Dr. Martin Dubin - Blindspotting

Your leadership strength can be the very thing that’s quietly costing you trust, clarity, and results. We’re joined by Dr. Martin “Marty” Dubin, clinical psychologist, serial entrepreneur, and author of Blindspotting: How To See What’s Holding You Back As A Leader, to put language and structure around the blind spots even high performers can’t see in themselves.

• Click HERE for the Blindspotting website
• Click HERE for Dr. Dubin's LinkedIn page

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

John Broer 0:05

A warm welcome to all of our friends out there in The Boss hole Transformation Nation, and I'm right here with the Sara Best. And Sara, you've lined up an amazing guest for us today. Tell us a little bit more about this person.

Sara Best 0:18

Yes, JB. Uh today with us we have uh Dr. Martin Dubin, who goes by Marty. He authored a great work called Blind spotting. Uh Blind spotting, how to see what's holding you back as a leader. He's a clinical psychologist and what he would describe as a serial entrepreneur. He's had, you know, run several businesses, but he's business coach now and um does a lot of speaking and his work and his very astute observations about our inability to have self-awareness really uh translate into some very practical ways that um all of us and all of us who are responsible for others can shift uh and and show up a little bit differently uh as better leaders. So I am super excited to dig in here, John.

John Broer 1:04

Me too. I think it's gonna be awesome. So let's go. How does that sound?

Sara Best 1:07

Let's go.

Announcer 1:11

The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, the talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.

Sara Best 1:35

It is so great to have you here with us today, Dr. Marty Dubin. Welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Martin Dubin 1:41

Great. I'm excited to be here, excited for the conversation.

Why Leaders Miss Their Blind Spots

Sara Best 1:44

I just want to share with our listeners that when I understood the work in your book, Blind spotting, uh, the full title is How to See What's Holding You Back as a Leader. I felt like you gave some language to something, well, several things probably that we've been saying for a long time. So I am super excited to dig in. Blind spotting, uh, you've defined it as sort of like a through line. Before we dig into that, I want to tell you that one way the book was described, it's one of those books that quietly hands you a mirror and then tilts it just enough so you finally see what's been standing behind you the whole time or what's been standing in your way. And uh it's it's really great that you've done this amazing work. Tell us about the origin of your understanding of these blind spots, these leadership challenges, and let's go from there.

Dr. Martin Dubin 2:39

Sure. Yeah, that's a I hadn't heard that before. I love that. I kind of think it I hope that it's a mirror and a compass.

Sara Best 2:45

Okay.

Dr. Martin Dubin 2:46

I've had an unusual career as a psych clinical psychologist, started out seeing patients in private practice, and then I um started companies and ran companies and then got into this leadership. And as you said, self-awareness really is the through line of all of that. And where it really hit me was in um a thing I'm sure you all do, and most coaches, is when you're working with a leader, you interview everybody around them to kind of get a sense of uh where their strengths are and where their opportunities to be better. And when I did that, I would sit down with a leader and they would say, Well, I know what all my strengths are. I don't even need to, we don't need to look at that. Let's just look at where people think I need some improvement. And I would first ask them, you know, well, how self-aware you are do you think you are? And all of them said, Well, you know, maybe there's a few things you're gonna tell me. And I felt like if I couldn't bring something to them that they weren't aware of, then I really wasn't doing my job. Um and it didn't take long to really figure out how to find those things. And that's what I really found was the opportunity for leaders to be able to take a step up, is when I could help them see things that they couldn't see about themselves, or often see the things that they knew about themselves in a different way.

Sara Best 4:03

You could say that the the biggest challenge or one of the biggest challenges is therefore invisible. So your your work identified what was unseen uh and empowered, this self-awareness piece.

Dr. Martin Dubin 4:16

Yeah, you know, we're all if you think about it, you know, we're all pattern recognizing and pattern-seeking beings. I mean, there's so much stimuli out in the world. And, you know, you got what do you pay attention to? And so you're always filtering things in and filtering things out. And you filter in the things, and after a while, if you're you know, successful or moderately successful in your life, those become patterns that you use all the time because they work. But guess what? Not every situation is exactly the same. Yeah, so you're sometimes in situations where you're doing your normal stuff and it isn't working, and often you don't think it's you, you think, oh, it's the other person, or it's a situation that's you know, wonky in some way, when in fact where you need to look is at yourself and how to behave differently than your typical routine way.

