The Six Deadly Blindfolds

1. Arrogance: An overbearing display of superiority, self-importance and false pride.

2. Negative feedback not acknowledged here: The inability to hear anything negative about a project, the company, or yourself; the inability to confront brutal facts because it might get in the way of your agenda, deadlines and reputation.

3. Dismissing competitors’ successes: Refusing to accept a competitor’s success as valid and downplaying a competitor’s strategy and product innovations, usually because of your own past success.

4. We know what’s best for the customer: An inability to have empathy for customer frustrations and needs, and a lack of inquisitiveness to find out ways to better align to customers’ current and future desires.

5. Believing problems don’t exist: Being either completely blind to organizational and individual problems or dismissing them to protect oneself and the company.

6. Avoiding the unavoidable: Seeing the writing on the wall, but assuming it will go away in miraculous ways, and life and business will eventually ‘return to normal’ with no change required on our part.