Why Strengths Become Weaknesses | Martin Dubin

26:24and then surround yourself with people that really compliment you and pay attention to that so that you as a group can make the best decision. A lot of times with our clients, the way it creates a blind spot is it actually leads to inaction. So this pursuit of knowledge and intelligence can lead you to just process and process and process and not actually do the thing you need to do. And sometimes the lower IQ, the more naive person who just goes in and acts instead of planning and replanning and reconstructing gets ahead. And that's oftentimes what's so frustrating to a lot of our clients, especially in the EQ area where it's like, I know I'm smart, this person, I know I'm more capable, but the problem is they made the move.

27:09You didn't make the move. And that's why they're rewarded. And that could be a mixture of both a trait and a trait blind spot and an elect blind spot, you know, the trait of kind of conscientiousness and carefulness. And I still need more data, you know, 92 % certainty is not enough. I need 98 here, go out and go get me more information about this one question. You know, and if you're smart, you can always come up with one more question that isn't quite answered there. So that could be over-indexing on that conscientiousness trait as well as over-indexing on kind of the high IQ and informational trait that leads to kind of analysis paralysis.

27:47So what are some other traits that are tripping up leaders that you work with that maybe aren't as obvious to us listening? You guys, I'm sure, are familiar with the big five traits. So those are common traits that seem to be lasting in all of us throughout life. So that's one place to start. I often tell leaders back to this part of over-indexing your strengths. Think about what are your strengths? Traits are often adjectives. It's how we describe ourselves, how people describe us. So what are those traits, those adjectives that you do? You do put yourself at the 99th percentile on the bell curve, and you really are proud of that, and it's really good.

28:28You're confident, you're decisive, you're organized, you're creative, whatever one you might want to do. And then here's the answer to your question. Put the modifier TOO in front of it. What happens when you're too organized? What happens when you're too confident? What happens when you're too decisive? What happens when you're too creative? You know, it's probably what your spouse or partner tells you all the time. And those are the moments, those are the kinds of things to become aware of, because that's what can trip you up is when those things are showing up. I had one leader who was in that kind of confidence that tips over into arrogance and decisive.

29:06And he was very good at asking questions, a super curious kind of leader. And he would and but when he stopped, when he thought he had the answer, when he stopped asking questions, that's when his confidence appeared to others as arrogance. He was kind of done. Conversation was over. I made a decision. I'm moving on. He was losing some key leaders who just didn't like dealing with him, even though he was generally a really approachable kind of person. And I couldn't tell him, don't be arrogant. He didn't think of himself as arrogant. Don't be decisive. That wouldn't be the right answer. What I did say is when you stop asking questions, when you think you're done, that's when you can tip over into this arrogance and appear that way.

29:47So your trigger to be aware of is when you think you're done and when you think you have the answer. And my advice to him was, at that point, you say to your team, I think I'm pretty close to a decision here. I think I know what's going on. Let me sleep on it or let's talk again next Tuesday about it. So to leave it open-ended was a way to kind of respect them and respect the process a little more. And for him to kind of, he didn't stop being confident. He didn't stop being decisive, but he could change his behavior in a way that he was behaving in a way that was much more amenable to the team and really resulted in better decisions.

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34:35So they're really excited about it. And a lot of times they're like, oh, my God, that's it. I totally understand. Yes, that is it. but I have to let them know that just because we've identified it doesn't mean you're cured or this is now over. You can go on about your life. There's now a process in getting better with this where I will continue to bring up. There's your overly analytical thinking, putting you in a trap again. Oh, right. Now I see the trap. Thank you very much. Oh, there's this tendency again that puts you in this. Oh, right. Exactly. So we give them questions to ask themselves so they can self-diagnose.

35:18Am I stuck in that spot again or whatnot? But what does that process look like for your leaders and the people that you coach? Yeah, I think that's beautifully said. And I really like what you said when they said, oh, I understand it now. And understanding is just intellectual, right? Yeah, there's no change that happens. That's just an understanding. That's like, oh, you know, I know something now. Big deal. So, I mean, not big deal. It is a big deal, but it's just the beginning. And so, you know, where does coaching come from? It comes from athletics and sports. And what does a coach do in sports?

