E107 - You Cannot Change What You Cannot See - Podcast with Jill Macauley

Welcome to The Inner Game of Change.  where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens. 

Today’s conversation sits at the heart of something we do not talk about enough when it comes to change.

We talk about strategy.
We talk about tools.
We talk about capability and execution.

But very rarely do we stop and ask a simpler question.

What if the real challenge is not the change itself…
but what we cannot see about ourselves as we go through it?

In this episode, I sit down with Jill McCauley.

Jill is the COO at Behavioral Essentials, and her work focuses on one thing that sits beneath performance, culture, and leadership.

Self awareness.

She has spent years working alongside leaders and teams, helping them see themselves more clearly, especially in environments that look successful on the outside, but feel very different on the inside.

In this conversation, we explore the idea of blind spots in the workplace.

Not as abstract concepts…
but as real forces that shape how leaders show up, how teams operate, and ultimately how change either moves forward… or quietly stalls.

We talk about the hidden cost of leadership without self awareness.
Why capable leaders unintentionally create friction.
And how the strengths that got us here… can sometimes be the very things that get in the way.

There is a simple but powerful idea that runs through this conversation.

You cannot change what you cannot see.

And the moment you start seeing yourself more clearly…
everything else begins to shift.

I am grateful to have Jill chatting with me today. 

About Jill

I’ve spent my career working alongside leaders — in boardrooms, executive meetings, and organizations that look successful on paper but feel different on the inside.

I’ve learned that this feeling is rarely a strategy problem or a skills gap. 

It’s a self-awareness problem.

Capable leaders unintentionally create friction. Teams spend time managing dynamics instead of doing the work. Meetings become more painful than they need to be. Energy and efforts get wasted. And no one can quite name why things feel harder than they should.

This is the hidden cost of leadership without self-awareness.

Over time, I stopped seeing these challenges as individual failures and started seeing them as systemic issues. As organizations grow, roles evolve, pressure increases, and identities lag behind reality. Leaders keep relying on the same strengths that got them here, without realizing those strengths may now be creating blindspots, tension, or misalignment downstream.

Self-awareness isn’t soft. And it isn’t intuitive for everyone.

It’s a discipline, practice, and a leadership responsibility. That can’t be ignored.

At Behavioral Essentials, we work with leaders, teams, and organizations to build awareness where it actually matters — in how people show up, make decisions, communicate under pressure, and impact the systems around them. This work sits at the intersection of psychology, behavior, and real-world leadership demands. It’s not about labeling people or fixin

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Ali Juma 
@The Inner Game of Change podcast

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Transcript

Why Blind Spots Block Change

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You want more perspective. So the more elite you get in your performance, the more coaching, therefore, you need because you're that much more likely to have a blind spot. And blind spots aren't, to be clear here, it's not just a weakness. It is that small tweak that you're missing. And so you have you have to be more and more refined in that feedback loop versus like, oh, you should have just added another meeting or added another process to help you learn about yourself. People who don't ask questions and don't practice curiosity have more blind spots.

Ali 0:51

Welcome to the Inner Game of Change, where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens. Today's conversation sits at the heart of something that we do not talk about enough when it comes to change. We talk about strategy, we talk about tools, and we talk about capability and execution. But very rarely do we stop and ask a simpler question. What if the real challenge is not the change itself, but what we cannot see about ourselves as we go through it? In this episode, I sit down with Jill McCauley. Jill is a COO at Behavioral Essentials, and her work focuses on one thing that sits beneath performance, culture, and leadership. Self-awareness. She has spent years working alongside leaders and teams, helping them see themselves more clearly, especially in environments that look successful on the outside but feel very different on the inside. In this conversation, we explore the idea of blind spots in the workplace. Not as abstract concepts, but as real forces that shape how leaders show up, how teams operate, and ultimately how change either moves forward or quietly stalls. We talk about the hidden cost of leadership without self-awareness. Why capable leaders unintentionally create friction and how the strengths that got us here can sometimes be the very things that get in the way. There's a simple but powerful idea that runs through this conversation. You cannot change what you cannot see. And the moment you start seeing yourself more clearly, everything else begins to shift. I am grateful to have Jill chatting with me today. Well, Jill, thank you so much for joining me in the Inner Game of Change podcast. I am very grateful for your time today.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Thank you, Allie. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm honored to have this conversation.

