Ep 63: Blindspots
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Camille Rapacz: What if what's holding you back or causing you stress is unidentifiable?
What if you have a blind spot that's keeping you from fixing, much less identifying the problem?
Today we're going to explore blind spots. We'll talk about the most common ones to look out for and what to do about them.
Camille: / Welcome to The Belief Shift. The show that explores. What you really need to know about building a successful business.
I'm your host, Camille Rapacz: business coach and consultant who spent too much of her career working in corporate business performance.
George: And I'm George Drapeau: your co-host and her brother. I'm a leader in the tech world bringing my corporate perspective, but mostly my curiosity.
Camille: Together, we're exploring beliefs about success and how to achieve it. But mostly we're bringing practical solutions so you and your business can thrive.
Camille Rapacz: Hey, George.
George Drapeau: Hi, Camille.
Camille Rapacz: Hey, how often do you think about potential blind spots for you or for your team?
George Drapeau: None for me because I have none, of course, none that I can see anyway,
Camille Rapacz: You are not needed for this podcast.
George Drapeau: I know that I have blind spots. I don't know how often I think about them for myself. Probably not enough. I know I do sometimes, but I'm not sure how much I think about it. It's a good question.
How much do I think about it for my team? I don't know. You've stumped me.
Camille Rapacz: Well, then this is a great topic because I believe this is tripping up a lot of us in our work and we're not spending enough time thinking about it. We kind of have a blind spot for our blind spots.
George Drapeau: Yeah, totally believe that.
Camille Rapacz: I was thinking about the same question I asked you for myself and I realize, yeah, I don't really think about them enough either. And part of it is it is a bit of a challenge for me working by myself. Like I don't have anybody to. Help me with the blind spot checking, you know? Yeah. Sometimes a mirror is helpful.
George Drapeau: For sure.
Camille Rapacz: When it comes to my clients though, I'm thinking about this all the time because it's my job. My job is to help my clients find their blind spots. So I thought maybe today we would talk about this with our listeners, maybe give them some tips for how they can work on their blind spots.
George Drapeau: This is great. Okay. I'm eager to hear what you got to say here. Let's do this.
[00:02:14] Defining Blindspots
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Camille Rapacz: Let's start with the definition. So definition of a blind spot is we are unaware of our limitations or biases or our shortcomings.
It could be a lack of knowledge or understanding of some aspect of the business, or it could be an unrecognized weakness or a threat. And these are not limited to just leaders or business owners or managers, we all have blind spots about things in our lives and in our work. But of course, we are primarily speaking to the leaders and business owners of the world.
So the problem with this, the problem with these blind spots is that they're just not really obvious to us. So our blind spots do become our biggest blind spots are that we have blind spots. Like we were saying, how often do we think about them? Maybe not often enough.
The odd thing about this is that they do most commonly occur out of pride, at best, we're too prideful. To want to really recognize them and at worst, it's just out of arrogance. So, you know, we all want to believe that we're not prideful or arrogant, which actually may play into why we don't think about our blind spots that often because that can be a source of them. But let's face it. We all have egos. And so, of course, we all have blind spots that would come out of those reasons.
However, sometimes your blind spots are also out of care or commitment or belief in something. So it's not always just from this negative, you know, I have an ego space. So regardless of where they come from, they are happening. And what matters most is what we choose to do about it.
Let's talk about how do these manifest? So what are common blind spots that can occur? So I'm going to go through this list of examples, George. And as I do this, I want you to think, if you can think of any good examples that you also feel comfortable sharing with the world about some blind spots you might have experienced, or it could have been, it could even be someone else's. Maybe in your past you realize, Oh, that reminds me of, you're going to think of a story. That's what I'm saying. You're going to think of a story. Yeah. Okay. That's your job. You're the story guy. That's your role on this podcast.
[00:04:24] Examples of Blindspots
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Camille Rapacz: Okay. So here's the first the first common blind spot is over confidence. What happens when we're overly confident is we will only believe the good news. So we're only going to want to hear all the positive things because we're overly confident that this is all going to go well. And maybe we hear negative things.
