By Tim Schneider

You’ve probably all heard of the phrase “saving space for someone” or “creating space for someone”.  If you, like me, struggled understanding what that means, this article is for you.

Imagine that you are in the middle lane of a road and need to get to the left lane to make your upcoming turn.  You, assuming you are not from California, activate your turn signal to get into that left lane.  The car just to your left side sees this, slows down, and lets you in. She or he created space for you, and you were successful because of that. Hopefully, you waved in response to this gesture of kindness.

Likewise with people, creating or saving space is about giving them room to fix or heal from whatever is going on with them.  It is truly an act of kindness to give them space and an extra blessing when you don’t offer unsolicited advice or direction.  Saving or creating space differs from forgiveness in that there is no immediacy of result and there is no quantifiable way to forecast the amount of time and space needed.  Saving or creating space is the opposite of cutting and running at first sign of trouble or because of any challenge.

Let’s consider a couple of examples from the workplace.  You have a long-term valued team member that is going through some issues in his home life.  His performance and demeanor have dropped significantly.  He is no longer a high performer, and he is no longer much fun to be around.  As his leader, you can choose to hold him accountable for his drop in performance or you can take a more exploratory approach and see what is wrong.  When you realize it is not work related, you again have options.  You can tell him to suck it up, offer him some advice on how to deal with the issue, or best yet, give him the space and time needed to resolve his issue.  This compassionate approach is not a one-size-fits-all type of solution and it requires leaders to exercise some judgment and see through stories that are designed to deceive.  When you choose to create space for this team member and allow him the opportunity to recover, you will gain a loyal and supportive team member for the rest of his career.

Like the above example, consider a new team member that is struggling to learn the intricacies of the job.  She interviewed well, had great references, and certainly had the depth of education and experience to succeed at the job.  With her 90-day probation period ending, again you are faced with some choices.  You can, with very little documentation needed, move on from her and cut her loose, you can provide her with some corrective feedback about her learning curve, or you can create some space and extend that probationary period because you believe in her ability to succeed.  You can create some space for her to succeed.  Again, this compassionate approach has no guarantee but if successful, she will be loyal and hard-working for a long time to come.

Now consider a couple of examples from our life outside of work.  Your significant other makes a mistake.  It happens all the time.  Do you immediately set him out on the curb for the recycling pickup the next day or do you create some space to allow him to resolve the issue?  As silly as it sounds, there are those people that use a one-and-done approach to the mistakes of others.  Sad, but it happens.  Think about a long-term friend who misspeaks and hurts your feelings.  This friend has always been cherished and certainly ignored many of your shortcomings.  Do you immediately abandon that friend, or do you save some space for them to recover and allow them back into your circle?  Hopefully you are creating and saving space in both examples.

Another side of saving space for someone is related to change.  We all want people to give us the opportunity to change, grow, and evolve.  In most cases we also want other people to acknowledge our changes (weight loss, new clothes, demeanor evolutions).  The challenge becomes in how much space do we save or create for other people to change, or do we only accept a version of them that we have crafted based on historical events?  The compassionate and caring approach is to create and save space to allow other people to change, especially when they have announced an intention to do so.

Ultimately saving or creating space has a couple of key ingredients: compassion or caring, and faith.  The compassion and caring come from a true desire to allow the other person to succeed and desire to see that person placed in the best possible situation.  It is also the desire to keep that person in your life, whether at work or at home.  The faith ingredient is about the belief that some time and space will allow for growth, healing, and recovery from whatever issue the other person is experiencing.  The other keys to saving or creating space include a willingness to walk with someone during a time of difficulty and not abandon them.  Abandoning a person is easy, walking with them is much more challenging.  The final key to successfully creating or saving space is to be non-judgmental of what got them to their current point.  Again, this is not easy and we will naturally jump to some judgements about how they got there, but we must stay away from those.

Look for opportunities to save or create space for others.  Allow your compassionate side to show.  Demonstrate some faith.  The risk is nominal, and the benefits are unlimited.