It happens very often that when facing a problem, a complicated situation, a challenge we tend to come up with ideas and solutions for solving them, but we also have to face the limitations of our own environment, conditions or even personal experience.

This is blocking the application of what seems to be an obvious solution. Unfortunately, at this point most people give up or compromise themselves or they just work harder. However there is a way around it, how to find the right solution at the right time which is related to our own innate abilities that are underutilized by most people.

Let’s see how:

I started working in a small restaurant as a commercial worker. The restaurant doesn’t have a vision, direction, strategy, business plan, priorities etc. The business is managed by the business owner’s intuition and practical experience.
Therefore, when I got started it was difficult to understand the restaurant activity as a whole.

In the beginning, the only thing I could perceive was that it was stressful because it was crowded and I was running in all directions like everyone else in the restaurant and it was challenging to keep up with the fast pace, especially because I am not the multitasking type.

But i started to keep a daily journal and doing daily revisions. I was writing down random, small or repetitive facts from the restaurant as a whole.

As a result I identified 3 overlapping activities:

1 serving clients that were eating in the restaurant

2 serving clients that were buying food to go

3 taking orders on the phone and prepare them for delivery

We were 2 commercial workers in the restaurant and working separately in different shifts. So, each of us was working one full day with one day off.

Once, I identified this pattern I realized it is physically impossible for one commercial worker to perform ALL 3 types of activities and serve 3 types of clients’ requests at the same time. This was a problem as there were delays in serving clients and they were getting impatient.

Once I identified these 3 overlapping activities, the solution became obvious that we needed a 2nd commercial worker to ensure the work flow and serving process during the lunch time.

Challenge: it was obvious that the restaurant didn’t afford to hire a new employee.

In addition, there were 2 weeks left until the fasting period before Christmas 2016. Before Christmas and Eastern, orthodox people don’t eat meat and diaries. During this time, most of the Romanian people eat only vegan food. This would mean an increase of sales for our vegan restaurant. Although, it was a good opportunity for us, it was also a potential source for more chaos.

So, I put more thought in it. One day on Sunday when the restaurant was empty most of the day, I was sitting and thinking randomly about the business and our daily activities. Then the solution just popped in my mind:

It is Sunday, I am doing nothing and I am bored which means we don’t need to hire a new employee, we just have to relocate the human resource. We would close on Sunday because anyway almost nobody is coming during this day and I would split the 12h from Sunday on the shifts of my colleague during the week. So, in my free days I would go to work for 3 hours between 11 am and 2 pm. The restaurant was paying us for working the same hours, so this improvement didn’t cost the restaurant additional money.

So, we made this change from (1 worker/shift to 2 workers/shift) right before the fasting period when sales increased by about 50%.

The process of finding the RIGHT solution at the RIGHT time

The solution came as a result of observing patterns and also individual factors that seem random or small by keeping a daily journal and doing daily revisions.

Somehow, this explanation didn’t seem enough for me as I kept asking myself:

Next time when I will be in the UNKNOWN, in a new situation trying to solve a problem that doesn’t seem to have an immediate answer and without me knowing where to look, without knowing what questions to ask and without having a SPECIFIC process, step by step type that I would just follow, how will I get to KNOW the RIGHT solution?

This is because every situation and problem is unique and different, it has a different dynamic behind it (even in the same business) and because, somehow, the solution came SPONTANEOUSLY without me having control over it.

The solution had 2 parts:

1 identifying the problem (the 3 overlapping activities) came “spontaneously” as a result of my daily REVISION and NOT from daily journal as I didn’t write anything about it because I didn’t know the 3 overlapping activities existed, I just perceived the situation as “busy” and “running in all directions”.

2 finding the solution implied a conscious effort which didn’t come straight. In addition, the solution came also spontaneously, during a Sunday when I was doing nothing, but randomly thinking about the business.

Let’s look at each of them closer:

Identifying the problem

The problem was about the existence of 3 overlapping activities. There were all happening at “the same time” every single day. There was “no distance in time and space” among them as I was at the intersection of all 3. So, they were in my immediate time and space.

Now I know why the 1st thing that I noticed in both the advertising production business and the restaurant were OVERLAPPING activities. They were happening all together and they were permanently present. So, daily revisions were enough to identify them. My mind immediately caught the pattern even if I was not aware of it during my revision routine.

Writing was focused on what I considered to be relevant. At the same time, my mind also skipped the information from my activity at work as I was too close to it to see it: serve clients that eat in the restaurant, buy to go and order for delivery. However, the REVISION process ensured that the mind caught all the details from during the day, even if I CHOSE not to write them or even if I was not aware of them. Eventually, it detected the pattern.

Finding the solution

The solution to bring 2 workers/shift was not very obvious without hiring a new employee. This is because:

1st it required connecting 2 assets, resources that were distant both in time and space. This means the 2 assets (the 2 commercial workers and inactive Sundays) were not seen together all at once because, in general, we FOCUS on our IMMEDIATE surroundings, IMMEDIATE problems and IMMEDIATE solutions that we can see, touch, hear and feel in our IMMEDIATE presence so that we can produce IMMEDIATE results.

2nd the mind already KNEW a STANDARD solution: hiring a new employee.

So, one solution was obvious, but the 2nd option was missing from my perception of reality. Once a solution becomes obvious, we usually take action to do it. But, if the execution of the obvious solution faces limitations, usually one doesn’t take the time to think about it as it is perceived a waste of time or not that important or finds something else.

Let’s take the first reason why the solution to switch to 2 workers/shift was NOT IMMEDIATELY obvious: the required resources were distant in time and space.

The Distance in Time:

the 2 commercial workers: me and my colleague were working on separate shifts, not together, with one day at work and one day off. This meant we were not meeting with each other. So, I didn’t see my colleague within my IMMEDIATE sphere of action and hence, my mind didn’t perceive him as a potential resource. So, there were interruptions in the activity at the perception level.