We're like, no, no, no, no, no. It's going to be fine. Often this comes from having past success that's given us this sense of confidence that something's going to go well. That can create a blind spot. Another version of this kind of related, but a little different is that we can be overly positive. So this means we won't see the downsides or someone to take in these alternative views because we're just overly positive about how this is going to go.
And so I want to point out here that being positive is a good thing. But when we are overly positive, we start to shut out anything that's counter to our positive view. And so we're creating a blind spot by just wanting to not hear the bad news.
Another one is we can have a blind spot around not showing recognition or appreciation to others. And this can come up by we don't recognize the value in this. We have a blind spot at how important that is. I see leaders do this where they need to be reminded often that them showing appreciation for the work that other people are putting in is important. And they start to just have a blind spot around how, how valuable that is and how, how important that is. So that's another place where blind spot shows up.
Another one is you might be relying only on your own opinion because you're thinking I've got this. And this could, of course, build off of maybe you're overly confident and so you're just relying on your own opinion about something. Maybe you don't trust the other people on your team, or maybe you just don't want to spend any more time on it.
And you're just going to count on your own opinion about this. So that can create. Huge blind spots for sure.
Another one is that you are relying on assumptions. This one is really tricky. So I see this one occur when we're just making a lot of assumptions about how things are going to play out and relying on those assumptions is keeping us from looking at validating the assumptions, looking to mitigate the risk of them. And I see this happen when people feel like the amount of time it would take to validate an assumption, or the amount of time it would take to work on mitigating the risk of if that assumption is wrong, that it's perceived to just be too much time, I don't have the time, it's not worth the effort to go into that.
And this is sort of can be an outcropping from, I'm overly confident, like, I'm, I'm sure my assumptions are right. Huh. That's interesting. Yeah. And I do see this happen a lot where I realized that the decisions that people are making are based on a lot more assumptions than I would be comfortable with if I were them, but they're perfectly comfortable with it. So this can create some blind spots if you're in that space.
And then the last one I'll bring up here is you can just be overvaluing how things were done in the past. I mean, it worked this way before. It should work this way again this time. And this is a place where we might not understand the role of luck in our success.
So yeah. Right. Because maybe the reason it worked last time isn't the reason we think it is. It's not because everything we did was perfect. Maybe we got lucky. I mean, assuredly, we got lucky somewhere along the line. And if we're expecting that luck to happen again, if we do it the exact same way over and over again, or we're not respectful of the changing dynamics of what's going on around us and how then we need to change what we're doing. So what worked in the past doesn't work in the future because things are different. So all of these things can just create blind spots for us. So overvaluing how things were done in the past and again, also built off of past successes.
So these are all, you can see how they're all kind of tangled up and interrelated too.
George Drapeau: I have a comment on some of these things. I'm not sure about all of them, but some of them were like this last one, especially the thought that came to my mind when you said overvaluing how things were done in the past was like, well, yeah, I could totally see why people have overconfidence about that.
I mean, if you've been leading or managing or doing something for a while, you get more competent about, about it. You get better why you should value your past experience. Yeah, you should be able to learn things and chunk it down into assumptions that you can make rules of thumb so you don't have to think through everything from scratch every single time.
So our brains work and experience is valuable that way. That's why we hire people with experience so that I could see where there's, there's positive attributes of what we've done in the past that with every good intention and for mostly good reasons could. Result in some of these blind spots. You're not saying ignore all your past, right?
You're not saying that.
Camille Rapacz: Absolutely not. And this is the tricky part about these blind spots, right? So I'm glad that you brought this up because what I find fascinating about this is what makes us good at our jobs as we become more experts at what we do is our past experience. It does allow us to create shortcuts in positive ways, right?
Oh, I can get at this work faster because I have so much experience. Sometimes we think about this as we have really good gut instincts about things because of our past experience. So we've talked about this in, you know, we'll use the example of hiring. When you're hiring people, you can either just go strictly by the resume and the questions you ask, and whether they check all the boxes.
You can also go by your your, I'll call it your gut instinct. That's what I would always call it, right? Like, what does my gut tell me about this person? Now I get a good gut instinct about people because I've interviewed so many people over time. That's what's made me good at really honing in on, is this person going to be the right fit for my team beyond just, do they have the skills to do the job?