Sara Best 5:06

Yeah. I have a question. How how can you or how do you help leaders appreciate that their inability to see the the real pattern isn't like a deficit or a total and utter weakness or failure?

Dr. Martin Dubin 5:25

Yeah, that's really an important point, isn't it? I mean, a lot of people either don't take help or don't seek help because somehow they get into this kind of sense that that's a weakness. And it's kind of what I said earlier. It's just they're just errors in our system. I mean, if you think about it like a computer, I mean, they're just bugs or certain things computers don't do well. And that's true for all of us. Um, so I mean, I start off by saying, I'm gonna help you see these blind spots, but guess what? You're gonna die with the exact same blind spots. You're just gonna get more aware of them so that you can be deliberate and strategic about doing something about it. But it's just kind of how we're all built.

John Broer 6:04

If I may, I I think that's a really interesting if you're going to be deliberate and strategic about it, I think that's a big if because the three of us, I'm sure we have lots of stories and working with executives and CEOs and founders who they might acknowledge it, but their willingness, their desire, their capacity to really do something about it or use it. Uh, we we we always say in our work around behavioral and cognitive analysis, you know, people you're not gonna rewire a person's behavioral drives. That's inherent. But what does change are circumstances? So how do we help them, how do we equip them to adapt to those? And but if they're not willing to do it, right there, it doesn't matter if they can recognize their blind spots, they're stuck. I mean, you've seen that in your career, I'm sure.

Dr. Martin Dubin 6:52

Yeah, and it's really well said. And that was the challenge I felt in writing the book and in doing my work. I f I feel like any coach has to be able to answer two questions, you know, like, why are people the way they are? You know, why do they behave the way they do? And there's no right answer to that, but you just have to have some model that that you believe in, and there's a lot out there. And then you do have to have the point you're right raising. You have to have a model for change. How do people change? If you don't really have a good th thought about that and use the science in it uh um about changing people's behavior, um, then it's going to be hard for you to help somebody um kind of get started. And the realization I had is this is not about transformation. I hate that word. Um, you know, just to your point, we're not I've never transformed anybody, nor should I, nor could I, nor nor would I, nor do would you want to be. I mean, we are who you we are, as you said. So I've found that they you can make small changes and they can have a huge impact. And it's most of my work has been with senior leaders, and I really equate it to athletes. Um, you know, if you think about elite athletes get more coach, the more the higher you go as an athlete, the more coaching you get. And what are they coaching on? They're coaching on very small things for you to make a change that can have a can have a major impact.

When Strengths Turn Into Liabilities

Sara Best 8:15

I like that in the book where you highlight that growth comes from these small but you know somewhat precise adjustments in behavior and in approach to things. Um it's just stated as this is not a reinvent yourself book. This is a book about practical, very manageable kind of changes. And I I guess in that same vein, the things that we probably need to shift or adjust could be considered strengths. Is that right? That that our strengths sometimes become the liability.

Dr. Martin Dubin 8:50

Yeah, that that was the big unlock for me as a leader. And when I would do those 360s, and you know, you tip the most typical way to do it is you end up with kind of two buckets. Here's your strengths, and then here's your opportunities for improvement. And at first I did treat those as two separate things, and that's kind of the way I was I was trained. And then I started to realize there are a lot of things that are in both buckets that are the same things. It's just the flip side of the coin. You know. Um, and uh a little fun thing your uh listeners could do is think about what your strengths are right now. You know, these are adjectives about yourself, your confidence, or your hard work or your um creativity or your conscientiousness. Think about what those are and then add the modifier T O O in front of them. What happens when you're too creative, when you're too disciplined, when you're too smart, you know? And that's what I started to see is that leaders, you know, it wasn't always worded as the opposite word, right? But when you could see it, the behavior was they were over-indexing on their strength in the wrong situation.

Sara Best 10:01

That might be some of the best advice I've ever heard. Just a quick reflection. Yeah. I agree.

John Broer 10:07

Well, can I can I just say something real quick? Because like when somebody gets a promotion, it's like, well, do more of what that do more of that thing. Do more of what you were doing, and it's like, okay, man, I'm amping it up. That is great advice. Yeah, sorry, Sarah. I agree.

Dr. Martin Dubin 10:21

No, and just just to, you know, and what do you do when you're in a new position? You want to prove yourself. So of course you you use your strength even more so. Yeah.

