Podcast Episode 30 (part 3): You Don’t See What You’re Not Looking For

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part three in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

There are times when you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, you may hear conflicting counsel that seems to be contradictory to each other, but which is actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. That’s what we are going to be talking about in the next weeks, in both the www.LeadershipEzra.com website articles and on the weekly podcast. We will be looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are going to pair them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader.  Today, in part 2, we are discussing the second half of a pair, and will be talking about the idea of “You don’t see what you are not looking for”.

In the last episode, we talked about the idea that you see what you are looking for. The point we made was that, whether we realize it or not, we all develop perceptions of how we need to experience the world around us. Those perceptions tend to be based on either past experience or future expectations, or a combination of both.  We either have an experience, positive or negative, real or imagined, or we have a specific expectation that we are anticipating, and we then form a perception based on which we look for a certain outcome, and only see the things that confirm that outcome. Consciously or not, we decide what we are looking for, and only see what affirms or confirms what we expect to see.

In today’s episode, we are flipping the coin to the other side.  On the one side, we tend to see what we are looking for, but on the other side, we also tend to not see what we are not looking for.

Have you ever been looking for something in your refrigerator or medicine cabinet, and you can’t find it no matter how much you look, but then someone else grabs it right from under your nose? My wife needed to use some Vaseline, so I went to get it for her from the linen closet. I looked high and low but couldn’t find it. I went to the store, and when I found the Vaseline, all that I could see were (in my perspective) large containers. In my mind, I thought that it only came in smaller containers, but I didn’t see those there.  Wouldn’t you know, when I got home, I immediately found the Vaseline that we already had, in a larger container in the linen closet. I realized that I had looked right at it in the closet but hadn’t seen it because I was looking for something much smaller.  I didn’t see what I wasn’t looking for.

I’ve done the same thing countless times in the food pantry or in the refrigerator, looking for something with an unconscious image in my mind of what the thing looks like, and in these instances, instead of seeing what I was looking for, and because it’s what I was looking to see, I completely overlooked the thing that was right there in front of me. Once again, I didn’t see what I was not looking for.

Think about when there is a constant, repeating noise, like a ceiling fan or the humming of an air conditioner, that you tune out after a little while and don’t even notice that it is there anymore.  Your mind is focusing on other things, so it tunes those things out, and eventually, you don’t even realize that they are there.  That’s what is happening here.  It’s too overwhelming to see everything, so your brain filters out what is not necessary or relevant, and even though it’s there, you don’t see it. Therefore, if you have a picture in your mind of what you are focusing on, your brain filters out the other things. 

This idea applies to your leadership.  Whether it’s people or circumstances, it’s easy for us to miss something important because we are not looking for it.  It may be because we don’t want to see it, or because we are looking for something else, or because we are not paying attention. Regardless of the reason, we miss something important, and it results in a difficult challenge.  Once, when I was a new head of school in a new school, I was also serving as the student government advisor so that I could be connected to the student culture.  Based on my previous school experience, I had a great idea for a homecoming week activity, and I pushed the student leaders toward it.  In my mind, it was a great idea (it had worked great someplace else, so, of course it would here!), and I was only thinking about how good this would be for the students and expected them to respond that way. I didn’t even see that they were not receiving it well. It was later that their discontent with the idea – and with me – came out when someone else pointed it out to me. Because I didn’t see what I wasn’t looking for, I had a mess to clean up.

Do see how that happens? Or should I ask, do you not see how that happens because you weren’t looking for it? And just like the discussion last week of seeing what you look for, the struggle of not seeing what we are not looking for leaves me with a couple of thoughts:

1) Be self-aware.  Recognize how your own expectations and viewpoint can cause you to miss something important, and step back to make sure you are not allowing a “predetermined bias” to prevent you from seeing what you need to see.

2) Be intentional about gathering information and listening carefully before you decide what you are seeing or what you are looking for.  Otherwise, you won’t see what you are not looking for.

 The pair of principles we’ve discussed these two weeks go together:  You see what you’re looking for, and you don’t see what you’re not looking for.  With these two ideas working together, you can become much more careful and prudent about seeing what you need to see, which in turn will lead to better decisions and, therefore, better leadership.