Musicians get it.
Creative writers understand it.
Marketing folks thrive on it.
White space is a concept known in many fields for a number of reasons, but the underlying theme is always to give a mental pause. In music, a phrase of notes, a movement, can be separated from another with a rest or a pause. The pause gives your mind time to absorb the melody and accept a change of direction. In creative writing, whitespace takes the form of blank lines, paragraph markers and tabs. You can express a great deal in a written story by adding an extra blank line or space in just the right place. Marketing people live by whitespace. This is why billboards are not crammed with images, but rather have a few select targeted images and words surrounded by clear space. Clarity. White space.
In the practice of people management, the concept of white space is also important. Over the years I have made a great deal of mistakes and learned from them the hard way. One of these things was an understanding that people need processing time, they need to gather information, sort it, sleep on it, let all the pieces fall into place. Several times in my career, I have taken on a leadership role with a team of people who needed some redirection - usually because the company direction and goals were changing. In these cases it is more important than ever to tread softly, but in all cases when taking on a new leadership role, it is important not to make sudden changes. After all, the team already has one huge change to deal with - you.
What I have found is that there is always some upheaval in the initial days, just because you have taken on this new role. Even if the team knew you before, the relationship changes, the politics have to be recalculated, the pieces all need to be resorted. What people need is some white space. People need some mental time to process the change and understand that there is no threat to them or their families or station. That is what it is really all about when you think about it - 60,000 years of evolution and we still think about tribe hierarchy and wether the new leader is going to cut off your head or leave you for jackal food in the desert.
So what to do in that first several days while you are leaving your new team with whitespace to clear their thoughts? You ask questions, learn their strengths, research the landscape and do your best to understand the challenges that need to be addressed in the next steps. No sane person expects a new manager to make immediate changes because that always leads to failure. People need the clarity of whitespace in between the big announcement that you have taken on the job and the time you need to act on that responsibility, there needs to be some time for processing. White space.
Another important lesson I have learned is that this pattern repeats when major changes occur even after you have been leading a team for a long time. When there is a large adjustment to make, make it - but make it with clarity and with all the information, then leave people with time and space to process. People need whitespace and your job as a manager it to keep it in it's place.
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