The Wrapping Paper Metaphor: A Lesson in Business Efficiency

🎁 Ever struggled with the dreaded wrapping paper gap? It might be more than just a nuisance. Tune into The Water Trough with Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, to discover how this common frustration relates to achieving business efficiency! #SmallBusinessTips #EfficiencyMatters

Transcript

Ed Drozda 0:10

Welcome to The Water Trough where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drozda The Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've always wanted. Welcome back to The Water Trough, this is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor. Imagine for a moment that you're wrapping a present. You get the paper around the box or whatever it might be. You get to the backside and you realize the paper's not big enough. You got this gap, the wrapping paper gap. So frustrating. I do this often. I try to add more paper than necessary hoping to avoid the gap, but typically I end up short. Sometimes I'll cut a strip of paper, tape it underneath to fill in the gap. Sometimes I get frustrated, scrap the whole thing, throw it away, and try again. I've tried a host of different approaches, but the point is that the wrapping paper gap is a real, real nuisance. Now, when you think about it, who really cares? If there's no identifying information underneath, what's an open space? Well for some reason the idea of wrapping a present requires that you wrap it thoroughly and leave nothing to be seen until the recipient naturally rips the paper off, which they do. They rip it off and they throw it away. So, the intensity and effort that you go through is for nothing, because they're just gonna get rid of it when they receive it anyway. What's this got to do with The Water Trough? What does this have to do with business? Well, it has a lot to do with business because in business we find ourselves making considerable effort to accomplish things to a degree of satisfaction, if not outright perfection. We find ourselves in this place where we really want this thing to be just so. Naturally things have to be completed to the degree necessary to achieve the outcome, and when that's the case, satisfaction follows. But perfection can get in the way of that satisfaction because sometimes we're trying to do things that quite frankly, we may never be able to achieve. Perfection may be driving us in a certain direction, but honestly, it's not typically achievable. Most importantly, it may not even be necessary. Back to the wrapping paper. So what, there's a gap and the recipient's gonna rip the paper off so they can get to what's underneath'cause that's what they're really looking for. So while we're meticulously trying to cover the gap we have to ask ourselves, well, what's gonna happen in the end anyway? There's a pretty darn good chance the recipient will never even notice that there's a gap there. They got their mind on what's underneath, not on the paper that's covering it. So then in a business situation, you're in the middle of a process, a procedure, what have you. You have to ask yourself is that which is necessary enough or is there a need to go beyond that? This is the key. Taking the time to assess what is necessary versus having this idea in mind that perfection can be expected. Once again, why does this matter? Well, time as they say is money and the time that you spend trying to achieve things that are not practical or for that matter not likely to be achieved is both a waste of time and money. The last thing that a business person can afford to do. So there you have it, pondering present wrapping, and thinking of things that we do in business. Ways in which we spend time we probably don't have to spend, or at least we should consider. As with all things it's not a bad idea to take an inventory of where you are. Trying to wrap the project, process, or otherwise in your business to perfection. It's not a bad idea to ask yourself, do I need to go further? Fair enough, it's human nature to want to make things perfect. It's human nature to drive for better than what we've got. I can't argue. I do it myself. But when we're looking for those minuscule edges, that can make a difference in our business, looking for a little more time, a little less money spent. It's things like this, tiny little things that make a big difference, believe it or not. So the next time you're wrapping a present, before you take steps to try to cover the gap, think again. This is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor and here at The Water Trough I wanna wish you a healthy business, and good wrapping experiences. I'll see you soon.