And so you, you start to go with that. You, you've seen over time, right? As a hiring manager, how you've gotten better at that. So we don't want to dismiss that, but at the same time, you don't want that to create blind spots. So if the rest of your team is saying, yeah, but we see something you don't see, you want to be open to that conversation and not just say, Nope, my gut tells me X.
And so I'm going for it. Because you, it still could create a blind spot for you. So you have to balance both of these things that I think that these blind spots become more problematic, the more experienced we become, like the higher up we go, we can start to rely on it more and more. Because every all that, that's how we got here.
That's how we got so successful and it can make it hard to really, really pinpoint where might I have some of these critical blind spots that are getting in my way because it won't be all of these things, but there's going to be someplace where it's actually hindering your progress. And that's what's so tricky about them.
George Drapeau: Yeah, get that. Totally get it.
Camille Rapacz: So I'm curious if you this brought up any good examples for you. None. Yep. You've never, no examples.
George Drapeau: I'm shaking my head. Audience. Yes. For every single one of these now that you bring it up want to make another comment before I get to it.
I was thinking one of the things that goes the other way is imposter syndrome where it attacks my confidence. And I don't remember why I was thinking about this now because it's not an overconfidence thing. It's really the opposite. And that's like a bad way of dealing with overconfidence to have imposter syndrome.
Ah, I will tell you. So you, you know what I mean by that,
Camille Rapacz: by the way? Yes. I do know what you mean.
George Drapeau: So I know we don't want to recommend have some more. Let's some more of your imposter syndrome.
Camille Rapacz: Well, we're talking about extremes, right? So imposter syndrome is the extreme of a situation where you just lack confidence in your expertise, and it's preventing you from taking some action. It's preventing you from moving forward. And on the other side of the spectrum, it's overconfidence, which is, I don't, I am ignoring everything that's going on around me, and I'm just going to go forward with my plan.
And, you know, nothing else matters. I got this. I don't need help from anyone. I don't, yeah, I'm good. So these are two ends of the spectrum and we're trying to always find this middle ground in between.
A little bit of hesitation of do I have this is good. And a little bit of confidence, and yeah, I got this is good. And this is what we're constantly kind of moving back and forth between. And again, it gets back to something we've talked about in the past as well, which is to never think about these things as just black and white, as this or that. There's always this complex weaving together of these ideas and when we start to think everything is a blind spot, then you're going to be in trouble, but never thinking about them is also not a good thing.
So we're trying to get this weaved into the way that you think about how you're approaching your work. So that it can improve your progress, because what can happen is if you are not paying attention, then you are hindering your progress, maybe even unknowingly.
So if you're sitting out there thinking, you know what, I have been feeling kind of stuck or frustrated. And I'm not really sure why it could be that there's a blind spot for you that's holding you back. And that's actually why it's so frustrating. It's one thing to actually be able to name it and know why you can't make progress. It's another to feel it and not really know what's happening.
George Drapeau: Yeah, for sure.
There's a couple of things I can think of immediately as you're running through this list. For one, being overly positive is definitely a blind spot for me. And one area where it hits me is I know in the past when I've been managing teams, I've maybe had a difficult team member, I would be plenty confident that I can work through things with that team member being ultimately no problem.
There may be a fit when sometimes I've been way too optimistic. I don't know, maybe it's a combination of overconfidence and overoptimism, probably both for me, where I thought, yeah, if I spend enough time, I do my George thing of connecting with this person, understanding where they're coming from and being able to relate to this person, what they need to do, it's, it's going to be better.
And I can think of a couple of people in the past where I should have stopped, given up or manage them out long before, but I was just so confident and so optimistic that I could do that. This happens to me. This is a thing that happens to me and I've had a couple of bad experiences.
So I believe that I am not overly positive or confident about people issues now, but I'm probably wrong. I probably still am.
Camille Rapacz: I'm so glad this is one of your examples because I see this a lot. You are not the only one who does this. I see this over and over again, and I would relate this to, yeah, I would relate this to, to the idea that sometimes our blind spots, they come out of care, commitment or belief.
So I want to believe this person has the potential because I picked them. I care about this person. I want them to be successful, right? I want to help them. And I'm, I am their boss. I'm committed to helping them. So we have all of those things sort of driving us to keep working with them.
