What is the ‘Invisible Obvious’?

Nov 09, 2023

What you see is not what others see. We inhabit parallel worlds of perception, bounded by our interests and experience. What is obvious to some is invisible to others.

- George Monbiot

Context:

So, what do I mean when using this catchy oxymoron the ‘Invisible Obvious’?

There are things about our personality, communication style and worldview that we are often unable to see. They are ingrained in us and how we walk through the world – in other words ‘invisible’. But, to others who perceive us through there own unique lens they are in fact quite ‘obvious’.

For example, over the years with the help of my leadership coach, I’ve noticed several work challenges that include - a desire for a shared level of excellence in execution, a sense that there could be more calculated risk and decisiveness, and mostly, a feeling that things could happen at a quicker pace if there was greater alignment. They’ve followed me from place to place and helped me realize the importance of greater self-awareness, integration, and accountability.

And, that is my motivation to help others discover these blind spots/gaps or as Brené Brown calls them, ‘areas of opportunity.’ I love helping people discover the invisible obvious, a place of deeper awareness and greater relational clarity.

Don’t think of this as a sales pitch for my services, but rather a call to action for better leadership in the world to address the tremendous challenges and opportunities that are ahead of us!

Admittingly, there are lots of paths to the greater sense of insight and enlightenment. My path is focused explicitly on helping already ‘high functioning and successful leaders’ go to the next level.

Invisible Obvious?

The ‘Invisible Obvious’ Process is built on three insight pillars :

See Yourself: Understand your leadership style and philosophy for greater alignment

The first part of the process is to see and understand who you are as a person and what attributes you contribute as a leader. We’ll do a deep dive assessment to see into who you are as expressed through your personality, leadership style, worldview, learning style and other factors. Our process is not an algorithm that gives you a fancy name for the type of leader or communicator you are. I’ve taken many of those instruments, and while the information is interesting most people quickly file those reports in their side drawer and after a couple weeks forget about them, often because they don’t have the support they need to mine those insights. The ‘Invisible Obvious’ Process is not an HR process. It’s an investment process in discovering, understanding and accepting all you bring to your role and identifying areas that need to be strengthened.

Becoming a Dynamic Relational Leader

Building on a solid understanding of yourself, you can now bring your full self into a positive relational leadership dynamic with your executive team. A relational leadership dynamic recognizes that your team is system that works better through better relationships. But relational dynamics are an “invisible” part of our work world even though they are the lubrication which makes a work environment flow.

Your leadership team has a responsibility to manage each other, and to manage the team’s relational dynamic. This might sound elemental, but I’ve not seen it very much in my professional experience. The default method often seems to be the ‘whatever the boss wants/says’ driving relations rather than the harder work of building better relationships among the team to achieve better results.

Plus, better relationships, built on a sound foundation of self-knowledge, lead to a greater sense of flow. Flow is a state of mind in which a person becomes fully immersed in an activity. If you have ever felt completely absorbed in something, you might have been experiencing a mental state that psychologists refer to as this state of flow. Achieving this state can help people feel greater enjoyment, energy, and involvement. Flow lifts and carries organizations to new heights, and we can help you get there by helping you to see and manage the "invisible" relational dynamic among your executive team.

Positively impact the culture you’re creating for greater retention, satisfaction and growth

Finally, when I talk about a positive impact on culture, I’m making the case that it is a result of the work from the previous two phases combined. If we understand ourselves first, then communicate more effectively with those we lead, we have a chance to address change management, which is never easy. Every executive today wants to lead a great culture to attract the best talent, to retain a competitive edge and to merge employee satisfaction with company growth. It’s not easy to attain with all the moving parts, but if you are integrated and aligned as a leader, and if you have reliable accountability practices in place, your odds of taking your organization to the next level increase exponentially.

Why is the ‘Invisible Obvious’ important?

If you haven’t been compelled by the ideas above, let me suggest the following as additional things to consider.

In our current business context, organizations struggle with uncertainty, identifying an innovative advantage, and adapting to an ever-changing landscape moving at a greater speed than ever due to our rapid pace technological tools and advances.

If you’re a leader of a successful enterprise, you are busy. Time is a rare commodity, always seeming to slip through your fingers no matter what you do. We can’t control time, but we can be more mindful about how we spend it and what energy we give over to it.

Investing in this ‘insight work’ may feel somehow superficial to you, but it actually will inform more of your working hours and productivity than you can likely imagine. And, it’s almost impossible not to have profound effects on your work/life balance as well.

Even if you’re a skeptic and not normally wired for this kind of soft skills ‘inner work’, I ask you to consider how it will help lead you to your best self.

Prophetic & Insightful Teachers:

In a recent Work Life podcast, Adam Grant spoke with psychologist Barry Schwartz (author of “The Paradox of Choice”). Schwartz mentioned Herb Simon and his concept of satisficing. According to Simon, people tend to make decisions by satisficing (a combination of sufficing and satisfying) rather than optimizing. Decisions are often simply good enough in light of the costs and constraints involved.

I mention it here to say that the ‘Invisible Obvious’ process is not necessarily about optimizing yourself or your time, but rather becoming more open to accepting the ‘good enough’ about yourself as a leader.

Let’s look to others from the not so distant past and present for what they might have to say about things that are less tangible – things that seem elusive or even invisible.

The great novelist Victor Hugo says, “Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see.”
And French actor and former professional footballer Eric Cantona simply states, “And it is enjoyable to make things visible which are invisible.

The Invisible Obvious:

I guess what I’m trying to say here is, I get it, if you’re a leader, you’re busy! But you still want to make the time to learn and improve. It can be ‘lonely at the top.’ You can read a book or watch a course, but having a personal accountability process, a trusted support partner to guide and accompany you is the difference between surviving and growing to a place of deeper awareness and greater work.

And, in a time of hyper relational challenges, diversity and inclusion issues, and overall interpersonal sensitivities - it feels more important than ever that we are more conscious about the value of greater awareness, integration and accountability.

Can we pause for a moment?

We need to make more time for this kind of self-awareness work, especially in our professional lives. We’re so busy driving outcomes, trying to keep up with new technology, and the manic pace we’ve set for ourselves that it’s easy to just forget about this stuff.

The world of work is transforming before our eyes. We’re going to need leaders more acutely aware and able to bring a new level of awareness to all their relationships.

We can keep ignoring the invisible obvious.

Or, or we can make the time to invest in this work that leads to greater discovery, collaboration, and growth.

Invisible Obvious