35:57They do small changes that have huge impact. You know, I'm a skier. Bend your knees a little more and lean forward. or, you know, change your grip on the golf club a quarter of an inch. And now you've got 10 more yards on your drive. So that's where it needs to move. It needs to move to behavior. It needs to move to what do you do? And it needs to move to practice. So what I work with people on is what's the trigger. So they don't need you all the time to point out their blind spot that how can they begin to recognize when they do have it? Like I mentioned with the guy that turn, you know, stops asking questions that that was his trigger for when that arrogance could show up.

36:36And then what do they need to do? What are these small tweaks? This is not about personality transformation, which can't be done anyway. This is about small changes and practicing and practicing just like you would do any other skill that you want to learn. Like that example you gave of that leader, I found myself very similar in the same trap of like, I got all the data I need. I need to move forward. I got a ton of other decisions on my plate. So thanks for your input, but we're moving forward. And what I did from a behavior change was just adding the question, even after I made the decision, what am I missing?

37:09And just inviting more of that feedback and input from my team, even though I had made the decision, maybe they weren't happy with the decision. There were times that there was something that I was definitely missing and Johnny pointed out or someone else on the team pointed out it made an even better decision for me. But instead of that finality of like, I've made it, I don't need any more input shutting down, just adding that one extra question was the behavior change for me that allowed me to overcome that blind spot that was frustrating our team members. And you can also embrace who you are.

37:38I mean, you like to close things off. You like to come to a decision. You like to feel the pleasure of kind of untying the knot and figuring it all out. And that is, and there's so great, right? And all you need to do is say, but there's also more. And so just that final, you know, what am I missing? You know, the door is still open, you know, it didn't change who you are in any kind of way, didn't compromise your strengths. It just added extra, you know, an extra ingredient to the, you know, to the soup in the end. Well, I know Johnny and I have had a number of laughs over the years about the speed decision and then moving forward on some key things that had to happen, that it is a strength as well.

38:22You know, so recognizing that that blind spot can be a strength as well, I think, is sometimes challenging as leaders because we like to think of blind spots as just a weakness. But a lot of times it's our strength creating the blind spot, and it's not necessarily a weakness. I've kind of taken weakness out of my vocabulary in coaching. I really, I talk about it as gifts and gaps. So those gifts can become overutilized and those gifts can, like any gift, you know, too much of a good thing, it can become a problem. And then there are gaps. There's things that you just, you know, are not part of your makeup or not part of the primary part of your makeup.

39:00And that's not a weakness. It's just, you know, we're all different. And so, you know, looking for those areas where, you know, I am just I'm not a detailed person. I, you know, I'm terrible at filling out government forms. I'm always going to screw that up and and be frustrated. So I need somebody to help me with that. And that just is what it is. It's just a gap. So I think, you know, that's all again, back to this self-awareness and being just very generous with yourself about who you are. not getting punitive and condemning of those areas because none of us are perfect. I know this has worked really well in my own relationship.

39:39My wife has appreciated owning those blind spots with the people in your life that you're trying to work and grow with. And as a leader, owning that blind spot to your team and being like, hey, this is an area where in the past, you know, I've recognized now has created this blind spot for me. I'm working on it, but I would love you pointing it out so I can continue the behavior change that needs to happen for things to work. It's wonderful when a leader can do that. I mean, when they can say, please hold me accountable for these changes I want to make, you know, give me that negative feedback, that critical feedback, that self-corrective type of feedback.

40:15And you're then creating a culture of feedback for the organization by doing that. And, you know, there's so many people like, how do I give hard feedback? Well, it starts with you accepting hard feedback and being able to talk about that. And then you can begin to give hard feedback to other people and have them be willing to accept it. You have to lead by example, especially in these kind of difficult areas. For a lot of our clients who have stepped into new leadership roles where they've been that individual contributor and worked really hard and leaned into their intellect. And now they're in the manager role.

