In this article, I discuss the issue of blind spots in leadership, providing a practical exercise for uncovering them along with the much harder work of how to manage them, but the results for doing so can be impressive.
We all have our own blind spots and, as the term implies, they can be impossible to see.
Yet it is possible to uncover blind spots, and it is the executives who can both uncover and manage them, who are outperforming their peer group. In this article I’ll show you a simple way to way to uncover blind spots. I also go on to explain why managing them is such hard work but how your performance will improve if you do.
Here goes. If we set a goal that is easily achieved, it doesn’t mean much. When we succeed in achieving a tough goal, things are entirely different, we feel full of meaning, purpose and energy.
Goals don’t come much tougher than uncovering our blind spots and managing them, enabling us to perform at our best.
So where do you even begin? If, by definition, you can’t see a blind spot?
Over several years in my career, I led the design and implementation of the world’s largest private sector programme on uncovering blind spots in leaders. Within a multi-national we trained over 40,000 people across more than thirty countries in using an approach developed by a Harvard professor. The results were impressive. There was a 7% uplift in the personal performance scorecards of executives in the year after they had learnt how to uncover and manage blind spots. The performance of their untrained peer group stayed flat.
As the Harvard professor explained: “You’ve got to sneak up on people and surprise them with a different way of seeing the world. That way you uncover the blind spot. The hard work really begins in planning what you do with the insight and making it part of your routine”.
Sneaking up on your blind spots
Here is a quick way to uncover blind spots:
- Think about your team or organisation. List three things that really annoy you about them. Don’t hold back, make a list of the most annoying things, it will improve your results.
- For each of the three annoyances, write down your answer to this question: Where do I do these things to myself? You are going to need to tell on yourself when you write. The things you find annoying in others you are also doing in some way. Again, don’t hold back.
- This is a list of three of your blind spots.
To illustrate this technique, here are my own answers to these questions along with my own set of potential blind spots!
1. It annoys me when people are:
- Overly optimistic
- Procrastinating
- Too emotional
2. Where do I do these things to myself?
- I will hope for change when there is no real possibility of it happening
- I often leave personal projects at home to the last minute
- I can be sensitive to criticism
3. I may have a blind spot around the following.
- Optimism
- Prioritising
- Valuing feelings as part of decision making
Make a plan
Once you see your own possible blind spots you can then take a logical first step and make a plan to address them.
Here is a logical plan for addressing my own blind spots:
- Optimism. I can ask others about agreeing a time limit for the change and what we will do if it doesn’t happen in that time.
- Prioritising. I can set a goal of doing one thing for me/my home a day.
- Valuing feelings as part of decision making. I can allow time to recognise/acknowledge sensitive feelings and think through how I want them to influence my actions.
Delivering the plan
Of course, there is a huge gap between deciding to do something and actually doing it. For example, I may decide I want to lose some weight but the reality of losing weight is entirely different. Our organisations are also filled with well-intentioned plans that never get delivered. Overcoming the gap between our plan and our delivery is where the hard work begins.
The level of difficulty in this work is described beautifully and adeptly within Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘there is a pain so utter’. She describes the pain of seeing and overcoming one’s blind spots and the work involved as being done ‘bone by bone’. It is that tough!
IN SUMMARY
Let’s go back to the beginning. It is when we set tough goals that we experience meaning, purpose and energy. And that the results in your performance scorecard as an executive can rise by an average of 7% within a year by uncovering and managing our blind spots.
It is certainly not easy to work on our blind spots, but there is real and meaningful value for us and our organisations if we do. I would recommend that you give this a try and if you would like to discuss how you can make a success of overcoming your own blind spots, then please do get in touch with me.