Embracing Blind Spots to Unleash Unconventional Thinking

I love how Rita McGrath shares her frame on blind spots, seeing around corners. It's a great way to think of these types of opportunities.

In business there is always that point when something new is starting to take hold. It could be a new technology, a new service or a dramatic shift in consumer or market expectations. We can get stuck in the trap of what we are doing and how we have been doing it. This limits our ability to properly assess the situation.

It is not always a lack of ideas that leaves us caught off guard, rather inadequately addressing the problem.

This is one of the reasons I love working with younger teams.

People that are new to the workforce, new to a new company or industry see things as they are. They don't have years of experience that is guiding their thinking or altering their perceptions; they are free from the workplace biases we create and support by having to execute day in and day out.

Because of this gap in knowledge or understanding of the current systems, newer team members are riddled with blind spots. They don't know all of the ins and outs of the system, so they observe as an outsider and very often come up with approaches or solutions that experienced employees do not.

Now don't worry, you haven't missed the opportunity to make an impact this way simply because you aren't green anymore.

Stay curious longer
Ask a lot of questions
Look to other industries
Look to people from outside of your space to share their understanding of a problem
Experiment
Don't be afraid to fail

By adopting this mindset, you will immediate add more value to your team and organization and will start to see things in ways that you hadn't considered before.

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