40:51Now they're in the leadership seat, which often trips them up as the fishbowl effect. And they don't even recognize it. They're unaware of it. So I'd love for you to share with our audience and unpack that because that's a real blind spot that we see in our clients. As a leader, you're always communicating. And just, you know, it's one of the downsides of leadership for most of us who just, you know, don't want to be in the spotlight all the time. You're in the spotlight all the time. And, you know, how you dress, how you walk, you know, that, you know, example I gave before about, you know, yelling, you know, your screaming face, all those kind of things are communicating.

41:28And so being able to be aware of that, you know, have almost a little another one of you on your shoulder, kind of observing yourself, you know, to the point where you can become much more thoughtful and strategic about that and be able to do that. I had a leader recently of a company that's kind of in the entertainment area, hospitality. And he gave an example in one meeting about, well, if we had cabanas at the property and we were doing all these kinds of things. And a month later, he was asking somebody about what they were up to. He said, well, we're building cabanas. And he's like, oh, my God, I didn't want to be.

42:08I was just using it as an example. And here all of a sudden, somebody took that as a directive from the CEO and we better go start building cabanas. So watch out for the cabana effect. Well, one of the leaders that I work with recently went through a 360 review and what came out of it was team members calling him distracted in their standup meetings. So I asked him, you know, do you feel like you're distracted? What's going on? And he's like, no, I'm not distracted. But as we unpacked his calendar, we recognized that a lot of key client meetings, client facing meetings, trying to get funding for his investments were happening after these standup meetings.

42:46and he had to switch contextually from a standup meeting to now presenting to clients and trying to win billions of dollars in financing. And, and he was checking the clock, you know, like, when is the standup meeting over? Cause I had this even more important meeting and just that checking the clock on these meetings and looking at his watch frequently led his team members to feel like he was distracted. And we just shifted his meeting so that he was no longer doing standups and days that he was going to be client facing and had a huge impact on his team members recognizing now like he cares and he is invested in their success.

43:21What a wonderful example of just how these small tweaks can have a huge impact once you're kind of aware of it. You know, you didn't. And it's a great example of how everybody is, you know, judging each other and trying to, you know, interpret the data from the environment about what's going on. So they interpreted distractibility, meaning he doesn't care. He's not interested. And when he sounds like he was actually a little distracted, but it had nothing to do with content or people in the meeting. It was about what was happening next. Yeah, it's just kind of a great example of how complex we all are.

43:55We're always responding to what's going on in the environment and in our head. And, you know, we think everybody else either isn't aware or they should be aware. And sometimes our own awareness needs to be shared with other people. it's important to recognize that we can have these blind spots even with the best intentions right so these these are behaviors and actions that are leaking out that are having big impacts even though his intention was of course to be in the meeting and and what i found the fishbowl effect happens quite a bit with leaders who take a very ad hoc approach where it's just like an open door like hey i want my team to know that they can come to me at any time but that often opens them up to these moments where they're in a fishbowl type situation where they were thinking about something else or they had a bigger problem going on.

44:42But now this team member walks into their office because they have an open door policy and they can't quite switch. And now that fishbowl effect of this team member looking at them, feeling that stress around a bigger decision that the leader was facing directed directly at their team member. There's an inadvertent side effect of a lot of the research literature on leadership. Like open door policy is a good idea, right? And it is a good idea. And it's a really good idea for some people. And it's a really bad idea for other people. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, as a psychologist, I'm always dealing with just one person at a time, not with the theory of the population.

45:20And so it's really important for, you know, as you read those leadership books, and you think, oh, this is this, you know, this work for that leader and aren't they successful to really then filter it through is that who you are does that work for you or not or maybe there's a there's an adaptation of whatever you're learning that might fit for who you are um you know somebody asked me you know recently is it a good idea for ceos or leaders to have one-on-ones and my answer was well are you good at one-on-ones you know do you are one-on-ones productive you know like what are you doing in a one-on-one you know and some You know, you're great at vision and culture.

