What are some ways to address team blind spots and biases?

Self knowledge and self awareness are key to identify biases and blind spots. Understanding how you were educated, your core beliefs, your saboteurs, the lenses through which you see life can help to understand your blind perspectives.

Consider a team as a puzzle, with each member adding to the overall design. It's similar to looking for missing puzzle pieces to recognize and acknowledge team blind spots and prejudices. It's about identifying the places where biases or a lack of clarity may cloud the team's judgment. This is a process that calls for candid introspection and candid dialogue. Similar to turning on a light in a dark environment, you can begin fixing the blind spots as soon as you become aware of them.

Do a qualitative 360 and talk to people in their sphere...if you do it in a structured way, you'll see themes, and those help in making people self-aware.

Um blinde Flecken und Vorurteile im Team anzugehen, kann das Gesichtslesen entscheidend sein. Durch Aufmerksamkeit für nonverbale Signale wie Miene und Gestik erkennt man emotionale Reaktionen und verborgene Meinungen. Sensibles Gesichtslesen erm?glicht das Aufspüren von unbewussten Vorurteilen. Der Coach nutzt dieses Verst?ndnis, um Teammitglieder zu ermutigen, sich ihrer Annahmen bewusst zu werden und diese zu hinterfragen. Der Fokus auf Mimik und K?rperhaltung f?rdert ein offenes Gespr?ch über individuelle Perspektiven, was zu einer bewussteren, inklusiveren Teamkultur führt.

Teams, often perform much lower than their potential, and the simple reason for that is they aren't objectively able to pin point what they do well and more importantly things they may not be the best at. It's important for individuals and teams to be aware of the blind spots. Articulating this helps to build and eventually work on the gaps.

Addressing and reframing biases and blind spots is an essential aspect of personal and professional growth. It involves confronting preconceived notions and areas where our understanding might be limited. The challenge lies in recognizing these biases, acknowledging their existence, and actively reframing them. By questioning assumptions and seeking alternative perspectives, we can overcome blind spots and gain a more comprehensive view of situations. This process is a continuous journey of self-awareness and open-mindedness, ultimately contributing to more informed decision-making and fostering a more inclusive and equitable environment.

Reframing and challenging team prejudices and blind spots is similar to changing the team's perspective. It involves challenging presumptions and taking into account other viewpoints. When you see a painting from a different perspective, you could notice features that you had previously missed. In a similar vein, questioning preconceived notions such as "Why do we see it this way?" helps challenge biases. along with "Are there other viewpoints we haven't considered?" Reframing is similar to taking a new look at the puzzle and rearranging the parts to make a more comprehensive and accurate picture. This procedure promotes an environment of transparency and equity while assisting the team in making better judgments.

Most challenges that individuals and teams have are at a mindset level, which means it is at the level of how they see the situation, and how they deal with it - not so much about the skills. If the Coach helps them reframe the blindspots/problems at hand, it would solve more than half of the challenges

Expor a equipe a novos desafios é uma das formas de criar uma equipe de alta performance. Novos desafios s?o aptos a demonstrar pontos fortes e fracos, possibilitando que a equipe seja capaz de fazer uma autoavalia??o de suas próprias competências. Essa imers?o na própria autoavalia??o, acaba facilitando que os profissionais pensem em alguns pontos de seu momento profissional, levando-os a praticar a ressignifica??o de suas próprias perspectivas. Ao fazer isso, o líder dessa equipe, ganhará um vasto campo de possibilidades para engajar cada um de forma individualizada, já que conseguirá identificar pontos de melhoria e, a analisar possíveis novas lideran?as.

Learning and adapting from biases and blind spots is a transformative process that leads to personal and professional growth. It involves acknowledging the existence of biases and recognizing blind spots as areas where our understanding may be limited. By actively seeking to understand and learn from these biases, we open the door to new perspectives and insights. Adapting involves adjusting our mindset and behavior based on this newfound awareness, fostering a more inclusive and unbiased approach. Embracing the opportunity to learn and adapt from biases and blind spots is a powerful catalyst for continuous improvement and enhanced decision-making.

As leaders, it’s crucial to model the behaviour you wish to see. Actively work on identifying and challenging your own biases, and be transparent about this process. Encourage diversity at all levels of the organisation. By creating a culture that actively works to identify, challenge, and address biases and blind spots, we not only enhance fairness and equality within our organisations but also unlock the full potential of our diverse workforce. This leads to more innovative, empathetic, and effective business practices, which are crucial for success in today's dynamic and diverse business environment.

Building a culture of inclusion is like crafting a welcoming and diverse tapestry within an organization. It involves fostering an environment where every individual feels valued, respected, and heard. Inclusive cultures celebrate diversity, embracing a variety of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. Leadership plays a pivotal role in setting the tone, emphasizing the importance of equality and creating policies that promote inclusion. This culture encourages open dialogue, collaboration, and a sense of belonging for everyone, ultimately leading to increased creativity, productivity, and a positive work environment.

