Take care of your blind side!

The movie “Blind Side” is based on the true story of Michael Oher, now with the Baltimore Ravens, who earlier in his life befriended the mother of a school friend, played by the Academy Award-winning actress Sandra Bullock. Another plays offensive tackle for his school team and does a truly impressive job protecting his quarterback’s blindside.

There is another type of blind side that deserves our attention: the “blind sides” that are responsible for the disappearance of leaders and their institutions, families and friends, communities and economies, like the blind sides that contributed to the last recession, the worst in decades. It is quite frightening to hear people like Alan Greenspan, former and current secretaries of our treasury and bank directors around the world, admittedly quite intelligent people in many ways, admit that they were blind to the forces at play that triggered the crash. of financial and real estate markets around the world and nearly wiped out our economy. There are other types of blind sides that also get us into trouble: blindness to our own or our organization’s strengths or vulnerabilities, to the contributions or limitations of others, to the impact of our behavior or decisions on others, to “bad news “or to our inability to listen to it, and a myriad of other realities that impact our lives and organizations without any knowledge of them.

We’ve heard a lot about the merits of “real” leaders, organizations, experiences, and people. Authenticity means being real, and an important part of that is that leaders, organizations, experiences, and people really are what they claim or present themselves as being. Yet another important part of being real is the ability to face and articulate reality, something that is seemingly in short supply as CEOs, investment bankers, and government officials overlooked or ignored warning signs of market collapse. leading up to 2008. The signs surely went there; Michael Lewis’s new book, The Big Short*, chronicles the work of Michael Burry, an investor who read the signs correctly. Mr. Burry pored over all the real estate investment descriptions mixed with legal language and strange acronyms; he noted the increasing ease for homeowners to acquire credit and noted that in 2005 credit standards had bottomed out. Adding it all up, Burry wagered that millions of dollars worth of securities would lose money if they “sold them short”; he made billions.

Why did Michael Burry pay attention to what was going on when so many others didn’t? He jokes about how it might be due to seeing things differently since losing an eye in childhood; whether true or not, certainly “seeing things differently” is a way of protecting our “blind side”. One way to do it on our own is to simply take a different perspective and see things from as many different angles as we can; examples include “playing devil’s advocate,” waiting for a day to see things in a different light, changing locations, or going on a retreat to gain perspective. An even better way is to seek out and use the opinions of others, and the more and more different the perspectives, the better; here is a case where there really is strength in numbers.

The road to failure is paved with blind spots, including organizations and entire industries blind to the market or competitive dynamics. After dominating the auto market, Henry Ford lost significant market share to General Motors in the early 20th century because he was blind to changing consumer tastes; the demand for “basic transportation” gave way to a preference for different models with more features and more colors. The entire American auto industry was blind to the encroachments by Japanese automakers, eventually losing almost half of their collective market share. IBM lost its footing in the 1970s and 1980s, blind to the possibility that small personal computers, and Apple in particular, would be worth a lot. Sometimes rapid growth, success, or size contributes to blind spots, as apparently happened with giant organizations in 2008 that were thought to be “too big to fail.” Richard Tedlow does an excellent job of documenting classic cases of denial, a close cousin of blind sides, in his new book Denial.*

One scary thing about blind sides is that whatever they’re obscuring is still there, impacting our lives and organizations, whether we’re aware of it or not; that’s why they are called “blind sides!” Unfortunately, sometimes we learn about blind spots when it’s too late: after a crisis, traumatic loss, or digging a hole that’s too big to escape. I know that at times I have been blind to the reality of what was happening or to my situation when a better understanding of what was blocking my view would have paid many dividends. Things that “just don’t go our way” over and over again or we find ourselves constantly falling into the same predicament are usually signs of blind spots and our inability or unwillingness to face certain truths. These are times when we need to take time for serious reflection, seek feedback that we really care about and open up or look for experiences that help us see things from a different perspective; Valid personality surveys, skill inventories or “360° surveys for individuals, especially when accompanied by training, can help here. Perhaps at times like these we need what Buddhists call the Kalyana mitra, or ‘noble friend’, who as John O’Donahue tells us in Anam Cara* “he will not accept pretense, but will gently and firmly confront you with your own blindness.” Skillful interpretation by a consultant can significantly reduce dangerous blind spots.

We all likely have personal, professional, organizational, and community challenges serious enough to solve without being hampered by blind spots.

• Are there any indicators that blind spots may be affecting your life or work? how did you find out? What are some steps I could take to compensate for potential blind spots?
• Can there be blind spots affecting other people around you, perhaps acquaintances, your organization, industry, or community? How could you draw attention to them and reduce their impact?

“Ninety percent of the world’s problems come from people who don’t know themselves, their abilities, their weaknesses, and even their true strengths.” (Sydney Harris)