Sara Best 10:29

It's kind of the default, too. I I think when the pressure is on or the heat gets turned up, we we naturally default to those things. So I'm thinking of one particular client who was had a strength of being decisive and pretty autonomous. But too decisive means you're shutting other people down or not listening. Some people have very high standards. I hear that a lot. I have high standards. Like, oh, good for you. That's so great. But standards that are too high become complete and total micromanagement, I would think.

Dr. Martin Dubin 11:00

Exactly. Exactly.

Sara Best 11:02

And then one other one that comes to mind, I could call it a lot of different things, but it really is empathy. It's it's too being too empathic, too focused on the other person's needs or their being okay, such that you don't have the conversation you need to have. You don't speak the truth, you don't articulate things in a way that it really matters.

Dr. Martin Dubin 11:25

Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, you know, you just kind of made the point, right? Each one of those were not exact opposites of of the strength, but they are what it showed what how the strength shows up when it's overplayed or when it's when the opposite is uh is needed. I just wrote for myself, I ran a company um and we we were very successful for quite a while. And then we got into a a problem with a client with we we managed the health care for or mental health care for large insurance companies. And we got into a contract where um they had given us bad data to bid to bid on the contract, and so we were losing money. And my natural strength is agreeableness and really helping people you know work for collaboration. And I started to approach the you know the problem that way. Yeah. And guess what? You know, it was a contract. You know, come see us in a year and we'll we'll talk about a new rate. Um and my partner said we've got to sue them. And you know, the lesson learned for me is you know, there are times to be peacetime CEO and times to be a wartime CEO, and my agreeableness was really the exact opposite of what I needed to be doing at the time.

The Six Areas Of Blind Spots

Sara Best 12:35

Oh, that's a really pertinent and powerful example. So you also highlight in in all of your work, you've kind of created this concentric configuration of traits or specific leadership areas or blind spots. I don't know if we have time to do all six, but maybe you would want to highlight for us what you think are the most important ones or what would have the most impact for our listeners.

Dr. Martin Dubin 13:01

Yeah, maybe maybe first I'll just try to describe that that model that you uh visually there's six areas to look for blind spots that uh when I started to think about my work both as a psychotherapist and as a coach, you know, what really makes up people. And so these six areas are, and I'll at least I'll mention them all, these six areas are what make up people. But then I to John's point earlier, I had to organize it in a way of like what is hardwired and where is change, where's the opportunity for change? And so if you imagine three concentric circles, the bullseye in the middle is your motivation, it's your drive, it's why you do what you do. And then the next concentric circle around that has three areas in there, your traits, which is kind of what we've been talking about so far, your emotions and your intellect. And as John said, those three are all pretty hardwired, as is your are your emotion are your uh motivations. And then the outside circle has two areas, and this is where you can make change is in your behavior and in your identity. Um so if you're an extrovert, you know, and you dominate conversations, you know, 50% of the talk in the meeting is from you, and you know that's a problem, you can just not talk so much. You know, you can train yourself and get all sorts of prompts and ways that you're only talking 20%. Now, you didn't change the fact that you're still an extrovert. You are still an extrovert, but you've changed your behavior. Um, or in that example that uh John had about getting promoted, you know, the typical is a subject matter expert, the engineer that gets promoted to be the manager. Well, your identity has been as an engineer and to know the most about your particular niche area in engineering. And guess what? When you're promoted to a manager, now your job, your role is to manage other people. It's not to be the subject matter expert. So that's an identity shift. You know, your identity, all you know, all the books you're reading, how good you feel about yourself being a really smart engineer. Now you have to start to do something you're probably, you know, not that great at yet about how to manage people and change that to be your identity. And so we can do that. We can make changes in our identities, we can make changes in our behavior, even if we keep all that hardwired stuff the same.

Motives Under Stress At Work

Sara Best 15:27

Boy, that's a really cool and fresh way to say that. That makes total sense. So if motive is there in the bullseye, is that uh probably the most important thing for leaders to uncover? Or how do they? How do they get in touch with their motive? Their motives.