Ali 2:56

I really want to start from a simpler place. What has been grabbing your attention nowadays when you work with your clients?

Intent Versus Impact Feedback

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Very much focused in how their own awareness of themselves is playing out in the business impacts. And so that concept of self-awareness and really the flip of it, lack thereof, in then the downstream impact of how that is then creating pain, suffering, redundancies, inefficiencies. And I'll make it more real as I I do not have a title CEO. I have never owned a company. I have never run a company at the highest levels. I have had a two-decade plus career of being in the middle of management. Yes, I am an executive leader now, but there's still bosses and layers above me. And in that journey, I have learned a lot. And it's mostly in what I don't want to do when I am sitting in those people's seats. And it to me, it's it's always been shocking. It's like, how do they not see what they're doing right now? And now we have to have a meeting about a meeting to work around our boss and instead of just getting the job done. And it all comes down to awareness. And so and the lack thereof. And then you start thinking, well, what do they see? And how does that turn into like building trust, building connection? Like what is their perception versus what my perception is versus my colleagues' perception? And in that fundamental point that I bring forward is I really think awareness is the catalyst for all. So then you have all this collection of humans working together, supposedly to a destination or a for a product, but they're not all like if we're all in it together, we're all piece of it, and we can't see the our own impact, our downstream impact in particular. Like, are we really in it to fully? And what are we in it together? And then just there's just so much confusion, lack of understanding, and I'll go back to the word of suffering that comes out of that.

Ali 6:21

What is self-awareness anyway in a simple format? Uh and and I'd like you also to for somebody hearing this conversation, what would be something that they will do almost like a self-check, their level of awareness in the workplace and and why that is important?

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Self-awareness talking about a journey of philosophy. You can go really far and really deep is what is self, and there is many kind of high-level journeys of understanding who you are and what you are. I I lean into a simple format brought by our partner, Martin Dubin, who wrote a book, Blind Spotting, but it's just a self-awareness model, understanding yourself on kind of how you identify, how you behave. Those are the two most external components of self because that's what others experience of you mostly. Then you have kind of awareness of your intellectual capacity, your emotions, and your personality. The more fixed static pieces there's there's ability to impact, but and then awareness of your motive. Why are you doing what you're doing? And so that does not define what is awareness, but it kind of gives the context of what am I looking for? And you're looking for who am I on all those things, and is my perception of that what you're actually experiencing. So that's that's the answer to the first part of your question, I would say.

Ali 8:16

And that that for me that is enough. Is that if I can if I can have an understanding of this, I don't need to be a philosopher to actually go deeper into that. And uh yep, and I'll leave the microphone to your second part.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

So, kind of what is a simple thing you can do to like test your self-awareness?

Ali 8:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

It means a conversation with somebody else.

Ali 8:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

And and that's it means asking someone, this was my intent. Do you see that impact? And that is there are many ways, but the to kind of you can you can do meditation, you can do journaling to kind of get at some of this, but the true test is intent versus impact. And so lots of us have the best of intentions, especially as I I told you, like I I think about many of the leaders I've worked for, none of them were cruel people wanting to cause more work or delay things. It was just they were missing things, they just had blind spots.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

And that metaphor of blind spots is simply what we can't see about ourselves that is getting in our way. It's the same concept of I can drive a car straight, but eventually I'm gonna need that rear view mirror in my side mirrors to see what I can't see. Or now the backup mirrors and the fancy cameras and all of the stuff we have. But awareness, the test of awareness is a conversation.