George Drapeau: I have a real world question for you.
And I think you have no idea what's coming. I'm ready. The the Biden's, the, in the present and first lady Biden have a dog named commander who apparently is a biter has a biting problem. The question here How long do they work on the problem before they put commander to sleep?
Camille Rapacz: Okay, I am NOT gonna answer that because you are not putting a doggie to sleep on my show It is not happening.
We're talking about human psychology not doggy psychology.
George Drapeau: Not doggy psychology. Okay. Not showing appreciation. This, so this brings up a sore one for me.
I took some diversity equity and inclusion management training earlier this year at a previous company. And it was fantastic training and it was humbling because I mean, you and I have talked about our backgrounds a little bit, a couple of times in the show where we're mixed race white people, basically, but there's a lot going on to, to our background.
If you look at the family I'm married into, you know, I'm married into South Asian family and so my self image is, ah, yeah, I mean, for a white guy, I'm probably much more enlightened and inclusive than most other white people and that's something I carry around myself. It took this class and I was scarily beaten down.
I mean, took this assessment test. The assessments came out and showed me like, no, you, you got some work to do a lot more work than you think you have to do. And I had to agree with them and it was humbling. And I think for me, that was not really appreciating enough how different other people's perspectives are not appreciating enough.
How much I have to learn. I would probably say the same thing is going to apply to me with how I feel about my relationship with women who are women in the workplace. I think I'm pretty great and open minded. I bet you I'm wrong, more wrong than I think I am. I'm not sure I, I, no, no, no, I am sure I don't fully appreciate your experience in the workplace as a woman, I don't even, I don't like those words coming out of my mouth, but I think it's true.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. As you said, you don't like those words coming out of your mouth.
George Drapeau: I don't like this podcast episode anymore.
Camille Rapacz: Are you feeling down on yourself? I'm so sorry.
But you being able to say I don't like that those words are coming out of my mouth because I'm having to admit something about myself that I mean, you're challenging your own identity, right? You identify as this progressive white man who does think, you know, differently, better, I will just say we want to say that we think better about these topics.
And when we get checked on that, it's really hard. And this is a huge reason why we end up with blind spots is sometimes it's really hard to just look in the mirror and realize that you want Wow. I'm just really not as good at this thing as I thought, or I'm not as, you know, confident in this thing as I, whatever it is that we're challenging, we're challenging some personal identity.
And that makes it really hard. I'm not as smart as I'm not as whatever it is. Very difficult.
George Drapeau: Yeah. I have one I can go the other way on if you don't mind.
Camille Rapacz: Yes, do.
George Drapeau: So in my previous job, one of the things I noticed about myself all the time was that I'd be in some meeting in some group and I'd hear what people were saying.
And I had a thought that I wanted to offer, but I would say, I'm not going to offer that thought. I'm sure everybody gets that already. I'm sure they do. I'm not going to be offering anything new. And sometimes I would tell my boss about it and he'd say, no, nobody got that. You should have said it. And oftentimes I felt like I was stating the obvious and many, many, many times turns out it was not obvious.
And I should have spoken up and I'm not sure what's going on there, but I'm making an assumption that's going the wrong way on me. I guess that's, I'm not sure how to draw that in, but it's an example of me making an assumption about what's in my head that is incorrect and it's not serving me well and it's not serving the group well.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. It's almost, I heard that as you had a blind spot around your own contribution in that conversation. So your blind spot was, Oh, I, I'm just, I'm assuming we're all thinking this or that whatever I'm thinking is obvious.
George Drapeau: Yeah. Let's be clear. My blind spot is I'm missing out just how smart I really am.
Totally undervaluing.
Camille Rapacz: Okay. I wasn't going to say it, but it is true.
George Drapeau: No, you're right. Yeah. I like the way you put that. That's exactly right. I'm not really clear about where the true nature of what my contribution can and usually is in these. Yeah.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah. And I think you can even translate that into, well, I had this blind spot about what I thought other people were thinking as well.
You were thinking, oh, they already know this. Why would I add this to this conversation? And I like that because it's sort of a different way of looking at this blind spot, which isn't that I don't want information. It's that I think everybody's got the information.