Dr. Martin Dubin 15:44

Right. So, you know, as a psychotherapist, uh as clinical psychologist, this really was probably what I was trying to drive for as much as possible. And the way you get there is through feelings. You know, you walk out of a meeting and you're frustrated and you're just pissed off, and you don't even quite know why. Well, the why is your motives. So probably something you wanted got blocked, something didn't happen, you got cut off, whatever it is. Um and so that's kind of why questions, you know, why are you feeling the way you are? So you can get to motive typically by looking at emotions. Maybe you're elated and you're having just a great day. And again, why is that? You know, some need, some motives have been fulfilled that day, or you're you know, it's getting satisfied. And one place to start in terms of looking for blind spots um is uh David McClellan, who was a psychologist at Harvard a long time ago, um, talked about three motives at work that are pretty universal. Um, the the drive for affiliation, the drive for achievement, and the drive for power. And we all probably have set points on those. And to what you said earlier, if you think about when you're under stress, everything starts to get narrowed, you know. You know, fight or flight, you know, survival, you don't care about anything else. So if you're under stress, you're probably gonna over-index on one of those motives that are more core to who you are. You know, if the job's got to get done by Friday and the team's not doing it and you're the manager, you know, you may get into your power motives even much stronger than you normally do because it's getting overstimulated at that point. So yeah, self-awareness to know kind of where's my set point on these things and to say, all right, I gotta check in where the team's feeling and connect and have that affiliation motive, because there's people on my team that probably need that right now. And if all I'm doing is, you know, keep my head down over the spreadsheet and telling everybody to leave my office so I can get everything done, you know, because I'm focused on achievement, then I'm not gonna be uh really that's gonna be a blind spot. Yeah.

unknown 18:00

Okay.

Feelings As Data In Leadership

Dr. Martin Dubin 18:01

We all have lots of personal, we all have lots of personal motives. Uh so there's a lot of motives, but at least those three are a good place to get started.

John Broer 18:08

Well, that's a that's a great place to get started, but I'm gonna I'm gonna back up for one second because something you said just you jumped out at me. In our world, we we help our clients understand what we call the whole person model. We talk about head, heart, and briefcase. You have to look at the whole person when you're looking at optimizing job fit and and a place in the organization. But the heart is all about core values, passion, interests. And when I think about motive, it made me think about sort of the heart issues. And you talked about the word feelings. And this is, I mean, let's go back to probably pretty traditional management practices. You really don't talk about your feelings in the workplace, and it's a really unhealthy perspective. And quick story we were working with a family-owned business, and Sarah, I love what Sarah does. She puts up at the beginning of a team session, I mean that they were used to this, but puts up on the screen a list of feeling words, and she just said, Hey, pick out where are you right now? Just pick out out of all these words, just tell us where you are. And the first time they did it, uh, the founder was like, I got what? I gotta talk about my feelings. It was it, I mean, the discomfort was so obvious, but it needs to be very, very natural if people are actually going to connect with one another and figure out these difficulties in the workplace. So I, the feelings thing, I just had to go back to that.

Dr. Martin Dubin 19:33

Well, yeah, it's uh it's huge. And I did a lot of work in Silicon Valley with uh tech companies, and I would get these engineers who would, you know, come in and complain that they had, you know, talked to their team, talked to their boss, laid out this big argument about why they needed to do something or go in a particular direction.

Sara Best 19:53

Yeah.

Dr. Martin Dubin 19:53

And there would all these feelings would come out. And, you know, and they would just like, why can't there be why are there feelings in the workplace?

Sara Best 20:01

Yeah.

Dr. Martin Dubin 20:01

And you know, this is all so logical. Um I I found, well, I thought, well, I gotta talk in their language. So I said, you know what? Feelings are just data.

Sara Best 20:12

Yes.

Dr. Martin Dubin 20:12

And you know what? You know, if you're ignoring an entire data set, how smart is that of you? If you didn't go into that meeting and say, you know, John's not gonna like this and Mary's gonna have this problem, and so-and-so's gonna, then you were ignoring all these emotions that you needed to filter in to figure that out the next time you go and make your presentation.

Sara Best 20:32

Yeah. In your fourth chapter on emotion, you you talk about are your feelings managing you or are you managing your feelings? And I mean, one blind blind spot that I certainly uh notice in myself, or you know, get it's pointed out to me, or I notice it quite often in others, is that they they don't acknowledge that they feel a certain way, but everything about them is communicating that feeling. And it's usually a negative one, like dissatisfaction or disenchantment, uh upset. I think those things are so readily expressed by the body and the tone of voice and the face, but that lack of awareness about it is it's almost um epidemic, and it's really hard for people to tune into that. Would you agree?