45:57And so you should do one-on-ones for vision and culture. You're terrible at accountability. Don't do one-on-ones for accountability, right? So being able to kind of figure all that stuff out, again, back to the core thing of knowing who you are and what you're good at and where your blind spots are is where you're going to begin to kind of, you know, really become more strategic as a leader. Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you.

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47:15Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org. You know, so many of these clickbait headlines and things going on around, you know, what the billionaires are doing of these massive companies trying to filter it down to, oh, Jensen Wong doesn't have one on one meetings and NVIDIA. So now everyone has to switch from one on one. And we lose sight of what's actually working for us and like what's important for the seat that we're in chasing these other people as heroes. These people are CEOs due to how well they operate in these environments. which means they understand the rules. Therefore, they can break them. And when you're reading their books and things and you're hearing about this stuff, well, that's not going to work for you.

48:01You have no experience whatsoever with what you're doing. And you're just going to follow this template that breaks the rules that you have no idea about. And for AJ and I, being entrepreneurs and running our own company, we understand there is no skipping the rules. If you don't know the rules, you're not taking off. And if you did have any success by breaking the rules or not knowing the rules, that was luck. And you'll soon find yourself against the wall. You bring up the whole super important point about situation. Situation context drives as much of it as we do and as the people around us.

48:44I love in Guy Raz asks people, you know, always the kind of the luck question, you know, were you successful as an entrepreneur, you know, because of your own skills or because of some fortune and, and they, you know, the smart ones, you know, kind of give a nod to luck in some ways. And, and my definition is really good luck is when your particular strengths and abilities happen to be exactly what the situation calls for. And you're in the right situation and you got the right match for it. You're the jigsaw puzzle that fits. And bad luck is you're the same damn person and the situation is calling for different kinds of things.

49:18And now all of a sudden you got bad luck. You were a successful entrepreneur twice and now you're a terrible failure. You know, you're no different, you know, but you didn't recognize that the situation called for a different piece of the puzzle and you didn't have that. So yeah, being really smart about, you know, what's the situational demands as well as your own personal abilities. And it also goes with something you started this off with was being a wartime CEO or needing to be a wartime CEO and being a peacetime CEO. And certainly anyone who studies history and world wars know how those things turn out.

49:59Right. Yeah, I think those are the hardest. It's hard enough to be aware of yourself. it's even harder sometimes to kind of stand further up higher and kind of recognize how the situation has changed. But often you're hearing that from other people or you have the sense it's just not working right now. Why is it not working? And it is because the frame around the picture is the frame that you've got. This is peacetime or instead of this is wartime. So yeah, life's hard, A lot of choices. But, you know, I think the more people are curious, the more they have a sense of everything is about knowledge acquisition.

50:37How can I learn more here? And a lot of times that's not knowing what you don't know. And that's pretty scary when you really think about it. And so the really successful leaders are ones that I see that just do everything possible about learning what they don't know. they are always putting out questions. They're always surrounding themselves with people that bring in more information that's, you know, they're not in a bubble and they're really, they're just data, you know, hounds collecting all those kinds of things. Well, unfortunately, life doesn't work where you get all the knowledge and then you're anointed the leadership role.

51:13Oftentimes you're put in the leadership role before you even are close to having all of the knowledge. And it's really closing that gap in the leadership role where the rubber meets the road. I know for a lot of our listeners, they're looking at this, they want to gain influence. As a leader, they recognize the importance of it. And I'd love for you to unpack for our audience how they can start to gain that influence to really accelerate their career. When you want a promotion to the next level or advancement to the next level, I think you need to start thinking about what does it look like to be at that next level?