Business problems are becoming more complex. This means that that they are not only complicated and have many actors, but the relationships between the elements are unstable. A greater proportion of business issues are novel, and have no established processes for resolution. The thought that any single person, or perspective, can provide the answers is fanciful in the fast paced technologically driven world that we inhabit. Instead, the emphasis needs to fall on identifying all the stakeholders. Our identity cannot be defined by our area of expertise- which represents a blind spot. We need to recognize our interdependence and the importance of multiple perspectives-driven by different areas of expertise and life experiences.

Building a culture of inclusion is vital as it increases productivity and creates institutional loyalty. Forming a team of diverse thinkers focused on the same goal is valuable to avoid blind spots that often develop when the team comprises people who agree with the boss so they don't look bad.

Leveraging your role as a coach involves maximizing your influence to empower and guide individuals toward their goals. As a coach, you act as a catalyst for positive change, offering support, guidance, and valuable insights. By leveraging your expertise and experience, you help others unlock their potential, navigate challenges, and achieve personal and professional growth. This role is not just about imparting knowledge but also about inspiring and facilitating a transformative journey for those you coach. Effectively leveraging your coaching role contributes to a culture of continuous learning, development, and success.

Creating Psychological Safety for the individuals to call out where they have failed and or what they see as areas to improve. As a Coach if you are able to help the individuals discover this and work further, you will find individuals open up and put their best foot forward. You should ofcourse exhbit humility, curiosity, and a life long learning attitude. You will enjoy trust and gain credibility with your team.

The right coach or advisor for a situation can view what is happening without being affected by internal biases, preferences, and politics, and thus shed light on matters that go unnoticed or that employees have simply grown to accept. Furthermore, coaches should regularly play devil’s advocate for plans and thinking, to challenge the team’s current direction. Lastly, having an external point of view, coaches can inject a lot of experience into the team, based on their work with many different organizations as opposed to most employees who spend years in any one company.

Engaging external support is a crucial strategy for coaches to manage their biases and blind spots effectively. Coaches, like anyone else, are susceptible to unconscious biases that can impact their ability to provide objective guidance. By seeking external support, such as mentorship or supervision, coaches can gain valuable insights into their own blind spots and biases. External perspectives offer a fresh and unbiased viewpoint, helping coaches identify areas for improvement and fostering a more inclusive and open-minded coaching approach. This collaborative effort not only enhances the coach's self-awareness but also enriches the coaching process, ultimately benefiting both the coach and their clients.

Assessments such as DISC, Strength’s finders, etc, are great tools to utilize with teams. Not only can you gain awareness around blind spots and biases, but you can also learn a lot about the collective group and individual strengths. A bigger picture of strengths and growth areas can help leaders better support their teams, utilize people in the right roles, and maximize effectiveness and productivity. These activities or workshops can also be excellent team-building opportunities that can help facilitate and improve cross-functional teamwork.

Assessments such as DISC, Strength’s finders, etc, are great tools to utilize with teams. Not only can you gain awareness around blind spots and biases, but you can also learn a lot about the collective group and individual strengths. A bigger picture of strengths and growth areas can help leaders better support their teams, utilize people in the right roles, and maximize effectiveness and productivity. These activities or workshops can also be excellent team-building opportunities that can help facilitate and improve cross-functional teamwork.

Divergent thinking is the key. Accept and listen people who don’t agree with you give us the benefit of doubt. Most importantly we have the ability to make decisions based on our beliefs.

Awareness is but the first step to ‘recovery.’ Addressing blind spots and biases in teams requires a shared commitment to catching them in motion when the stakes are high. Trustworthy assessments, external help, planning and postmortems are all necessary but not sufficient. Only real-time self-observation enables a team to make choices that are informed by the whole picture rather than bias-fuelled partial views. We are notoriously poor at catching our blind spots but in a high-performing team we can -- if we so choose -- help one another develop 20/20 vision in the moments that count. When does it count? When we're making consequential decisions, being a team and aiming to respond effectively (not only re-act) to reality.

I agree with all the above. But my own take on this as a leader and a coach is to first create an environment of psychological safety. An environment that encourages open communication and accountability creates space for people to share and examine their thoughts and those of others. However, purely as a coach, I would recommend leaders survey their teams on a regular basis to uncover any blind spots or biases. Anonymous feedback i.e. 360 surveys, also gives people an opportunity to speak freely. As leaders we should always model inclusive behaviors and language while coaching others to recognise existing or potential biases through ongoing development/education.

The best way to do this is tkbhagw the team conduct an assessment which helps to uncover the blind spots. Followed with team coaching to debrief the results and empower the team to bring to life their results. Once trust and safety have been built with the coach and team this process will become easier.

One great way to tackle blind spots and achieve a whole set of other benefits is to work on intra-mobility: having people move between teams and departments. Not only does that provide more career opportunities for employees, it helps spread knowledge and surface areas that are being neglected in part of the company but not all of it.