Dr. Martin Dubin 21:21

Yeah, and all the research says that uh what we pay attention to as observers is the nonverbals. 90% of the message is carried in the nonverbal, and only 10% is carried in the verbal. So, and that's all kind of subconscious. Um so even if people, you know, to your example, they you'd have to ask 'em, how was Susie in that meeting? And they then they would say, Oh, well, she was so uncomfortable, even though she was talking about everything being just fine.

Sara Best 21:52

Yes.

Dr. Martin Dubin 21:53

Um, because that's what got communicated and that's what they remembered when they left the meeting.

Building Emotional Awareness And Control

Sara Best 21:57

Well, so it Marty, if the The argument that this is important data and you don't want to overlook data, and who would want to overlook important data, if that's not enough to sell people on the idea that we really need to develop a relationship and an understanding of our emotions so that we can manage them, is there any other argument? Is there any other selling point we can share?

Dr. Martin Dubin 22:20

You know, so I in that chapter, I talk about uh I think about e emotions, you know, all the typical EQ stuff. In in uh I think about it almost like a pyramid, and that at the foundation is that awareness is what you did, all those feeling words on the on the you know, on the table, on the chart. You know, you've just got to start to get sophisticated, and there's lots of feelings out there. It isn't just mad, sad, glad. And the more you can get, you know, that's a skill, and you can do it. And if you know you can read a novel, you know, it's full of you know, talking about how the characters felt or watch movies. Yeah so the more sophisticated you get, that's kind of the foundational step. And then the next step is to start to recognize those recognize those feelings in yourself. Yeah and then be able to be, you know, uh comfortable figuring out what to do with them. And I don't mean like clamp them down. Sometimes sometimes maybe you need to, you know, ratchet them up, but it's getting that ability to kind of manage your feelings. And if you're doing that effectively, then you can start to pay attention to other people's feelings and recognize what they're feeling, and that's all that data. And to me, all of that is geared to the very tip of the pyramid, which is back to what I said earlier about being decisive and strategic. If you've got all that data about yourself and about others, you can, you know, it some people might think it's manipulative, but I really just think it's being, you know, present at and in the moment and doing what's gonna get the best outcome. You know, you can decide that you're gonna talk louder because nobody's paying attention to your your message and you tend to be a quiet person. Um you can pound the table when you never ever do that. And my God, you're gonna get a lot of attention at you know, at that point and be very strategic in in what you're doing.

Sara Best 24:13

So pragmatic and so real. So we talked about these six types of leadership blind spots: identity, behavior, traits, intellect, emotion, motive. I want to just share too that in the book you you have an appendix that even offers some way to assess, potentially assess blind spots. Before I move on, though, I do have a question about like, so what now what? Like people who are listening to this, they definitely should read your book. There's also a host of information on your website. We're gonna link to your website there. There's other videos and interviews you've done. The model itself is there and it's somewhat interactive on your site, which I think is really cool. But of those six, like where do we start?

Small Behavior Changes That Stick

Dr. Martin Dubin 24:57

Yeah, we're yeah, that's a really it's a it's a basic question and really good question. And you know, we are very, you know, I've divided these six things out because they are, you know, your emotions are different than your intellect, your behavior is different, you know. Yeah, the heart brief case, you guys talk about that too. Um, but we're integrated feedback organisms, so they all feed off of each other and and touch each other. So I think start where where you where it makes sense to you. I mean, I as you said, I've got these ways to identify where you might have blind spots in each of these six areas. And we even have a test, uh blind spot assessment that people can take and get that. And so something will speak to you, you know. Um yeah, this one I really recognize. That's the place to start. Um and uh, you know, and then in the last chapter of the book, I do have uh um an action plan, you know, in a case study there. And the change is no different. There's nothing magical about that. It's just being, you know, disciplined. It's like going to the gym or getting on a diet or making any kind of change. You've got to kind of figure out what's the old behavior that you don't want to do anymore and what's the new behavior that you want to do instead.

Sara Best 26:15

Yes.

Dr. Martin Dubin 26:16

I want to talk less in the meeting. You know, I want to ask more questions. And then what are the prompts for you to be able to remind yourself, oh, I gotta catch myself now and do the new behavior instead of the old, old behavior. And then you just keep practicing it and getting better and getting feedback about it and and so on. But but you just and this, you know, and back to the point about it's just small changes. I you know, I'm sure you guys have this experience. I work with leaders that I don't want to add one more thing to their inbox. I mean, they've got so much that they have to do. Um, and so my message is, well, you know, this should take up five to ten percent of the space in your brain. And every Friday, maybe you can review this for 20 minutes about how you did on this new behavior change that we're working on. Um and it'll be, you know, and put a little sticky note on something to remind you. But it's not something that you really need to be, you know, focusing on all the time.

