“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Closing the gap

Strategy is like a roadmap between your current state and where you want to be. A savvy strategy guides your decisions and enables you to deal with uncertainty.

Most events must elevate participants and the organization from point A to point B. This means closing a gap.

The gap means different things for different cases, for example, selling more, implementing strategy better, responding to a competitive threat, and changing the culture.

We have identified the most common gaps, and we will share in continuation. One crucial question here is

What will happen if we don’t close the gap?

There are always forces of inertia that make people choose the status quo over the change. But what will happen if the initiative fails to achieve the expected objective?

Not all gaps are created equal.

Some gaps are more straightforward to close than others. For example, sharing information (closing the gap from now knowing to know) is way easier than completing a more significant gap, for example, making people apply what they learned.

Different gaps require different strategies and tools, like in maritime navigation. You could take a dinghy for shorter distances but need a decent sailboat for a trip beyond the Atlantic.

Ten types of gaps

Here is a list of the ten most common gaps for an event. Select those that apply to your case. Note that you must prioritize or organize various events if you select three or more.