I have seen this actually with leaders who we talk about their communication. So we've had a leader session and now what do we want to tell the rest of the company? And sometimes they'll have a blind spot like this where they, well, we don't need, they don't need all of that information.
They already know all of this. And then, you know, you go out in the organization and like, we know nothing. Nobody's shared this. We don't have the information. You haven't, you know, shared enough with us or the blind spot could be maybe it's not so much we think they know it, but we think they don't care.
They don't need to know this. They're not going to care about this. This is just our weird leadershipy stuff. But then you go ask the people and they're like, of course we care. Yes. We would love to know all of that. So I do think there's a, that's another level of blind spot that you're bringing in, which is fantastic to just think about the, just sharing of information and not making assumptions about what people either do or don't know or do or don't want to know.
George Drapeau: Yeah, absolutely. Yes.
Camille Rapacz: And it is a tricky, I will say this is a tricky balance for leaders, especially, and you've probably experienced it, like, what's too much information where people are like, just, we don't need all of that. You're just, it's distracting. And then there's the not enough. And it's a very fine line to walk for any leader to decide how much information should I be sharing with my team or with my organization, when is it too much? When is it not enough? It's hard. It's hard to figure that out, but you have to always be thinking about it. And of course, in that case, I would say the only way to really know is ask your people, what do they want to know? What, what did they value?
George Drapeau: Yeah. Awesome.
Okay. All right. So there's another aspect of this blind spot that I wanted to talk about. And this might be more self sobering because this is my own experience that I have often when I think about blind spots, but when I'm working with my clients, so I will have them often tell me they really value that I help them with this, that I help them to identify their blind spots, like help me see the things I might not be seeing or thinking about things I might not be thinking about.
But sometimes when this happens, they will still argue against what I'm saying. Or they'll acknowledge them, but not respond to them. So it's like good intentions, but they're not using this information. They're saying they're open to it, but I can tell they're not really open to it. So I realized I have to, then I have a whole other path I have to go down with them to get them open to really hearing about these blind spots. But it's really tricky. I'm constantly sort of working on how do I help work them towards these blind spots and doing something about them in a time that they're ready for it, because we're not always ready to hear it.
Even if we say we are, I guess that's my point. Even if we say we are, we're still not always ready to hear it.
That's interesting. Yeah, for sure. Oh boy. That resonates with me for sure.
Camille Rapacz: And this can come from really powerful places. So our, our desire to be a good leader and be good at, you know, running our business or leading our teams, it sort of feeds in this need to be right and to have things figured out but also to be able to move quickly. These are all things we value as being a leader of a company or a team, right? I need to figure things out. I need to move quickly. I need to accomplish things quickly. And sometimes identifying blind spots, like taking the time to understand them and work through them can feel like it's going to slow everything down.
I'm going to look like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to look like I don't have things figured out. Maybe it means, wow, I'm going to have to pivot. I've been telling everybody we're doing this, and now I'm going to change that. And that's going to make me look like I don't know what I'm doing.
So there's lots of good reasons. I mean, valid, I guess I'll say maybe not good, but valid reasons why we do it, but it's problematic because you're still letting the blind spots slow you down.
George Drapeau: Yes, for sure.
Camille Rapacz: So what do we do?
George Drapeau: What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?
Camille Rapacz: Oh, I thought you were going to answer that question, George, now.
[00:25:05] How to Address Blindspots
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George Drapeau: You know, I actually have a couple ideas about what I do to try to address blind spots. So I have, I guess, a couple of mantras. For example, coming into a new organization, basically get my own data. So people are telling me stories about how this person behaves or how things are done or this relationship with that.
And I mean, it's, it's tricky because it's helpful to get that short cutting. Like we talked about so you can get moving faster, but I also like to get my own version of a story. So one technique I alluded to address blind spots is, hey, also, for example, I heard in a previous job that there was a particular manager who was problematic.