Feedback Culture And Going First

Sara Best 27:09

I don't need atomic habits to be able to deploy it. I was just thinking about, you know, there there's methodology there. So it's awareness, insight, and then small action that you can measure, uh not piling on, loading on millions of different efforts and changes, but just these I I love that there's so much pragmatic advice. And I think you even in the book highlight some coaching examples, like you're actually coaching people.

Dr. Martin Dubin 27:36

Yeah, the book is the book is story driven. Um, every every chapter's got a you know a whole bunch of stories.

John Broer 27:43

You know, one of our favorite phrases here at Real Good Ventures is that feedback is the oxygen to engagement. And the cur I don't it shouldn't take courage for a manager or a supervisor to go to any one of his or her direct reports and just simply say, listen, what are the things that I'm doing that are helping you the most? And what are the things that I'm doing that are hindering you? Now that requires a level of trust and psychological safety, hoping you're gonna get some really authentic and good feedback. But whenever we've done or I've done some leadership coaching, I run into people that I say, okay, this is what I want you to do with this individual or these individuals. Here's a good approach to have a just an informal conversation to glean that feedback. And they will just wait. And it's like, well, I haven't done that yet and I need to do it. And it's like, what are you afraid of? Because this it's like a gift. And whatever you hear, you need to, I think, you know, own your emotions and own your feelings about how you're receiving it. And you don't want to look like you're infuriated with the individual. But that that that changes things at at that small level that have huge impact. And I we've we've been on this message ever since we started this. This is what we we talk about is don't be afraid of that because it will trans, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna use that word. It will alter, it will alter, it will improve the way you develop the people around you.

Dr. Martin Dubin 29:07

Yeah, I I've certainly had that same experience. Um, you know, I think about you know, sports is such a um good metaphor often in business, and because it's driving toward some, you know, uh toward winning, whatever winning might be. And my God, talk about people that are getting feedback all the time, right? Oh, yeah. How much is every every one of your people you're talking about, Monday morning quarterback, you know, the game on the weekend? And and those players get feedback all the time, right? I mean, they're just you know, they're coaches, everybody, everything they do is examined um and they're getting feedback. And, you know, and anybody that's been coached throughout their life realizes that that is the way you get better. Um and there's no judgment about it. It's just it's all performance oriented. We all want to be better. I mean, the one uh with blind spots, one question I often get is if it's a blind spot, how can I know what my blind spot is? It's kind of that catch 22.

Sara Best 30:06

Right.

Dr. Martin Dubin 30:06

And you know, the answer is what you just talked about. It's feedback from other people that begins to shine the light about what you may, you know, be not paying attention to that that you really need to. Yeah, yeah.

Sara Best 30:18

Okay, I was playing pickleball the other day.

John Broer 30:20

And that's a big thing in our firm now, by the way, just so you can't.

Sara Best 30:24

Yeah, you love to play. I partnered up with a gal and I play with her, I played with her a lot, uh, but she's always telling me what to do. And it occurred to me that um, I'm like, I know I know, I know what I need to be doing. I don't need you to tell. I was thinking this, I didn't say it out loud. I'm sure my energy reflected that, but I appreciated uh that other people have done the same thing, but I received that feedback very differently from those other people. And there was no like, oh my gosh, you know, you don't even know what you're talking about. There was no defensiveness. And I just had to get in touch with the fact that um something in her, you know, is something I was unwilling to look at in myself. So I I appreciate the practical nature of my blind spots and and just knowing, well, when I see it, it's sort of like if you spot it, you got it kind of thing. Right. That that when there's a disturbance or defensiveness or an automatic posture that says, you don't know what you're talking about, that's likely the time I need to pay attention the most.

John Broer 31:26

This okay. I'm laughing a little bit. Side note, um, you should have had her call me Sarah because I could have advised her telling Sarah best what to do is not a good strategy. So sorry how we go.

Dr. Martin Dubin 31:38

I was just gonna go there that yeah, there's I'm sure you guys work on their ways to give feedback. Oh, yeah. People are gonna be able to receive it better.

Sara Best 31:46

Yeah.

