I would like to share with you a blog post from Doug Sundheim who is an organizational consultant, author, & speaker. To learn more about his services and subscribe to his weekly Success Tips go to www.clarityconsulting.com.
Your blind spots are right in front of you
“I don’t know who discovered water, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a fish.”
– Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) Media critic & writer
Consider this:
Just like a fish can’t see the water it’s swimming in, oftentimes you can’t see the world immediately in front of you. It takes someone with a different perspective to point it out. These people can see opportunities that you can’t see. They can see pitfalls that you can’ t see. They can see them, ironically, because they aren’t staring at them every day.
A few years ago a colleague of mine was hired by a real estate firm to help them transform their organization. One of the things that made her so attractive was that she DIDN’T have a real estate background. She had a background in transforming schools. As a result, she wasn’t blinded by an insider’s perspective about how the industry should work. Rather, she brought an outsider’s perspective of how it needed to work in order to survive.
Try this:
1. Sit down with a sharp person from another industry.
2. Describe the details of a project you’re working on (include your challenges).
3. Ask them to point out opportunities you might be missing.
4. Switch it up and do the same thing for them.
5. Recognize someone else can often see the opportunities/challenges in front of you a lot easier than you can.
– Doug Sundheim
Are you missing what is right in front of you because you will not go outside your group and ask someone else to come in and look at what you are doing and ask question? We have all done it. We have all experienced the blind spots. Those blind spots however, may be keeping you from adding, deleting or changing something in your program that could keep an officer from getting hurt or save an officers life. I would challenge you to have the courage to bring someone in to watch, take notes and ask questions. It does not necessarily have to be someone from another industry but is should be someone from outside your ‘inner circle’. It must be someone who will ask the tough questions to help your program grow.
Take care.
Brian Willis
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