51:43What is that? What are the role demands? And, you know, it's my operational definition of strategic thinking. I think it's really I'm not sure what strategic thinking really is. There's a lot of good books on strategy. But strategic thinking, in my mind, is if you're staying up worrying about what your boss is worried about, if you're able to kind of broaden your picture, your perspective to what the person in the role ahead of you is really thinking about and what levers they need to move, then you're beginning to kind of think ahead. And then once you kind of get your head, begin around that, the advice I always give people is act as if.

52:22Act as if you're in that next role, not in an obnoxious way, in a way that's stepping on toes, but in a, you know, start asking questions that you wouldn't ask at the level you're at currently. Start making decisions or trying to get involved in decisions that you wouldn't be normally doing at the level you're at. Act as if you already have that role. And in that way, you're advertising your brand as I'm ready for that next role. I'm already acting like it in some kind of ways. And all of a sudden, people start to see you a little bit differently. They start to see, oh, you know, you know, Joan is really, you know, ready for that next step because she's, you know, already kind of showing that in a particular way of how she's behaving.

53:00We don't often recognize the blind spot around solving our own problems to the detriment of our boss's problems. So we might think by moving fast and solving our own problems, that's the way to get ahead. But we don't often think about, well, could that be creating more problems for the team? Could that be the headache for my boss? And that often leads us stuck and stagnating in that current role. So it's self-awareness, again, of being able to kind of recognize that you got to probably do both. You still have to solve your own problems and do what your job requires. But you have to, if you want to advance and it's more complex, It's easier to complain about the decisions above you.

53:38But if you really start to engage in thinking about what are the complicated issues that these people had to kind of struggle with and try to thread the needle on, then you're opening yourself up to be able to really be, you know, beginning to act and think at the next level. For those who are listening to this episode now recognizing, oh, I might have more blind spots than I even thought of. What are those next one, two, three steps that they should be taking to not just focus on experience as their only solution to solving their blind spots? We've talked about a couple of them. I think those trait blind spots, those strengths that tip over and become problems by just adding that modifier to, is one place to begin.

54:22The other place is the emotions. what are the things that are frustrating you over and over and over again? What do you complain about about your job or your company? Those are, I mean, there's something that you're externalizing by talking about it as it's, you know, the problem of the company or the problem at work, but thinking about how am I a part of this? Or maybe it's a mismatch. Maybe my motives are, you know, off to one direction and I keep complaining about these things in reality at work or going in this other direction, maybe that just is reality and you're in the wrong job or you're in the wrong role because what's important to you is something different.

55:05So, you know, I think maybe the first audit, if you will, is about the strengths and about the emotions that are just kind of repeating all the time and trying to puzzle about what is that saying about who you are as a person, what's important to you, what's your makeup, and how might that begin to kind of teach you where some blind spots might be occurring. Are there any warning signs for when those strengths may have now turned towards liabilities? Before we're off the cliff with them. At points of change, or when often we can become aware of blind spots when things have changed around us in a particular way.

55:45Maybe our roles change or the company's changed or our life has changed in some way. We had to move to a new city or whatever. And you're very much more vulnerable at that point because your normal way of doing things, as I said, works 90 % of the time or 90 plus. And it is bound by your role and your position and all of those kinds of things that you've figured out work. So if you're in a new situation, if things have changed in some ways, it calls for new things from you, new behavior responses. And so if the gears are gnashing at that point, that might be the fact that you have a blind spot about some way that you typically respond is not working anymore.

56:28And so that requires some internal look to try to figure out what to do about it. Well, thank you for joining us, Marty. It was a spirited conversation. We really appreciate it. Where can our audience find out more about your book and your work? Yeah, I've loved the conversation. Thank you, guys. This is the first two-on-one I've had, and I think I survived okay. Yeah. So the book is Blindspotting, published by Harvard Business Review Press, available wherever you buy your books. We've also got a website, blindspotting.com, with a lot more content. We have a test, a psychological test, to help you identify your blind spots.

57:05So, you know, by nature, it's kind of a catch-22. If it's a blind spot, how can you know what it is? So the test can show you where you might be at risk for blind spots as well. Well, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys.

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