Dr. Martin Dubin 31:47

So I mean, you know, part of it may have been on you to pay attention, but clearly she also was not giving feedback in a way that she was trying to give it in a way that you could accept it.

Sara Best 31:57

This is true. Yeah. She and she never even asked me if it was okay to coach me.

John Broer 32:02

Does she listen to a program? Because I might have to cut this out, Sarah. I'm just kidding.

Sara Best 32:05

I don't I don't know. I don't think so. I better find out. Uh I don't want her to feel uncomfortable. One last question, though, and I I think one of the sharp observations there's so many in your book that that you make, uh, Marty, is about that self-awareness is truly not natural. And maybe I should have asked this question in the beginning, but why are we not reliable narrators of our, you know, story, our own selves?

Dr. Martin Dubin 32:34

I don't know if I know the why the why answer to, you know, to that, but uh it is a truth. I mean, there's uh what there's a whole bunch of research from these guys called Dunning and Kruger. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where we tend to overestimate our own abilities. Um, men are even more akin to that in the business world than than women probably. Um but that we do that a lot. Um I don't know if it's around supporting self-esteem or other kinds of things, but but I think that's a that's a place to start, is you know, that we probably do overestimate our own abilities. And, you know, so there's opportunities for feedback around that.

John Broer 33:14

I knew a leader of an organization who would always tell his um team, you need to self-evaluate. You need to do some self-evaluation. And it's it's not it's not possible. It's like Dunning and Kruger being in a hall of mirrors. It doesn't, it doesn't work. Um, you need that external tools or people to just to really make that happen.

Dr. Martin Dubin 33:35

You know, and you talked about this earlier, John. I it's a feedback works in to me is when it's a culture of feedback. And, you know, I get a lot of people saying, yeah, after I give a talk or something, they'll come up, I want help me give uh I want to tell this one person that I work with about their blind spots. And how how can I do that in the bet in the most effective way? And my question is, have you shared your blind spots first? You know, and that's where it starts, and then that's where it starts with the leader. If the leader can say, and not even start to say, I'm gonna do with everybody else, if they can create that environment of ladies you said earlier, I want to get better, and so I want to create a climate where you guys can give me some feedback, and then I'm gonna tell you what I want to work on, um, and then I'm gonna ask you to hold me accountable and help me get better or what I, you know, what I want to get better at. And then you can change you can create that kind of climate within a company for everybody to be able to do it. But really, the leader needs it to go first um because of the power differential, you know, for that to happen.

What’s Next And How To Reach Us

Sara Best 34:36

This is such a good body of work. Um, it's not that people need more tools. I think what we can take away is that we need fewer illusions about ourselves and that awareness is so key. And you've given people, you've given us some very practical ways just to enter into that uh exploration and to uncover some of that. The the the one about take your strengths and put T O O in front of them. And then, you know, if you want to test that out, ask a few people. Can I be too much this? You know, this is so good. Yeah, I'm really excited for uh for your work to be out there. And we always like to ask too, what's next for you, Marty?

Dr. Martin Dubin 35:19

So I'm at the point in my career where I'm having fun writing and speaking. Um and uh I partnered with a company called Behavioral Essentials, and they've and that's what's you'll see on the a lot of things on the blindspotting.com website. So it's been fun for me to see other people take what I've created and do more with it. I'm pretty good on individuals, I'm not that great on teams and cultures. Obviously, teams have blind spots and companies have blind spots, and so I think there's opportunity for this to kind of uh other people to take parts of this and uh and take it places, and I'm just excited to see where all that goes.

Sara Best 35:59

There is a segment in the book about the team part, which is powerful. Well, it's been a pleasure and an honor to have you on the podcast. We'd love to reconnect at some point in the future and just to see and hear how this plays out and uh what it makes possible.

Dr. Martin Dubin 36:15

Thank you. I'd look forward to that.

John Broer 36:17

Yeah, Marty, great having you here. Uh, you are now officially part of the Boss Hole Transformation Nation.

Dr. Martin Dubin 36:23

Thank you.

John Broer 36:23

And we'll get you a t-shirt. All right, everybody. That's actually true. All right, everybody, great having you here, and we will see you next time on the Bosshole Chronicles.

Announcer 36:37

Thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Boss Hole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here. And if you have your own bosshole story that you want to share with the Bosshole Transformation Nation, just reach out.

John Broer 36:49

You can email us at mystory at the bossholechronicles.com. Again, my story at the bossholechronicles.com. We'll see you next time.