Yes, I am keeping with the VEGetable theme which is all about the clarity of your thinking. Clear foresight if you will.

Last week I wrote about how we have blind spots to our thinking and that we are in a constant battle to steady ourselves at the intersection of our Values, our Environment and our Genes. Each one having a great influence on our ability to think with clarity.

Well guess what? It is not just us that has this challenge. Other people have it as well. Why is that important you ask? Because rarely are you making a business decision in isolation. For pretty much every business decision you have the following three sources of blind spots:

Your Bias – The blind spots you develop all on your own because of your VEGetables (remember Values, Environment and Genes).

Their Bias – The blind spots that other people have developed because of their VEGetables. This is important because you may take on board advice from someone who is out of kilter. They are heavily biased one way or another and you don’t pick it.

Our Bias – The collective blind spots you, along with your team, can develop. Otherwise known as group think. And group think does not have one only source. Any of the many different types of bias that behavioural psychologists have identified can apply to a group just as much as to an individual. Daniel Kahneman covers over 30 in his best seller Thinking Fast and Slow (and if you follow that link you will get a nice Wikipedia summary of his key ones).

What this means is that we all need to be acutely aware of these sources of blind spots and manage them.