I subscribe to a few colleagues' and thought leaders’ articles/newsletters and one recent article caught my attention. An old colleague, Heather Campbell, is a leadership communication specialist and her article was on listening. She ended the article with the 3 indicators that show we are not listening when we are in conversation. I quote her below.

Here are three indicators that your listening might be just a tad under par:

1. You start to feel defensive when the other person is talking – this might show up as tension in your shoulders, gut or jaw, or the need to argue your case. When we get defensive, our mindset moves to protect ourselves rather than staying open to others.

2. You jump into problem-solving mode. This is a sign that you are focused on the solution rather than on understanding the person. The other individual might not want you to fix anything!

3. You judge whether or not the other person is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – if you are judging, you can be sure you are paying more attention to your worldview than to what the other person is trying to share with you.

Here’s why it caught my attention. I read this article after I had a conversation with a dear friend about a function we had both attended recently. It is interesting how the brain links 2 bits of disparate information. I call this ‘knowing’. In my conversation with my friend, I experienced all 3 indicators. We were doing a post-event analysis and debrief. I caught myself doing all 3. AND I was aware of it during our chat. There was an alarm bell ringing in my brain as I spoke.

But here is what else my brain highlighted to me. Although I did experience these 3 indicators, it was not because I was not listening to her. It was because of my blind spot. My blind spot was not allowing me to listen!

Blind spots are our behaviours, thinking, actions that we are not aware of.

It was a huge realisation. General consensus is that it is hard to know our own blind spots, but I believe otherwise. If we are relatively self-aware OR are in a long-term relationship or trusted friendships, chances are we know our blind spots. Because your partner, trusted friend, or family would have spotted them and let you know (if you were willing to listen).

So, how do we discern our blind spots (for ourselves)?

I have a theory and it goes back to basics, cause versus effect or source versus symptoms.

If we take Heather’s 3 indicators as the behaviourial symptoms of our blind spots, the 3 questions below can help us discern if the source is a blind spot for your context. These are taken from my article on self-deception.

1. You rely on your assumptions when making decisions

We need our assumptions to function efficiently every day. But to be effective we need to check the validity of our assumptions. Our assumptions need intermittent review to ensure we are not taking things for granted.

Are you relying solely on your assumptions when making your decision?

2. You look for support (confirmation bias) for your assumptions

This happens so instinctively that we sometimes don’t even notice we are doing it. We want something to go our way, it does not, and we look for ways or people to support our assumptions. This is the greatest way we deceive ourselves. In leadership, this is where leaders surround themselves with people who say what they want to hear.

Are you looking for support for your assumptions?

3. You frequently justify your decision(s) to others and notice a pattern

When asked about your decision(s), your answer is more defensive than it is reasoned, and you notice a pattern. In some instances, your answer may be valid but at other times not. This is an intimate one. Only you know if your justifications are based on facts or not.

 Do you justify your defensive behaviour with your assumptions?  

If you answered ‘yes’ to all three questions, your context may have triggered your blind spot.  

The one thing we ALL have are blind spots. But how aware are we of them?

The above process is one way to identify them, but it requires complete openness and honesty (with ourselves). Our blind spots affect our outcomes so it’s worth the effort.

As always, you can reach me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com