Outside the scope of this discussion, these involve group problem-
solving and decision-making skills, along with guidance and appreciation for the nature of managed
change. Understanding and applying the Journey Metaphor, itself, is a basic part of explorer training.
 Establishing team and project infrastructure. These are the mechanics and process of team and project
management, coordination, operation, reporting, and support. Every team will be different in its
requirements, and multiple teams require greater infrastructure than single teams. As with many other
things, a balance must be struck. Teams constricted by too much process will not be as flexible and
creative as they need to be. Teams with no supporting framework and agreed-upon process for working
1
Chartering and team building are covered in J.M. Hays, Building High-Performance Teams: A Practitioner’s Guide, Argos
Press, 2004.

4. will flounder or go off in their own directions. It’s all about the right amount. In my experience, teams
have either too much or too little.
Step 3—Setting Off
Step 3 involves:
 Team assignments and division of labour. Highly-performing teams generally have to assign roles and
divide-up tasks. It makes sense to distribute jobs based on skills, aptitude, and desire, but to optimize
cross-learning and capability-building, tasks and responsibilities should be rotated and, where possible,
people should work in tandem—pairing more experienced explorers and those with proficient skills in
certain areas with less experienced team members and those who need to develop their skills in
respective areas. The tasks and roles, themselves, come out of Defining the Destination, partially, and
in particular from Charting the Course and associated chartering activities. Paring team members for
effectiveness and cross-learning is made possible by the skill and knowledge assessment, relative to
required team tasks and responsibilities.2
 Detailed project planning. Project planning now needs to be taken to a next level of detail. At this
point, explorers better know what tasks and risks are involved, how they will be organising to carry out
their mission, and share an understanding of the journey process and the nature of organisational
change. Planners must recognise, however, that definite detail will be impossible. Plans must be
flexible enough to accommodate detail as it becomes available and to promote learning and
responsiveness.
 Send-off celebration. The send-off celebration is a formal
kick-off of some sort. It legitimates the undertaking and
recognises those team members going forth, while making
sure that everyone in the organisation feels part of the
mission. If teams go too far without keeping those back
home informed and involved, what they discover may end
up having no relevance or acceptance.
 Embarking as sub-teams. Organisational journeys of change
of any substance will require numerous teams. Each will
have its own charter, relative to the overall vision and mission. It is important that they go forward with
ownership and accountability for achieving their part of the mission. It is just as important, however,
that they understand they are part of a bigger “team” and it is the overall mission that must be achieved.
Collaboration, and integration and leveraging of work are critical. The infrastructure, mentioned above,
needs to be designed to enable and promote working together (across teams).
 Sub-team check-ins and mini course corrections. Every team needs periodic check-ins to assess
progress, maximize learning and leverage of individual efforts, and to refocus. How often these occur
depends on speed and distance traveled, complexity of work, inter-dependence, hazards and degree of
risk. Brief, but frequent is probably the best rule of thumb. The dangerous tendency in such check-ins
is to neglect certain issues because it is thought that entertaining them will “bog” the team down.
Another typical danger is not bringing things up because it assumed others know it already or are
dealing with things in a similar fashion. A standard agenda for such check-ins is important.
 Team check-ins. These are larger check-ins than the ones described above for individual teams. These
are check-ins of team members across teams. For economy and manageability, these check-ins are
usually reserved for the team leaders or designated team representatives instead of all team members.
There are occasions, however, when it is important for everyone to know what is going on and to hear
things the same way. The key objective is for all teams to understand where other teams are at and
what they are doing. This helps to prevent unnecessary redundancy, reduce gaps, optimise
opportunities to leverage the efforts of other teams, and to learn from them.
2
Tools and process for skill and knowledge assessment and planning for cross-learning and other developmental tasks are
provided in J.M. Hays, Building High-Performance Teams: A Practitioner’s Guide, Argos Press, 2004.

