One of the toughest challenges in personal and corporate development is identifying blind spots and figuring out what to do about them. This is as true for coaches and corporate leaders as it is for any of the team members they direct. It also tends to be true of institutions and corporate cultures. Our perceptions of ourselves can be different from the perceptions others have of us. People are often not aware of the effect their less-conscious behaviors have on themselves and others. Essentially, you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s why they’re called blind spots!
Here are three tips to help identify and develop your own blind spots:
Engage trusted feedback.
Start by asking for feedback from trusted colleagues, people who you believe have your best interests at heart and can be honest with you. Make it clear you genuinely want to improve. This will encourage them to offer completely candid advice and it will show your openness to bettering yourself.
Personality assessment models that measure preferences can help you better understand who you are and how you interact with others. These sorts of models help tease out habits and attitudes you may have that exercise deep influence over the way you interact with others, but that you may be entirely unaware of.
You can strengthen and clarify the feedback you get from a personality assessment by combining it with the advice of your trusted peers. Take the results to the colleagues you’ve asked to give you feedback. Your colleagues can help you understand and confirm behaviors you’ve identified with specific examples.
An assessment provides a formal structure that peers, managers and customers can use to provide feedback on an individual basis. Seeking this feedback requires a bit of courage, but it’s almost guaranteed to help you improve your personal effectiveness, develop self-awareness and increase team collaboration.
Own what you are (or are not) in control of improving.
Once you’ve had an assessment and received feedback, take some time to think about the results. Do you personally and internally accept the feedback you’ve received?
Coming to terms with these questions is very important. If you’re not convinced that you have blind spots, you’ll have a very difficult time charting a new way forward and establishing specific goals for the future. Only you can take ownership of an improvement process.
After you’ve reflected on your feedback results, think about specific areas that, if developed, would assist you in your career. Think about behaviors that are not presently serving you well and aren’t helping you advance your current goals. Try to picture how it would look to let them go. Write your thoughts down.
Define your goals, and create and share a plan for action.
After formulating clear ideas of the areas you need to work on, begin to put together an action plan that addresses those areas in incremental and achievable ways.
Once you’ve put together an action plan, commit to it. Make a promise to yourself that you’re going to follow up and put what you’ve learned into practice. Be sure your action plan defines specific actions you will take to achieve your goals. This provides a way for you to measure your progress.
Finally, circle back with your trusted colleagues and share your goals and commitments with them. This increases your accountability and helps strengthen your resolve to meet your goals. Think about requesting follow-up support. Ask your trusted colleagues if they’ll continue to check in on your progress. Commit to share with them the specific actions you’ve taken – or neglected to take – in coming weeks and months.
Excellence is not an act, but a habit. It takes dedication to realize improvement. Small and incremental improvements can have a major effect if you consciously and actively repeat them over time.
All of us will continue to have blind spots. Blind spots in our professional journeys are not that different from the blind spots many of us encounter in the car. No matter how great of a driver you are, you will always come upon blind spots in your travels: They are inevitable, and caused simply by the unforeseen challenges of new and ever-changing situations.
Your dedication to checking your own blind spots (and keeping them in check) will ensure your personal improvement and effectiveness.
Erin Wortham is the people engagement manager at Insights Learning and Development.
