Blindspot Analysis

WhatsAppEmailLinkedInFacebookTwitterShare
Blindspot Analysis: this article explains the Blindspot Analysis in a
practical way. After reading it, you will understand the basics of
this powerful Decision Making tool.

What is a Blindspot Analysis?

The Blindspot Analysis uncovers dangerous, incomplete,
incorrect and outdated assumptions that can inhibit decision
making within an organisation.
American economist Michael Porter first used the term to detect
old-fashioned wisdoms and assumptions within companies, that
support the business strategy and prevented new, modern ideas
from having a chance of succeeding.
The term became popular after American journalist and
historian Barbara Wertheim Tuchman used it in her 1984 book ‘The
March of the Folly’. She notes that the Blindspot Analysis
describes politics and strategies that were clearly wrong in their
assumptions and are since seen as prejudices by others.
In the end, it was the Israeli-born American psychologist and
philosopher Benjamin Gilad who developed a 3-step method to
uncover blind spots in his book ‘Business blind spots‘, Businesses can
use this to replace ingrained and old-fashioned convictions and
assumptions with modern reality, thoughts, and convictions. This
ensures their decisions will be more effective.

Wrong decisions
Despite the fact that organisations do careful research before
making decisions, it can still go wrong. Often, something
important is missed or alternatives are not considered and, as a
result, wrong decisions are made. In many cases, so called ‘blind
spots’ are not taken into account.

The Blindspot Analysis can help with this; it’s a final safety net
that leads to a systematic audit. Initially, too much confidence is
placed in traditional strategy models and as a result, the
decisions that are made are not fully supported.

Especially a Blindspot Analysis can uncover shortcomings and

make it easier to abandon old-fashioned ideas. Blind spots can
manifest in three ways:

1. The (top) management is completely ignorant of strategically

important issues.
2. The (top) management is aware of strategically important
issues, but does not interpret them correctly.
3. The (top) management is aware of problems being caused by
outdated assumptions and interpretations, but discovers this
too late and as a result also acts too late.
Identifying and removing blind spots is of crucial importance for
effective strategic decision making to minimise the chance of making
wrong decisions.
Apart from the fact that blind spots are mostly caused by old-
fashioned ideas, it also has to do with the mindset of the
supervisor. When they are certain they’re right and are not open
to change (we’ve always done it like this’), they’re not open to
gaining new insights.

The so-called ‘group thinking’ also causes blind spots. Groups of

employees can have a tendency to choose a safe option that is
accepted by everyone. This ‘easy way’ usually doesn’t lead to the
best decision and is therefore not the optimal choice.

3-step method
In his book ‘Business blind spots’, Benjamin Gilad describes a
simple 3-step method to identifying blind spots in an
organisation:

Step 1
A previous strategic decision is looked at from a historical
organisational perspective. What were the arguments to reach
these decisions, which factors played a part and which context
was taken into account?

Step 2
The organisation is looked at from an external perspective. Using
public information, it is researched how an organisation has
profiled itself, which decisions have been made and which
factors applied as well as what outsiders thought of this.

Think of interviews with important decision makers within the

organisation, assumptions by top managers, information for
stock holders, interviews in the media, public appearances and
speeches, telephone meetings and maybe even autobiographies
by directors.
Step 3
The results of step 2 are then compared with those of step 1.
Every contradiction with the results from step 1 is a potential
blind spot.

Blindspot Analysis and inherent prejudices

The Blindspot Analysis is mainly aimed at decision making at the
(top)management level of the organisation. Think of both
government bodies and the business community.

Although most top-level managers are well educated and

capable, they also work in a vacuum and aren’t in direct contact
with all of their employees. Because of this, they make decisions
from their empowered position without looking at other
possibilities and perspectives.

They have a reduced capacity to analyse well and remove

possible blinders. Especially the third step in the blind spot
analysis is a powerful tool to point out blind spots and open their
eyes, so they will learn to look at problem issues from a different
perspective. This will ultimately lead to more powerful and
effective decisions on both the strategic and departmental level.

Application of the Blindspot Analysis

The Blindspot analysis is primarily a solution for strategic
decisions that impact the entire organisation and are spread over
a longer time period. It leads to a formal approach that includes
other groups and colleagues to see whether or not important
factors in the decision process are overlooked.

This way, many different perspectives are used in making

decisions and top management can question whether they have
applied a thorough risk analysis to all options. As many options
as possible should be considered to make a decision. As soon as
a single one is excluded, this leads to a blind spot.