By Dorie Clark
Leaders face complex and uncertain situations every day. But the most challenging circumstances are often completely unexpected, because we never even knew to look for them.
After I finished my master’s degree, for instance, I was planning on a career in academia. I applied to several doctoral programs, and wondered which I’d get into. The answer: none.
I simply hadn’t realized that the exact quality that made me an ideal candidate earlier in my academic career—a “renaissance person” who was interested in many disciplines—made me anathema to doctoral admissions committees, which were seeking hyper-specialized applicants. I needed to better anticipate my blind spots. But how?
Three strategies helped me understand the gaps in my own experience:
- Seek out an inside perspective. An inside guide could have quickly set me straight about how the doctoral admissions process differed, but I failed to seek one out. I thought I knew how academia worked, so it never even occurred to me. That’s why, for any major undertaking, it’s important to ensure you’ve connected with people who have direct experience.
- War game your potential failures. Studies have shown that one of the most effective methods for improving outcomes is performing a so-called premortem—imagining in advance that an initiative has failed, and working to understand the reasons. This corrects against the natural bias we have to assume our project will be a raging success: If we have to assume it’s a failure, what might account for that?
- Test for implicit assumptions. Every person, and every field, holds implicit assumptions about “how things are done” or “the way things work.” Typically, those assumptions hold true and provide a helpful framework. But occasionally, they can backfire, stifling progress and limiting potential because no one thought to question them.
We can never completely eliminate our blind spots. But we can reduce them enough to improve our performance and spare us from the mistakes that, in hindsight, should have been obvious.
Dorie Clark teaches at Duke University.