Ali 9:54

When you talk about talking to other people, is it just another person or do they need to have a criteria so we can have a sense or a true sense of what their feedback or the conversation will actually give us?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

There's self-awareness is a practice. You can't just get self-awareness tomorrow off the shelf.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

So I it it's not and it's not a one-and-done conversation. So I I I kind of challenge that question back to say it is a committed way of being to hold the mirror up to yourself in the multitude of situations you're in, and go, what am I feeling and why am I feeling this? And then testing that with other people appropriately. So there are times where a colleague will come onto a meeting and you'll be like, No, that's not the way to do things. Okay, well, obviously, I got contracted, I got tense. Okay, let me just step back. Colleague, that was my initial reaction. I I am there was something to that I want to process with you, but now I realize I shut you down. So let's figure out how do we work. So that's that's a way where we're like one and two people can do that together.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

But then there's the magic of a team, and you're around the table together trying to kind of lift something and move something and achieve something together. The the greater gift is a multitude of perspectives about you, starting with yourself, starting with those that were closest with you, and and going out there. Like, yes, there are tools like a 360 assessment. That's a very helpful tool in the journey of understanding yourself. Is it critical for everyone right now to jump out and do a 360? No. But does there come a point, especially as they lean into higher performance, more responsibility? They're going to need more perspective. So I would say it it goes up in terms of how you need perspective the more influence you have.

Ali 12:25

Let's go deeper into the blind spots. What causes what causes us to actually have more blind spots or less of them?

SPEAKER_02 12:39

We all simply we all have blind spots. What blind spots are, there are things that we can't see about ourselves, especially those default behaviors and orientations, because we can kind of count on them. And it's much harder to see, in particular, blind spots that are built on our strengths. So what has gotten me here today potentially is not the right tool reaction response to what the current situation needs. It's much harder to see that, and that's where a blind spot occurs when you have counted on it time and time again to get you through. Where people who have perhaps more blind spots than less are people who create organizational structures that don't allow two-way conversation. There are, I'm sure all of us listening can and people thinking can think of someone who has structured their company, their organization. There's not really a way to tell the person at that, the helm at the top you disagree with them. As I go to the point, the higher performing you are, the more perspectives you need. So a higher performing person, at kind of the greater influence they have, if they have organized their company, their business in a way that there isn't two-way dialogue, there isn't feedback loops because they don't want it. It's uncomfortable, it's hard work, they're doing great, their bottom line looks beautiful, they're gonna end up having more blind spots in comparison to someone who, as a leader, really says, I did this. I want to reflect on it. How could I have done this better? What was I doing? So the practice of including awareness into your one-on-ones, your team meetings, your feedback loops, your retreat. So there are leaders that never would do a retreat with their team to talk about what they're doing together. They're gonna be the ones that have blind spots. Perspective for that is if you think of the with the Olympics coming up. An Olympic athlete has uh more than one trainer. They don't have just one coach helping them ski down the mountain or figure skate. I don't even know how many coaches there are for a figure skater, but I am guessing there is the choreographers, there's the the costume teams, there's the music selecting teams, there are the jumping teams. There are you want more perspective. So the more elite you get in your performance, the more coaching, therefore, you need because you're that much more likely to have a blind spot. And blind spots aren't, to be clear here, it's not just a weakness. It is that small tweak that you're missing. And so you have you have to be more and more refined in that feedback loop versus like, oh, you should have just added another meeting or added another process to help you learn about yourself. People who don't ask questions and don't practice curiosity have more blind spots.

