Have you ever asked your spouse where they put the car keys to which they reply that they are on the kitchen counter? You make your way over to the counter and all you see are the kid’s old homework assignments and a bunch of junk mail. Typically, a verbal fight ensues as you argue with your spouse that you cannot find them and they in fact are not there. You are looking right where they told you they said they were and you become frustrated. Embarrassment and apologizes ensue once your spouse walks up to where you are standing and points directly at them; right where she said they were.
You don’t have to feel like you lost your mind because there is a name for this and it is called scotoma. In general terms it is the inability at a moment to not be able to hear or see something that is right in front of you. In the example of the car keys, it seems it is driven by a strong will or passion to affirm that you can not see if, thus your body responds.
Working with executives for the last 25 years these blind spots in their career are usually subtler and take time to develop. The executive cannot see the insignificant things that are holding them back and understand why their peers may be passing them by. There are a couple things that start the development of this blind spot, and it usually surrounds an event that caused a lack of confidence to develop or complacency to set in. This article focuses on the complacency that you have developed and the real threat of being passed over by your peers. Watch out for a few of these signs that you may not be improving at the rate that your environment is changing.
You stop looking forward to the start of the workweek or don’t seem to be inspired by a new project at work. This can happen subtly over the course of time and you may initially start to play it off as, I have done that before, so I don’t get too pumped or a been here done that attitude. You will notice that you will start to “wing” things by doing the bare minimum and then justify it because you have acquired experience. This can give your supervisor the subtle impression that you are not prepared or worse, you don’t care anymore.
You find yourself starting to be procrastinating on larger projects. You may notice that you will become more comfortable waiting until the last minute. You will start to catch yourself saying that you work well under pressure and that this brings out the best in you. In addition, you may move from being uncomfortable with unfinished to do lists to a “don’t really care, I will take care of it tomorrow” approach. This may be fine if you are doing something routine in your position but watch out when this mentality starts to creep into bigger career advancement type projects.
You may look in the mirror and start to ask yourself what you want you really desire to accomplish professionally and the person looking back has no answer. When you were starting your professional journey, your passion was driven by goals of income and position. You may want some of the same things, or a higher version of that initial dream, but the path seems so much foggier. You want things but don’t seem to be able to see what is holding you back from getting there. At this point, some executives will have a mentality that they know most of what they need to do, thus not continuing the accelerated pace of learning and growing that they once did. They are just waiting for the promotional event to give them direction rather than having a road map to help get them to where they want to be. Do not confuse high confidence and proficiency in your position with complacency; this is the quiet killer of many potential promotions.
You literally do not feel like you are going anywhere personally or professionally. In worse cases, you may realize one day that your boss has not asked you to take on any meaningful leadership roles or to take on any new project of significance. You may find the conversations with your supervisor around promotions are few and far between now and they are not really showing much excitement in the conversation. In the worse situation, you realize that you have gotten complacent when you are passed over for a promotion.
The ability to recognize these signs of complacency in the workplace can be career changing. As a collegiate athlete, my coach used to say that if he was yelling at us, we would know he still cared about our development. Finding a coach that is going to hold you accountable for the plan that is agreed on and progress on those action items is paramount to pushing yourself beyond the limitations you have unknowingly set for yourself.
