Practice / The Framework · 01
Exercise 01 · The Framework

The Coherence Map

Open the model The Coherence Map →
Part One

The Scenario

Martin, Head of Commercial at a mid-size freight forwarding and logistics provider, has been given a new mandate. The Chief Executive Officer wants the business to move upmarket. Too much revenue is trapped in low-margin, high-churn transactional accounts. The strategic goal is clear: win more enterprise clients, build longer relationships, increase revenue per account. Martin agrees with the direction. He has updated the pitch deck. He has briefed the team.

Twelve months later the revenue mix has barely shifted. Enterprise accounts represent slightly more of the total, but not meaningfully so. The sales team continues to spend most of its time on smaller deals. Martin finds this frustrating. The strategy is right. The execution is not matching it.

What Martin has not fully examined is the system underneath the strategy. His team of eleven sales representatives has been recruited, trained and incentivised for transactional volume. The fastest path to their quarterly target is closing multiple smaller accounts, not nurturing a single complex enterprise relationship over six months. Their activity (cold outreach, quick qualification calls, short sales cycles) is optimised for a customer segment the strategy says they are moving away from.

The resources compound the problem. The customer relationship management system is configured around deal count, not account depth. The onboarding process is designed for accounts that go live in two weeks, not enterprise implementations that require dedicated coordination over months. There is no enterprise account management capability. There is no structured solution design function. The proposal templates were written for procurement teams who buy on price.

Martin has a strategy that points in one direction and a commercial system built entirely for another. The goals and the resources are not incoherent in isolation. They are incoherent with each other.

The Coherence Map makes this visible. It does not tell Martin what to decide. It shows him exactly where the system is working against itself, and therefore where any intervention will have the most leverage.

Part Two

Reflection

Question 01
In your commercial organisation: is what the team does every day actually aligned with the strategy? Not in theory. In practice. What does a typical week of sales activity look like, and is it pointing at the right customers?
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Question 02
Where in your commercial system is there a gap between what the strategy requires and what the current capability can deliver? Recruitment, skills, tools, processes, incentives: which of these is most misaligned with where the business says it wants to go?
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Question 03
If you were to fix one thing in the GCAR system to create the most meaningful shift in commercial performance, what would it be and why? Not the most visible problem. The one with the most leverage.
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Part Three

Application Canvas

Apply the GCAR model to your own commercial organisation. Map each element honestly, then name the gap. Open the interactive model in a second tab as a reference while you work.

Goals
What does the commercial strategy say the organisation is trying to achieve? Be specific: target segment, revenue ambition, growth model, competitive positioning.
Customers
Who does the team actually spend its time with? Not the target on paper. The actual accounts being worked, the deals in the pipeline, the meetings being taken this week.
Activities
What does the commercial team actually do each week? The calls made, the accounts worked, the meetings taken, the proposals written. Not what the playbook says. What actually happens.
Resources
What capabilities, tools, skills and capacity does the organisation actually have? Be honest about what is available versus what the strategy assumes will be available.
The Coherence Gap
Where are the four elements pulling against each other? Name the specific tension: which goal is undermined by which activity, which resource is missing for which customer segment. This is where the leverage is.
Export your work
Generate a PDF of your completed exercise. Includes your reflection answers and your GCAR canvas. Useful as a diagnostic document before a commercial strategy review.
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