Ali 16:49

I want to walk there's so much in the stuff that you talked about now that I that when I go deep into. I've learned something that I need you to critique me, and I'm happy to be vulnerable in public. One of the techniques that I followed, and I feel like it's kind of working for me. I started visualizing me as another camera looking from the outside of a situation. Uh, I'll give you an example. I uh had a conversation with a colleague maybe about three weeks ago, and I left the catch up completely fine, but I went through an exercise of when I said certain things, what did I even look like when I actually said those things? And so I imagine that that they me and the other person are sitting in a room or in the place, and I'm a side camera, and I replayed the whole thing, and I tried to obviously I I could I couldn't be 100% neutral because I'm looking at myself, but I replayed that as if I am a third person. And I find these exercises often they ground me and they give me another perspective, and and I'm okay to be self-critical about certain things. The idea is not to worry about uh d whether I said the right thing or the wrong thing, but most importantly, how did I come across? How did I show up to that particular catch-up? And and then I can take that insight and I can talk to another person and actually share it and have a discussion about it. That is my primitive, simple way of sometimes trying to figure out if I have a blind spot or not.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

What a beautiful tool. I have no critique to it with the because part of awareness is that slow down to just think how might it be perceived? And it's not the first step and it's not the last step, but it is a very critical step on a practice of self-awareness. Because what you're doing is you're examining the downstream impacts of your behavior. You're really thinking about how did this land? What, what was I doing, and how might I have, because we how might I've come across different than intended? We know words, I don't have the percentages memorized, but the actual words out of our mouth are only are not the majority influencer in our communication style. And so our body language, our tonality are key pieces of that connection between whatever you were trying to communicate. The gift that you just that that tool of like thinking about a mirror, it really does give the visual. And we all, especially with all the smartphones that we have today, we it's easy to record ourselves and capture that. It's and just really watching what is the body, what is my body doing? Where did I tense up? Where did I contract? Where did I relax? Where did I lean forward? And how might my tone have played out in the delivery of that? I love the concept of thinking about yourself and watching that as a mirror. There's always the risk, is you're right, you're you can't be totally unbiased in the recording of yourself. Yeah. And there is always a little risk that you choose to fast-forward a little too much or be like, oh, I don't really remember that that clip there of something that is a little uncomfortable for you that you don't want to own. I think it's a very powerful concept that Carl Jung, the psychologist, brought forward that all conflict is inner conflict.

Ali 20:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

So when we think, oh, I'm frustrated at that person or that person's causing this, or that circumstance is getting in my way, is like actually watching what am I doing in that and why am I reacting? So you can you can play with that theoretical framework to your kind of security camera watching you overhead.

Resistance To Change And The Body

Ali 21:19

My security camera. Let's call it uh actually, that's a nice way of putting it, uh, the self-awareness uh security camera, and which everybody can get, and it's free of charge as well. So uh you can you can order it, it's available free at the at the at the human uh shop and whatever you actually get get that. I I worked with a coach maybe maybe six, six, seven years ago, and I went into a let's just call it a difficult conversation. But he said to me, uh you've got a gamin watch and when you go to the meeting, just set it up so you can it was an online meeting so I can look at my gamin watch. So during the conversation, I was he was uh my coach was asking me if your heart rate, my resting heart rate is 58, if my heart rate should not really go more than 65. And what he was asking me to do is to do to manage my body so in such a way that there's a correlation between the way I'm thinking about stuff and communicating my ideas, and the strong correlation between that and the heart rate. And so what he was trying to teach me is that there will be Thousands and thousands of these conversations. How about we actually become good at managing how we show up to those conversations? And therefore you focus on the topic rather than how I come across or do I feel heat? You know, every time you feel heat, that's that's that is a a direct link to there'll be lots of blind spots and there will be lots of things that you'll be focusing on and things that that you will forget to actually think about as as important things during the conversation. That was another way for me about the heart rate, and I know it comes from sports psychology, but the idea is that do you want to manage that particular event or do you want to manage the experience? The other day the conversation was with a soccer player, they were gonna have a penalty shootout, and that particular player was really stressed about that. And then the coach said, Do you want to manage that particular event or do you want to manage the moments like this that will come again and again in your life? And so sometimes to manage the experience, you may lose the event, but then you will learn and so you'll become better at well, actually you'll become not better, but but you will suck less at the experience. Yes. I want to shift gear and I want to ask you about is there a correlation between the number of blind spots and our resistance to change?

