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Blind Spot Awareness
The last challenge to see is to see yourself accurately, particularly because we all have blind spots. I mean like I don’t actually have blind spots, but I know that all of you have blind spots. And that’s the nature of blind spots, you don’t even know where to begin or what it is about yourself that you’re not seeing. So one of the things that we took a look at is are there things that are particularly likely to be in blind spots? And some of those are easy. The only person’s face I can’t see in a conversation or a meeting is my own. The only body language I’m not paying attention to is my own. I know what I look like when I’m looking at myself standing still in the mirror, but I don’t know what I look like in action, in life. The other thing is I don’t know what I sound like. So there’s a researcher in London, Sophie Scott, and she’s found that there’s a particular part of your brain that is dedicated to listening to language. So it’s decoding the meaning of what people say and particularly the emotion and tone of what they’re saying. But when you yourself speak, that part of your brain turns off.
This is why it’s so surprising when we hear a recording of ourselves because your voice coming out of the speaker is actually going through that STS for the first time in a long time and you’re shocked at like “Uh, that’s how I sound?” It’s also why feedback about tone is particularly hard to understand. I’m not using some tone. What are you talking about? Theoretically I’ve been listening to myself every day of my life, but actually I rarely hear myself the way everybody else does. Part of what is challenging about seeing yourself accurately is that you need other people to be able to get a picture, not just of what you’re doing but how you’re impacting those around you. You can’t go off to the mountain and figure that out by yourself, you need their help.
Getting Help
One way to become more aware is to ask – is there one thing I’m doing during these meetings that you’re reacting to? Because I noticed that you’re looking defensive, and I can’t tell if there’s something I’m doing that’s provoking that, for example.
Another is just to listen to the feedback that you hear and ask yourself, “Is this in a blind spot?” Am I impacting someone in a way that I don’t intend? Because that surprise at their reaction should signal to me there’s something going on in the space between us, and I probably have a contribution to that. I just can’t tell what it is yet and so I can ask.