How much of your company can you actually see?
If you ever played strategy games like StarCraft or Age of Empires, you remember starting a match with 95% of the map in black. You knew enemies and resources were out there – but until a scout revealed them, you were guessing in the dark.
That darkness is called fog of war.
The most striking pattern we see as consultants is that many mid-size and large Hungarian companies live in that fog every day. Leaders believe their map is clear. In reality, about two thirds of operations stay hidden.
The illusion of paper control
Ask a CEO if they understand their processes. They answer proudly: “Of course – here is the org chart and the 100-page ISO manual on the server.”
That is self-deception. Those manuals usually describe idealised happy paths. They miss handoff friction between teams, Shadow IT spreadsheets created because official systems are slow, and the quiet workarounds people use just to get work done.
In practice leaders clearly see only the few processes that are currently on fire – or the ones they personally supervise. Everything else, from purchasing to invoicing to onboarding, stays in the fog.
What this looks like in practice
When we start an OnlyProcess engagement, the first step is a process catalogue: the full list of how the company operates – typically 30–40 key processes, depending on size.
On the map you see every process, but only about ten light up green – the ones already discovered with operational SMEs. The remaining 20–30 stay black and unmapped.
That is when leaders face the hard truth: the company does not run from their desk. It is trapped in isolated heads. If key person Béla resigns tomorrow, that black patch stays dark forever – and the knowledge walks out the gate.
How do you clear the fog?
You cannot clear fog of war with micromanagement or tighter control. You clear it with systematic scouting:
- Set the scope: do not fix everything at once. Pick the ten most critical, most painful processes.
- Ask reality: interview day-to-day SMEs without their direct manager in the room, and draw processes live left to right at L3 (who does what with whom).
- Connect responsibility: link the diagrams to a database-backed RACI matrix so every step shows, in one click, who executes and who is accountable.
As black patches turn green in the software, the fog lifts. The organisation becomes readable, scalable and person-independent. Leaders stop firefighting, because the process map – like a good GPS – navigates people through daily work.
How much of your own company map can you really see? Are you sure there are no uncharted areas left?