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Well, I I'm gonna say the answer is yes. And the change is constant. Nature teaches us that. Like we don't there is no the kind of uh constraints and constrictions that we feel against change are to your point, you're you're going to have blind spots because you're you're you're fighting something versus kind of being open heart, open-minded to a circumstance. We can't change is gonna happen. So anytime we're fighting change, we are missing something. I don't I don't know how to expand on it any further because it's just the simply put is you in a battle against change, you are going into a contracted physical state of like, I don't want this, I don't like this. And we know then there to your point about heat and blood pressure and what your body does in terms of taking in information dramatically changes. So anytime you are resisting something, you're in a contracted state. When you're in a relaxed state, so relaxing into change, it doesn't mean you're not going to challenge the like if if the change is is one the purchase of this company or not to purchase this company, it's not we're not battling the idea that we should purchase a company. It's battling, is that the right thing? That's a different piece of restricting change. It's just trying to say the old way of doing things or trying to maintain a current way versus evolving is really you're gonna be putting yourself into missing key data that helps you have greater understanding. And then therefore you're gonna be in conflict.

Ali 26:31

And that idea of conflict equals the idea that conflict means we have too many blind spots that we are not managing well. Is that am I reading this right?

SPEAKER_02 26:43

I think you can extrapolate into that. You can be battling something in your sign self, you could be having conflict and have self-awareness. Okay, you can still say, I am scared, I don't like this, I don't want to do this, I don't agree, and I'm struggling and have self-awareness in the moment. It's how then you address what you're feeling. If you can't understand what's going inside of you as it relates to the external world, that's where a blind spot occurs.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

So just simply having conflict doesn't mean you're lacking awareness or having a blind spot. It's that piece of missing your own understanding of what's going on in yourself in that moment of conflict was where the blind spot occurs.

unknown 27:38

Yeah.

The “Too” Exercise For Strengths

SPEAKER_02 27:39

They are very, very self-aware people, people who really have a lot of ability to relax their body, maintain that heart rate, kind of do the things that keep us in a state of curiosity and open-mindedness and really exploratory, and still lose their cool once in a while and still around like it's it's how fast do they get it back? How do they own that? That so I want to just stink, it's it's blind spotting is when you're missing something about yourself. When you're you're just you're not tuned into it. It's we still are gonna miss things about ourselves. It doesn't make you're a bad person or a weak person. It's just the amount of blind spots you have at time can accelerate if you're you're in environments that aren't challenging to look at your own self in this component.

Ali 28:36

What are some of the questions that we can ask ourselves one-on-one with ourselves that can unearth some blind spots or can actually sharpen our self-awareness?

Coping Versus Growing Through Change

SPEAKER_02 28:50

We know our strengths well. So most of us, especially in the era of lean into your strengths culture for the most part, we know what we show up with and those gifts. And the a key exercise for thinking about those traits and those behaviors that are behind those adjectives that we describe ourselves, is putting the word, the modifier, in front of T-O-O. So I'm an energetic person, I use my energy to my advantage all of the time. It has been ability to get a million things done. I I can like rev up a room and move things with my energy. Like I know how to play with that, but what happens when I'm too energetic? And that's an exercise of that you can reflect on yourself, right? The top three adjectives that you use to describe yourself. Now put the modifier two in front of all of them. When's the last time you were too fill in the blank? What happened? Were you aware of it? How do you know you were two? What would be people be saying about you? And really to go back to our self-awareness security camera, like replay that in your head of what did it look like when I was too energetic, too passionate, too hardworking? What is the downstream impact of that? That's a really great journal, reflective to even you can do it on a daily basis. Today, the three adjectives to describe myself were were there any time that I over-indexed any of those traits or behaviors and what happened? How can I dial that up or dial it back depending on what is needed tomorrow?

Ali 30:45

I want to give you an ex a scenario. Recently I've been thinking about when there's a change in the workplace, do we want to cope with the change? Or do we isn't it better to grow through the change? What is the difference between somebody trying to cope with it and somebody thinking this is an opportunity and I'm gonna go through it? It's not gonna be comfortable, but I will grow through it. Is there a correlation between somebody who's coping with it? They actually they're not allowing themselves to see their blind spots, or they do not have a high level of self-awareness, or am I coming at this from a from the wrong angle?

