“MIND THE GAP”

“MIND THE GAP”

It is hard to miss the announcement “MIND THE GAP” when you travel in London underground trains.  This is the caution for the travelers to mind the gap between the edge of train and platform and not get hurt by slipping in between.

This “MIND THE GAP”  was echoing in my mind, these echoes were telling me that we may need to “mind the gap” across relationships;  in business between Customers and Suppliers; at work between colleagues, at home between parents and children, between spouse, between teacher and student and so on.

I work in the services industry,  at times during the life of the service contract, I hear comments like – “you don’t understand my business”, “what is your value add”,  “SLAs are green, but unhappy Customer” , etc;  do you hear comments like these?

I think the fundamental reason is we don’t “mind the gap”  or probably don’t even realize that there is a gap.  If we analyse a bit, Customers ask what they ‘want’, not what they ‘need’ leading to a gap between want and need;  Suppliers sells what they ‘have’ (or may have in future) and not what Customer ‘want’ (which in itself a gap);  result is a big gap between the need and what Customers got.   Shouldn’t we “mind the gap” and reduce the gap?  I have attempted to make a pictorial view of gaps at every stage !

I have a very similar conversation with my children when they ask for something.   I normally say to my children,  “you are asking what you want,  it is not always true your wants and needs  matches,  I will only get you what you need” .    Did I “mind the gap” or just believed that I know their need?

If we analyse problems in any relationship – “teacher and student”, “husband and wife” ,  “colleagues at workplace”the dissatisfaction arises when we miss to  “MIND THE GAP”.

How about your encounters and experience in “MIND THE GAP” and any lessons learnt?