14. On Becoming a Gapologist

Although I’ve described some effective ways to close communication gaps, truth in book-writing compels me to reveal that you can’t ever be gap-free. Opportunities for communication gaps are everywhere, and despite your best efforts, you will at times create them, contribute to them, or fall victim to them. By becoming alert to the possibility of these gaps, though, you’ll minimize the ones that could have an adverse impact on your projects, activities, and relationships. With vigilance and practice, you’ll become a certified Gapologist.

I challenge you to become mindful of the potential for gaps and to channel that awareness into improving your personal and organizational effectiveness. Lucky person that I am, I seem to have awareness-raising experiences quite often—even in elevators.

Take, for example, the time I was staying at one of those big-city hotels, the kind with glass-fronted elevators that climb up and down the sides of a center atrium thirty stories high. I was alone in one of the elevators, ascending to my room on the twenty-second floor.

For the first twenty-one floors, the ride was uneventful. I peered through the glass wall down to guests the size of ants, milling about in the lobby below. Suddenly, just as number 22 lit up on the elevator’s display panel, I heard the grinding of gears and the metallic ping of a part popping off. The elevator slammed to a stop. I waited for the doors to open. They didn’t.

Trying to remain calm, I pressed the Door Open button. Nothing. Nervously, I pressed the button for the twenty-second floor again, and then, in rapid succession, the buttons for all the floors. Still no response. Feeling slightly more desperate, I pressed the Alarm button.

A second or two passed and then, over the elevator intercom, I heard a deep, soothing voice. “What seems to be the problem?” asked the voice.

I quickly explained, “I’m on the twenty-second floor and the doors won’t open.”

“Have you tried the Door Open button?” the voice asked. I answered that I had.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” the voice reassured me. “We’ll be right up to get you out.”

That response disturbed me. To me, the words “Don’t worry about a thing” are a sure sign of an incipient gap. All I could think of was that I was in a glass prison, suspended by a thread, twenty-two stories above terra firma—quite a gap!—and a disembodied voice was blithely telling me not to worry.

In times of stress, minutes feel like months. Believing I had waited long enough, I pressed the Alarm button again, and again I heard the voice, asking, “What seems to be the problem?” Impatiently, I explained that I was still stuck on the twenty-second floor and the doors still wouldn’t open.

“Have you tried the Door Open button?” the voice asked. I was shocked. Was this an automatic voice response unit? (“Press 1 if the doors are stuck. Press 2 if you’re falling through space. . . .”) Tactfully, I brought the conversation back to the fact that we had previously spoken. “Don’t worry about a thing,” the voice chirped. “We’ll be right up to get you out.”

I don’t know about you, but when I’m told someone will be right up to get me out, I take that to mean today. Still nobody came to rescue me and so, a third time, I pressed the Alarm button. And again, I heard the voice: “What seems to be the problem?” I couldn’t believe it. In exasperation, I shouted, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m stuck on the twenty-second floor and the doors won’t open!”

The voice replied, “Don’t worry about a thing. . . .”

What seemed an eternity later, I heard two men outside the elevator. One sounded like the voice. The other I assumed to be a voice-in-training. Together, they pried open the elevator door. That’s when I discovered I wasn’t actually at the twenty-second floor, but several feet above the twenty-first floor, with just a few feet between the floor of the elevator and the top of the elevator doorway (yet another gap!).

“Okay,” said the apprentice, “You can jump down now.”

“I will not,” I said, emphatically. “You will lift me out.” Which he did.

The experience was not one I would want to repeat—ever!—but it did provide me with a useful case study for the customer service class I presented the next day in that very hotel.

This experience reminded me that when it comes to closing communication gaps, little things do matter. Things like listening (really listening) and recognizing the impact of stressful situations on people. And not making people wait forever! I truly came to appreciate these things while watching the lobby ants from Floor 21.5.