SPEAKER_02 31:31

What's an interesting question is the way you position cope almost means resistant to change, just trying to survive it, versus so like it implies that there's like I'm not, I'm just gonna be here and change is gonna happen around me. Like that's that's almost how you use the word cope. Whereas there are a lot of healthy coping mechanisms that help you. So I I want to just distinguish that, like cope's out of like coping isn't a bad thing, and but it coping in the sense of like I'm just gonna survive it and we're just gonna see the other side, I'm not gonna get in the way of it, but I'm not gonna do anything about it, like playing that personality.

Ali 32:15

You are right that I'm going to do the minimum engagement with it and go through it, whereas another mindset that says, I am going to make the most of it. Two people, same team, one change. Why would you look at the change differently?

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Well, I I I'm gonna say that the person the person that is like, I'm gonna make the most of it, is I'd much rather be their team member than the other.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yes. I'm gonna say that right now.

Success And Grinding Create Blind Spots

SPEAKER_02 32:50

And they're what like why is that? Yeah, is because we are figuring out how to grow and evolve together. When people go into self-protection mode and to draw on the wisdom, Brene Brown here and her all that she's brought forward with a power of vulnerability, there's there's something muted in your life when you don't, when you just try to like go into that survival mode. And again, there's there's a time and place based on like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If if you're at risk of not having enough food to eat, shelter, water, like go into survival mode, right? Like that's that's a different time and place than if we're talking about where like you're you're in a first world upper middle class type lifestyle, and like there's nothing at stake there. I I just I think where you're going with this is the person that goes into that survival mode and is just like coping through the change is ultimately not doing the work of understanding what they're battling and what they're afraid of. And therefore, they are ultimately stifling their ability to have joy and fullness, and again, leaning on the the concepts that Brennan A. Brown has brought forward. So by put trying to be in this like self-protection mode and putting on armor, and they they probably can't even see it, which is part of the suffering, and it's a suffering that like perpetuates beyond them. They they might not even see this about themselves, and therefore it is about exploring with that person what what are you fighting? Why are you fighting it, and getting curious with them because they are probably not in the stage that they can see it on their own. And there's times where then the downstream impact of that person that's in survival mode is pretty toxic to those around them. You as a leader, if that's the person reporting up to you, have the hard work of trying to take that person on a journey with you and or making a decision of if they're not willing to do the work, they're not gonna help you. They're gonna, they're gonna promote, they're not actually gonna be a wholesome contributor to your organization.

Ali 35:32

Which part of the team or management that you come across that have more blind spots than others? In my head, I'm thinking there's always gonna be the higher level of leadership in an organization, there's always gonna be middle management or really into the messy middle, and there's the junior leaders, and these obviously the troops stuff. Have you have you seen any pattern emerging amongst these groups?