We were doing the same job, were working in the same space (the restaurant), but the time frame was different, in DIFFERENT DAYS. This meant there was a longer DISTANCE in TIME between my IMMEDIATE attention, my logic, my knowledge (jumping to conclusions) about what I thought a solution should look like (hiring a new employee, a standard, a common practice) and the actual resource, the solution (my colleague). So, the resources (2 commercial workers) that shaped the solution were not anymore in the same day as in the case of the 3 overlapping activities, they were not taking place at the same time.

Sundays the restaurant was almost empty: my IMMEDIATE focus was on the problem from the CROWDED days (Monday to Friday) when I wanted to improve the service flow. Sunday was not a crowded day, so my logic immediately excluded it from the FRAME, from the space of the problem.

Sundays repeat every 7th day of the week, but my IMMEDIATE attention was focused on the 1st to the 5th days of the week.

So, the inactive day of Sunday was again not an obvious resource because of the wider time frame between the days it was happening. Sundays were not included in the space of the problem I was trying to solve, namely to improve the flow of service in the restaurant.

Thus, finding the solution was not an obvious thing, it took me some time because the 2 main assets (my colleague and Sundays) were both distant in TIME from my IMMEDIATE field of work and hence, from my IMMEDIATE attention, from what I considered to be logic and that could bring an IMMEDIATE solution.

The Distance in Space:

me and my colleague were working separately, in different days. Although we were working in the same restaurant (space), we were not sleeping there. So, I was home when my colleague was working in the restaurant and he was home when I was working. This meant that me, the observer MOVED AWAY from the SPACE of the activity.
So, the distance in space refers to the movement of the observers (the employees) relatively to the same space we were working in (the restaurant).

So, being in action INSIDE the restaurant, my PERCEPTION is that my ACTIVITIES are SEPARATED because I have to MOVE from one to the other in order to reduce the SPACE among them and ALTER their state, meaning get things done: serve clients, clean dishes, answer the phone for deliveries etc.

The fact that I am going home after work is an opportunity to look at the restaurant activity with detachment, to look at it from OUTSIDE my own activity. This totally shifts the PERCEPTION about the business. A different perception makes you take a different attitude and hence, different actions.

So, I change my position from the restaurant into another space of reflection at home. Here, there is NO ACTION, so there is NO SPACE to reduce, hence NO TIME. The perception about your activities changes and will help you see the ACTIVITIES NOT as separated, but SIMULTANEOUS happening at the same TIME and SPACE which is in your mind through the process of reflection and revision. This increases the probability to find MORE relevant solutions beyond than what you consider IMMEDIATELY obvious.

So, physical detachment “CUTS” the TIME and SPACE among activities, information and one perceives them as simultaneously. This is the moment when your mind makes connections and solutions pop up. That is why I could see that Sundays and my colleague were resources for improving the flow of service in the restaurant because I could see them in my mind SIMULTANEOUSLY as the notion of TIME and SPACE between them completely disappeared. We will see bellow the same thing in the case of increasing sales where the notion of time and space disappears and DISCONNECTED resources come together.

So, the LONGER the distance in TIME and SPACE, the more likely is to perceive the elements from a business as SEPARABLY, as INDIVIDUAL problems or irrelevant for solving important problems (increase sales and profitability) and hence, the more likely it is you will FIX them separately by moving yourself from one place to another, running in all directions, increase the time and effort to handle them and the need for multitasking.

We can change reality by changing our mind which is relatively how we move in TIME and SPACE and how we look at business activities moving in time and space.

Perception is something that happens in the MIND. This means that the way you look at things, your perception influences the results in your business. If you struggle with low sales, low profits and high costs it is because of a poor perception. The problems you have on the outside are a consequence of poor relocation of resource and poor use of time which are directly influenced by your perception about them.

So, we can argue that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity also applies in business because TIME and SPACE are relative. This is because they HAPPEN in the observer’s MIND.

This doesn’t mean you will go around asking yourself:

How will I apply the relativity theory in my business?

The point is to become AWARE that you can find resources to solve problems, not only in your immediate time and space, in what seems to be realistic and pragmatic, in what seems to be closer to you, more reachable, but also in places, resources that APPARENTLY seem totally irrelevant and totally disconnected from important problems, such as sales, efficiency and profitability.

For example: you should become aware that there is a connection between the kitchen production process and profitability, there is a connection between the service method and efficiency, between clients’ buying behaviour and sales.

This will give you the TRUST that, even if you don’t see an immediate solution, you will FIND it if you just pay attention, if you allow yourself to be CURIOUS and look into the UNSEEN, into the IMPRACTICAL and UNREAL, in places that seem too FARAWAY from the relevance of the problems you are trying to solve. As a result, you will have more courage to safely TEST different ideas, not because of the outcome you think you will get, but because no matter if it will work out or not, you will definitely and certainly UNCOVER new information that will help you in a way or another, it will bring you more clarity about your business, situation or job.

Even if resources are not physically together in the same time and space, they still influence the outcome: sales, profits, costs, business efficiency.

Since resources that are disconnected in time and space influence the results in our business, it means that in our business there might be other resources that are distant in time and space that could help us to make improvements, increase sales with little effort and costs. We don’t know exactly what those resources are, but we know for sure that they are there in our business.

Our IMMEDIATE attention cannot perceive them because of the distance in time and space among them. I have just demonstrated this with the example above.

That is why time for reflection and revision is necessary because we need to CUT the time and space among them to see them.

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is a scientific proof that CURIOSITY is a NECESSITY in solving complicated problems in our adulthood life. It is not just a funny thing that children have.

Mihaela Dragan