5. Step 4—Ports o’Call
Step 4 is all the things that happen while underway, what some peope mistakenly feel is the only real work
involved in undertaking a journey of organisational change. Journey success is much more dependent on
preparing for the trip than actually taking it. While on the trip, however, some of the things involved
include:
 Keeping a journal or “ship’s log”. Diaries aren’t just for those
who enjoy writing. Detailed accounts of problems encountered,
solutions tried, and decisions made provide an important and
timesaving reference down the track if you need to go back or
understand why the team went a certain way as opposed to
some other. They also are crucial for transfer of learning for
others after journey’s end. Think of this as map-making, one of
the most important outcomes of exploration. If others cannot
follow in your footsteps, you have not completed the journey
completely.
 Arrival at journey milestones or major course correction. In your planning, you would have set
milestones representing how far along you would need to be at given points. Your measures of success
related to progress and interim achievements, not just the finished product. Your Critical Success
Factors allow you to monitor how supportive or inhibiting
conditions are to continued progress. Combined, these
indicators help you make decisions regarding where to
focus your attention and if any major changes to plan or
course corrections need to be made.
 Achievement of high-level objectives and lessons learned.
As above, achievements along the way, relative to initial
goals and expectations, need to be recognised, and
variance from established achievement levels needs to be
looked at to determine if intervention is necessary. Lessons learned along the way are important for this
and future journeys. Conducting and documenting lessons learned should be automatic, and a process
for this needs to be built into the journey. Consider this part of the infrastructure discussed previously.
 Interim celebrations. As achievements in and of themselves are important, so is celebrating them.
Motivation can wane of even seasoned and enthusiastic explorers. Recognition and celebration of
interim achievements can sustain spirits and fortify resolve through the next challenging period. Such
celebrations serve as legitimate and important team-building activities.
 Re-provisioning and team member rejuvenation. Ports 0’ Call traditionally provided a change of pace
for travelers. They could “kick up their heels,” get a
good bite to eat, and exchange yarns with the locals and
other travelers. Stores could be replenished. People
could relax away from the monotony and strain of
journey. Managers of organisational change should
always remember this. The longer and more arduous
the trip, the more feeding and caring are needed.
Celebrations, above, provide one means, but the creative program director can employ many others.
 Reports to the community. “Letters home” and other communiqués are extremely important for both
teams underway and those awaiting news. Preparing updates helps those traveling to reflect upon the
trip and to put things into perspective. Most importantly, you cannot afford to allow those back home
to be “left behind.”
Step 5—Arrival
Arrival! Mission accomplished! Step 5 is a time to celebrate; the major work has been done. Everyone
must remember, however, that the journey is not over. As with any major undertaking, there is a lot of
wrapping-up to do (see next item). Nevertheless, Step 5 is about returning home with a sense of pride and

6. achievement. The major tasks in this step are reporting the adventures and successes to the larger
community, sharing the maps that have been created, and celebrating achievemnt and return as a group.
You may have to work hard to help the community embrace the path laid down by the explorers, as
everyone will now have to walk down that path together.
A task often neglected concerns team members and their re-integration into the community. They
may feel detached or unappreciated. They may feel a sense of post-journey “let-down;” they may
experience some disorientation as a consequence of having completed the bulk of their mission and the
natural dissolution of their team.
Step 6—Evaluation and Lessons Learned
The remaining work of the journey entails completing an evaluation and drawing as many lessons learned
from the experience as possible. At a minimum, the evaluation must be based on the original goals and
measures of performance set for the organisational change journey. Other aspects can be evaluated as
well. Lessons learned are drawn from the experience, itself, and from the evaluation. Evaluation results
and lessons learned should be publicised across the organisation widely so that as many people benefit
from the retrospective as possible.
Step 7—Hail and Farewell!
The last step, Step 7, Hail and Farewell!, is so named to remind everyone that organisational change is a
journey that never ends. The journey proceeds in cycles; one iteration has been completed, but another
will soon begin. The continuance may be a next phase to the completed project or it may be a new journey
entirely.
The main task of this step is to hold a formal final celebration honouring the journey and its
accomplishments. This celebration is designed to bring closure to the project and the teams involved. In
cases where change is treated as a cycle, such as in a Continuous Improvement Program, or when a major
program is entering a next phase, the occasion can be used to welcome new teams and team members and,
if timely, to “send them off.”
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Organisational change can be likened to a journey of exploration in many ways. In both instances, you’ve
got your basic preparation, travel, and arrival steps. The Journey Metaphor adds a creative and
empowering dimension to the idea of managed organisational change. It suggests including aspects that
have been found in previous journeys to increase probabilities of success and to make the trips,
themselves, safer and more pleasant. The Journey Metaphor makes it possible for people to participate in
the creation of their own path and destination. There will be no ownership of either, if they do not
participate in this creation.
Viewing change as a journey into the unknown can be
quite useful. It is exciting to embark on a journey of discovery.
At the same time, it can and should be sobering to recognise
that you are about to travel to someplace no one else has ever
been, carving the path forward as none exists. Knowing this,
however, should make it easier to accept that no one knows
exactly what the journey will be like or what the destination
will look like once you’ve arrived.
Under these circumstances, change managers and all
those on whom change depends should accept that greater
investment and attention up front—that is, before explorers are sent off to “discover”—are required.
People need to be fit, sufficient and appropriate supplies need to be set aside, and experienced guides
should be sourced. While maps may not be available, lessons learned from previous explorers should be
exploited. The metaphor also suggests that more attention needs to be paid to the change process and those

7. journeying as the journey unfolds. Finally, as experience is the best teacher, ensure that time,
commitment, and a process for learning as you go are built into the journey plan and documented in the
ship’s log.