SPEAKER_02 36:03

There is various moments of blind spots and kind of not wanting to look at yourself in the mirror across all industries, across all levels of management. One of the areas when times are really, really good and growth is happening and making money moving fast, that's when it's like, why do I need to slow down and do this work? Because it feels slow, feels like unnecessary. It's like we're doing everything, we're winning, we're winning, we're winning. And so when someone has a lot of success, I do think there is a correlation between like lifespan development. There, there's there's all sorts of variables, but like it'll just say you're you found your spouse, you started your family, you're doing all those things. You have, you know, you're moving up the ladder in your career, like again, things, you're checking the boxes, you're doing the things, it feels good, and you you're just like, I will be happy when this is over, but like not really enjoying it and not taking the time to kind of understand why you are doing what you're doing, and you're just applying for the next level, getting the next job because you're a great performer, you're just performing, performing, performing. And all of a sudden you wake up, your kids are probably towards college age, maybe out of college, and you're exhausted, and you're like, what where did where did those 10 last years go? Those last 15 years? Like, yeah, what am I doing this? Why am I doing this? There's there is a correlation for us as a firm in that kind of mid-life moment of you're starting to hit with your own mortality, you're feeling a little older, it's a little creakier to get out of bed. That's typically when we have people more interested, but it's in those years of fast growth where you're just muscling through, muscling through, muscling through. And that could be at a a junior to a mid-level leader, or it could be a a person that has made it all the way up to executive leadership. But it's in when a person or organization, you can see it in a lot of the organizations in which these leaders run, are just grinding, grinding, grinding. And they're they're success. They're like successful by based on dollars and cents. Yeah, there's a lot of blind spots pervasive in those organizations most of the time. Because they they're the ones that skip executive retreats. They're like, we're not in pain, we don't need to have do that work, we don't need to reflect. We're great. And I know your listeners didn't hear our pre-conversation, but it's on that journey related to I know everything, doing everything, I'm I'm winning. And the second you kind of go, I'm doing everything, I'm winning, I'm I'm great, you're really swish cheese full of blind spots.

Ali 39:05

Like, yeah, yeah. And and and uh just to clarify, when you talk about retreat, because it may sound uh a little bit elitist to some people, retreat in in this is how how I understand it, is a time to reflect. It's a time off to reflect. So it doesn't matter if you're gonna go to the beach and sit in there or a cafe or but a time off work and it's gonna be usually yeah, I just want to clarify to that point, it it's very much taking a team out of the day-to-day business. Or take yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Or taking yourself. It it's it's just getting yourself out of the day-to-day business for a moment, and it it doesn't have to be it, it's it doesn't actually even need to be posh. It can be very simple as sitting at a picnic table in the park.

Ali 39:55

Yes, yes. And I I want to go back to blind spots. These the there's a level of seasonality in here. In peacetime, we probably probably see less blind spots, and usually there's less conflict. For example, during COVID, many organizations start to shrink and and and focus on cost cutting and so stress level was really high. And so do I really need to care about figuring out my blind spots, or I'm just gonna focus on the status quo and actually manage the day-to-day. So I think the message is that if the business is doing well, that's your signal that if you're not paying attention to the blind spots, then when the tough times come, you're not gonna have a lot of ammunition to manage the tough times without making irrational decisions. Am I reading this right?

Psychological Safety Starts With Leaders

SPEAKER_02 40:56

No, I I I I a hundred percent because there's parts of us that we don't want to see. Yes, I don't like sitting with the unintended consequences of my actions. Yes, hearing that I did something that you know stifled someone else or caused more work for someone else or shut someone down or whatever that impact is. Like none of us like that. None of us like uh that work, but it to your earlier point, growth is where the magic happens. And so in good times, finding accountability, so using your organization's annual cycle and/or outsourced resources like a coach, a therapist, a mentor, a spouse, whatever that looks like, to Joe go on that journey of understanding of who you are looks like. So it's very important when times are good to be examining who you are and why you are so that when tough times come, you can understand why I am reacting this way. And you have the data faster.

Ali 42:11

You have the data faster. I am aware of time and I'm thoroughly enjoying this conversation, Joel. I want to ask you a couple of questions just to wrap up this episode. The the way I'm looking at it is that if we really help the team or an individual manage their blind spots, we're indirectly creating this psychological safety in the workplace. And therefore, when a change happens in the workplace, there's more likelihood that people will be open to explore that change. Am I being naive to read it that way?

