Fill Your GAPS
Workplace Whisperer intro + mission statement. (for everyone)
Welcome to the “Workplace Whisperer”, a blog meant to inspire, advise, entertain and inform those in the business world. This “virtual watercooler” was created by the team at C&S Business Solutions to be a consistent voice in the digital business arena, and to be an advocate for anyone working on improving their life in the “workplace”. Whether you are a founder/owner/boss, a seasonal worker/new hire, or somewhere in between, we hope you can find some commonalities within, and we hope to offer something positive for you to take away each week. While we aren’t about “whispering sweet nothings”; we would like to borrow your ear for a little bit. Here we go…
Fill Your GAPS (for the bosses)
Misses, shortcomings, opportunities, weaknesses, we all have them. Personally and professionally. General Areas to Problem Solve, I like to call them “GAPS”. That is all they really are, a GAP in space between where we are and where we want to be. Many people will take the time for “self care” and work on their personal GAPS any chance they can. Exercising, dietary changes, talking to a therapist, reading a self help book are tools we use, to fill the GAPS in our personal lives. I find it curious that we spend so much time, and have so many tools at our disposal for fixing GAPS in our personal lives, but have a harder time finding those tools, resources, and support to fix the GAPS in our professional lives.
Sure, you’ve got reports, attendance records, P&L statements, but do these tools, important as they are, make you aware of and offer solutions for the problems you encounter on a daily basis? Are symptoms to the bigger problems identified through these common tools, or is more investigation required? In my experience, these business resources used by most, are common tools used to see a snapshot of overall results (i.e.. overall revenue on a P&L may show you that you are missing your sales goals), but this report will NOT tell you the WHY IT HAPPENED, and HOW TO FIX IT.
This is where you, and your people step in. Search your recent memory, for recurring scenarios where things weren’t ideal. Is this something that happens regularly? You know what they are, those issues that happen every Tuesday, and each time you are thinking “Here we go again”. Have you and your team come to expect this outcome each time this scenario presents itself? Well, if you answered in the positive to one or both of these questions, you have just discovered a GAP in your business.
Before jumping ahead to solutions, take a second to applaud yourself. Discovering GAPS, and knowing where they lie, is half your battle. You just discovered the problem and are already 50% on your way to fixing it! Once we can streamline the process of identifying our GAPS, the solutions will come to us quicker as well. Sometimes, as we are implementing solutions, we discover more GAPS. Some, who may get discouraged at this point, need to keep this in perspective. Do that by asking yourself, if you were traversing a 3000 foot deep canyon on a footbridge made of rope and wood, wouldn’t you rather someone went ahead of you, and discovered all “GAPS” and remedied them before you got there, than go out and find the GAPS for yourself? Well, in this scenario, your employee is the one getting ready to walk out, the bridge is your business and all of it’s day to day functions (good or bad), and the person who should have made that first deadly crossing to remedy the GAPS for those that follow is you (the boss). If you wait for your recurring issues to become commonplace, not only will your bottom line or goals be negatively affected, you will have created large GAPS for your team to work around. With identification and proper action, those GAPS can be closed, and your footbridge may appear less daunting than originally perceived. Canyon problem, solved.
Some food for thought…