Just tell me what to do.
Give me the exact instructions, details and ideas you have, and then I'll do it.
Give me a map, trace your finger on the route, tell me when to start, when to stop, and then I'll make sure it's done (unless I have more questions).
How often do you make those demands? Do you even realize what you're doing?
When you ask a professor how many pages, what font, what they're looking for exactly, how many appendices, how to cite your work, and where's the best place to start for a paper, you're asking for a map.
When you ask your boss how the project should be done, who to talk to, how to present it, how long the presentation should be, and where he'll be when you have more questions, you're asking for a map.
Here's the problem with asking for a map. You're going to simply follow it as closely as you can. Map followers can never be successful.
Anyone can follow a map. Anyone can ask to be steered down a path, so you become just another cog in the wheel of mediocrity.
Why do we want the map? So someone else has to shoulder the blame when we screw up.
But you told me this is what you wanted. I followed the exact path you told me to take.
If you want to start making a difference, stop asking for a map. When something is ambiguous, view it as an opportunity. When you know what needs to be done but not how to do it, blaze a trail, take a chance, knock some socks off and do things without a map.