Change Work Without A Silver Bullet

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Oh gosh, no, I completely agree. I I genuinely believe that all of our impact to date has shown when a leader at the highest level leans into exploring themselves, it creates safety for others to do the same, which means safety for you to make mistakes, safety for you to share when something is scary, like change or something unknown, when there is pain or suffering, you have the safety to say those things. And so then, therefore, there if all of that is safe to bring to the table, there's so much agency and dignity amongst the colleagues and the team doing the things together, whatever those things are together, that that's where the the magic, the flow, the output comes, because you're not wasting resources, meaning I only have a finite amount of time and energy. Yes, you only have finite time and energy. A company only has a finite amount of cash to spend. So if we can put all of the resources into doing what we're set out to do, whatever that that is together, and we can then we can be much more nimble to navigate change as well, because it's like, okay, I have the safety to say that didn't work. I kind of messed up there, and that's why it didn't work. So now we've learned that much faster versus like, okay, we can't talk about why Jill just messed this up, and now we have to have a meeting over here to figure out that. And we can be nimble together because there's the dignity for all of the effort that's going in across the team and that. All starts with whoever is the leader of the leaders in the organization setting the tone for reflecting upon themselves.

Ali 44:50

I like the word navigate, and it's it's sometimes I look at the GPS, and if I make a mistake and go onto a different road, sometimes it it beautifully recalibrates me and try to bring me back. I wish we all have that internally. One last question for you. I work in the business of changing communication and then change adoption. And and what would be your advice for somebody like me when we work with organizations and teams helping them manage or navigate a change?

Where To Connect And Final Thought

SPEAKER_02 45:24

It starts with how aware. So you come into an organization with a challenge, and you can see most likely the path forward, the third party, the gift of third party perspectives. Um but the your biggest task is helping the people around the table see their own impacts. There's many times, at least I have found where I have to disguise the work we're doing because people are, they don't want to own their own impacts. And so you have to play a master level game of chess in someone like your role to carefully hold the mirror up to that person in small bite-sized pieces. So they you start helping. How did you how did you navigate this? Why did you navigate? You become the the magic that helps them start to see what they're navigating. And there's ways to do that faster, like, but in terms of using tools and assessments and other coaches, but if if there's a that's pretty much the the challenge you have is if you come into an organization that's navigating change and then the people aren't clearly seeing themselves in an accurate perspective, yeah, it's much more challenging. And so helping incrementally show like I don't have a magic silver bullet to say, here, Ollie, go go do this as your first step, and everyone will understand themselves better. Like we use assessments in that role. That's that is where we we lean into it as a firm is like we have tools that someone takes it, they get results, they get their own data. That is the step one in our journey, because then they can see their data and they can share their data and share where they agree or disagree with it. So then we can actually do the work of org dev change management, strategic planning, whatever that is for the business itself. But it is really a challenging piece. That's the real part of a practice of self-awareness, is there isn't a magic silver bullet. It's not a one-time fix. I don't have a shot that I can give you in the arm and you all of a sudden see yourself. It's it is a practice and it's a lifelong practice. And the more you practice, the more you realize you need to practice.

Ali 47:51

There's a mixture of joy and pain in that self-discovery. And uh and I I enjoy the joy, and I also enjoy the pain because the pain is gonna take me to joy at some stage, and uh as long as I stay stay in the discomfort a little bit longer, just a little bit longer, and then hopefully that will make me realize some of the blind spots. Jill, it's been a pleasure having you in my in a game of change podcast. I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation. How would people connect with you online?

SPEAKER_02 48:28

I encourage them to go to blindspotting.com and I will follow up with you, Ali, and we give them a promo code to experience our blind spotting assessment and learn more about what we do.

Ali 48:39

Absolutely. And we're gonna put all the information about you and your business in their podcast. I'm really happy that we're having this conversation. I hope I can get you back some stage in the future and we explore the emerging world of AI and the impact on people. And maybe AI can help us uncover more blind spots, but I'll leave that to the next conversation. Until next time, Jill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

Yes, thank you.

Ali 49:06

Until next time, stay well and stay safe.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

Thank you.

Ali 49:13

Thank you for joining me on the inner game of change. I hope today's conversation offered you something to reflect on, something to challenge, or something to carry forward in your journey of change and growth. As always, I am grateful for your time, your curiosity, and your willingness to explore the inner game that shapes the outer impact. I will leave you with this thought. Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end. That's what Robin Sharmer said. Until next time, take care and keep leading with courage and curiosity.