Look at the cross below with your left eye and cover your right eye, moving the page from too close to you to position about 30cm or so away and you will find the circle simply disappears. This is the true Blind Spot.
The term has come to mean things we don’t ‘see’ but many people do not realise that it really means that. If something is in your blind spot you are not aware of it and also don’t realise that you are not aware of it. It might be described as a nil awareness area.
Let’s find some examples. It is easier to see blind spots on others than ourselves because our own blind spots, by definition, we’re not aware of.
Have you ever noticed how other people’s children have much more annoying habits than your own? The parents don’t ‘see’ that behaviour as a fault, but you do. Your own children will have faults too that you are not aware of.
Customer service is a typical area of a blind spot. Some businesses you deal with at odd times do things that are annoying or not conducive to getting you to come back. This tends to be true of small businesses and the staff of big businesses. If some of the large department stores realised how much business was lost by poor staff sending customers away, after the millions they spent getting them into the store, they would have a fit. Ask them and they will defend them. They may talk about ‘customer service’ but they don’t see what really goes on, and so it continues. That’s a blind spot.
If you think of what your customers and potential customers think of your service you may get an idea of where they place you or your business. If a competitor has a bigger market share, then let’s face it, customers think more of them than you.
So what do your customers think of you? This is a common blind spot. People don’t ‘see’ what problems the customer has with the company.
The road to success is really a journey of finding the blind spots that prevent you from being where you think you should be.
People who do stupid things or who don’t do the right thing are simply displaying their blind spots. Even pointing out their shortcomings doesn’t work. This is because they can’t ‘see’ them. As far as they are concerned they are simply ‘not there’ and there must be something wrong with you.
An effective way to become aware of blind spots is to observe results. If expected results do not occur, then there are blind spots. The trick is to find them and you don’t even know what you are looking for! This is why an outside observer is so valuable. If they don’t have your blind spots they will be able to point them out to you, but often people close to you have your exact blind spots.
You are where you are with the problems you have, due simply to the blind spots you have. Once you get the opportunity to distinguish your blind spots your actions will immediately be impacted and so will your results.