And I didn't know any of the background, so I went and interviewed everybody myself, the manager and the people related to this manager and got my own versions of the data, which uncovered that what I was hearing was not 100 percent true. There was some truth to it, but not 100%. So just going and getting my own version is a way to address blind spots
Ronald Reagan's trust, but verify a phrase. I love, love using that phrase. It doesn't, it's yeah, trust, but verify. Like I'll tell people, Hey, I, I see your work, but I'm, I'm going to examine it. Walk me through it shouldn't be painful. I'm trusting you, but I want to learn for myself.
Maybe I'll learn something that I didn't think who knows why, but stuff like that.
Camille Rapacz: Yeah, I do like that. I do. The trust, but verify is something I use a lot too, that I tell people, you know, it's not about not trusting people. This can be a reason why we don't follow through on things. We don't inquire about things. But the verification process is helping both people and we are in a future episode going to talk about the nature of helping.
So this tees that up nicely, but not today. So other things that we do. So when I think about what to do about blind spots, I think the main thing is to just know that you always have them. There's always at least one blind spot that is affecting you. So the number one thing you want to do is, and this is one of our belief shifts, which is curiosity over Self criticism, or in this case, hiding.
[00:27:16] Be Curious About Your Blindspots
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Camille Rapacz: Don't hide from this blind spot. Be curious. Be curious to identify it. And build your self awareness around the fact that I've got blind spots, I might not know what they are right now, but I'm going to be curious to try and see if I can uncover them. I think that's really the main message that I have for people, is just to be aware that they're currently working in your life, and sometimes they're having a really big impact, and sometimes they're having a minor impact.
It's hard to know, but especially, like I said before, if you are feeling frustrated about something, whether it's the pace of your progress, or the outcomes you're getting from some project you're working on, or whatever it is that is happening, and you feel some sense of frustration about how it's going, you can't pinpoint it, it might be related to a blind spot, that would be a great place to look, is maybe there's something I am just not looking at I'm not paying attention to I'm not aware of. Or maybe something that I think is working in a way that it's actually not. Maybe I think this is going better than it actually is. I haven't really been looking at the data to find out. So that's why I bring this up is if there is that feeling of I just can't pinpoint it start looking through all of these ideas of blind spots and might any of these be happening to you.
[00:28:34] Using Critical Thinking to Find Blindspots
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Camille Rapacz: Another way that so if you want to think more proactively, like what can I do to really sort of start to suss out what is my blind spot and how could I do something about it? I would put this in the category of just working to improve your critical thinking skills and we all can benefit from this. And this, this is interesting because it does go a little bit counter to what you were saying before, George, which is, you know, we have all this experience and we want to benefit from that.
So it is not to diminish the idea that I have this experience, I've done this, you know, so many times before, and I should be able to leverage that experience. I should be able to use that going forward. So I don't want you to dismiss that. But what I also don't want you to do is rely solely on that.
You want that plus these great critical thinking skills. So this is starting with what you already said, gathering information, soliciting feedback. You know, go get more, go learn more. Something we've talked about in the past too is to practice active listening, like really inquire and listen. What, what are people really saying?
Ask more questions, really actively listen to what they have to say, as opposed to trying to defend your position or, you know, add your commentary, just be open to what they have to say.
George Drapeau: You know, one thing I like about this, totally teachable skills. Active listening, gathering information and feedback.
There's absolutely teachable skills. You can get measurably better.
Camille Rapacz: Yes, you absolutely can. After a conversation, did I think I was a good active listener? Like you can pretty well ask yourself and answer that question. You can do that just by saying, did they talk more or did I talk more? If you talked more, you probably weren't an active listener. Just thinking about that active listening and as you do that. Do that in a way where you're also seeking out diverse thinkers, diverse ideas.
So don't just talk to the people who you know think like you. Talk to the people who don't think, I know, talk to people who don't think like you and be ready. Be ready for the aha moment. Like that's the exciting thing when you're like, Oh, I, I didn't even have that perspective.
So this is all centered around the idea that we've talked about before, which is to have a learning or a growth mindset. So always having that idea in your head of there's more for me to learn. Not that I'm going to dismiss all that I have learned, but that I want to add to that body of knowledge I already have.
I'm not going to solely rely on all of my expertise, however much I might have. And the more that you have, the harder it can be to add to it. Because I don't know, maybe you're tired and you don't want to learn anymore, or maybe it just feels like it should be enough. If you have a growth mindset, there's always something more to learn.
