Discovering Your Blind Spots: Where is Your Rearview Mirror?

The CliftonStrengths assessment is known for helping people to “find their strengths” and figure out ways to excel.

However, an often understated priority is to use the profile to see our personal blind spots.

Afterall, we cannot act on what we do not see.

From the 57,000 clients we’ve served over the past 10 years at StrengthsTransform, the most impactful and life changing returns come from helping clients see and manage their blind spots – because it prevents failures.

It is also a critical component for management and leadership because we find it hard to fully appreciate people who are our “polar opposites”. Through knowing our blind spots, we are better able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves.

Let’s deep-dive into 2 case studies on how identifying one’s blind spots have revealed characteristics they never knew.

Case Study 1: Meet Mr X, Entrepreneur and Business Leader

For years, Mr X relied on broad strategic directions for his team, as he found it hard to set goals for his team. He genuinely felt that specific goal-setting didn’t work for himself, and assumed it would not work for his company either.

One day, he finally found an explanation to his approach: his low #focus talent.

Someone with low #focus talent might have these traits:

• No clear destination
• Non-specific goal-setting

After identifying #focus as one of his blind spots, Mr X suddenly saw how one-sided his entire team operates without the benefits of concrete goal-setting. While they were hardworking (many has the #achiever talent), there was always a definite question of “What are we striving for?” in the company’s annual review sessions.

Case Study 2: Meet Mr Y, Workshop Trainer

Having worked extensively with students, Mr Y has an impressive track record of conducting high-quality and engaging classroom workshops. For a substantial duration of his career, he focused on teaching students who showed interest and did not adjust his approach too much to include the other few. To him, it was only natural to focus on the majority of students who seemed more eager to learn, in order to maximise effectiveness.

Mr Y could not see the impact of his inaction, until the outlier and extremely negative feedback marred the otherwise excellent reviews of his sessions.

It turns out that his low #includer talent has caused him to unknowingly neglect the less outspoken students in the session.

Someone with low #includer talent might have these traits:

• Prioritises efficiency and/or achievement over social inclusivity
• Overlooks the need for sense of belonging (for all)

The result for Mr Y is inadvertently having a handful of unhappy and disengaged students in his sessions and of course, a consequential imperfect programme feedback.

Awareness of Blind Spots: A Rearview Mirror

In both cases, the CliftonStrengths assessment acted as a rearview mirror, allowing Mr X and Mr Y to confront their blindspots and usher in positive changes in their careers.

In our workshops, we equip participants with three ways to harness the power of their CliftonStrengths results to mitigate their blindspots:

1. Improve – Gain knowledge and learn skills to become minimally competent
2. Compensate – Use your top talents to perform the job scope
3. Complement – Partner with a colleague who has the talent

After all, it is only by recognizing our deficiencies that we can truly unlock our fullest potential.

Where is your rear view mirror?

This article is written by Mr Poh Yeang Cherng, the director of StrengthsTransform.