And hopefully your growth mindset is a positive for you. Like it is for the happy black lab that George is always ready to learn and eager to seek out more perspectives. So those are my tips for how you would really overcome blind spots.
George Drapeau: I think those are great. You got me thinking about something else going back to inspect, but verify. It just gave me a way of way of thinking about this or explain to somebody like why I'm going to go introspect on what you're doing. Here's why I'm going to ask you a bunch of pesky questions about what you're doing and why it's not a trust issue. For one thing for myself, I know that I usually ask questions that other people haven't thought about. I get that feedback all the time about me. So I know my natural, my brain seems to have thinking differently than people. So even if you've got a polished product. Or something you've written or something you've produced and it's good, well examined, you did good due diligence, you're proud of your work and you should be, even with that, me coming in looking at it from my perspective, I'm going to ask questions about how did you come up with that?
Why did you go this way? Why did you make this choice? Or what were you thinking? And you are going to get a different perspective that you will probably find refreshing and welcome out of a place of confidence. It's like, you know, nobody's ever asked me how I thought about this or nobody's asked me what I was serving.
Oftentimes my questions will not actually be received as critique. But I have a different perspective. You do too. I know this about you and it's part of one of your strengths. So it's cool. It's probably true for all of us. Maybe there's something in this where we can teach people about how to teach others.
It's okay. I'm going to inspect your work and it's not a lack of trust. It's just different people have different perspectives. Anybody asking you about it is going to different thoughts about it than you did when you created it. And that's useful.
Camille Rapacz: This is actually something I literally teach leaders to do. How do you work with your teams in a way that is supportive and is coaching and helping them learn, helping them reach their potential in a way that they will invite you to do. Not in a way that feels like, Oh, here comes the boss and they're going to ask me about my stuff. Yeah. And I better have all the perfect answers.
That is a skill for leaders to learn. But once they do, I mean, you sort of, some people naturally gravitate to it. And for some people that's not the type of leadership they were brought up in. So they have more of a command and control kind of, you know, approach. Like I'm going to tell you how it is, tell you what's right and what's wrong and that's how it's going to be done. But you can train out of that. So. We maybe should do an episode on that in the future because it's definitely a topic. That comes up a lot that I work with leaders on is how do I do this? How do I have more of a coach's mindset as a leader? And so I'd love to hear more about that from you.
Teaching leaders to be coaches is basically what it comes down to.
[00:34:10] Takeaways and Closing Remarks
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Camille Rapacz: All right. So let's wrap this puppy up. I guess in closing, I would just say you want to keep in mind that you can't fix what you can't see and blind spots are the problems that you can't see. So if something's not quite going right, and especially the worse it gets, the longer you avoid these blind spots, the worse that problem is going to get.
So you want to just seek them out because it's going to improve your performance as a leader, and that's going to translate into improved performance for the business. Bottom line. Anything to add, george?
George Drapeau: I, you know, coming into us, I was wondering how are you going to shed some light on blind spots when by definition there are things we can't see, but you know, I'm sold.
I like this.
Camille Rapacz: I know you were almost dreading it in the beginning and now we've shed light. See, just talking about blind spots makes them all better. They're not so scary.
George Drapeau: I'm dreading it in a different way. Having revealed all these blind spots.
Camille Rapacz: Okay. Well, I mean, that was good. Your therapist when can thank me later for all the time she gets with you. All right. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in to this latest episode. And if you would be so kind, we would love to hear from you. What do you think? What are your blind spots? Share them with us.
You can leave us a voicemail at thebeliefshift.Com. There'll be a link in the show notes. You can also, if you're curious about having someone else help you find your blind spots or you know, any manner of things that I've been talking about and you maybe want to do a little work with me, you can get a free consultation with me at camillerapacz.com/bookacall. Also a link in the show notes, do it, get on a call, especially if you're thinking about what you want to do next year, maybe you've got a little money in the budget for doing some work next year with leadership or, you know, performance improvement for yourself or for your team or your business.
We should chat, see what we can do.
All right. That's all I have for this week. We will be back in your ears next week.
George Drapeau: I love it. See everybody./
