Coaching a client through a blind spot they can't yet see
This is for you if a client's report names a pattern that's quietly costing them and they can't see it yet. Tell them straight and the shutters come down. You want them to arrive at it themselves, and own it.
You can't tell someone their blind spot. By definition it's the thing they can't see, and hearing it named out loud lands as a verdict, so they defend. That defense is what keeps the spot invisible. Your job is to build the path so they walk to it themselves.
The reframe is what makes it safe to look. A blind spot named as a deficit triggers defense. Named as the cost of a strength they already own, it invites ownership.
Every blind spot in their report is the shadow of a real strength, turned up too high for the moment. That is the read you bring to the room.
So work from two places in their results at once. Open Uncovering Your Blind Spots in their Career Discovery report. Each one is written there as the shadow of a strength. Keep Discovering Your Strengths open beside it.
Before the session, pick the one blind spot most likely to be live for them right now. You are running one, not all ten.
Then run three beats, in order.
Recognition. Don't read the blind spot at them. Name the strength they are proud of from Discovering Your Strengths, then ask for a moment where it ran high. "Tell me about last Tuesday's review." Let them narrate, and the cost surfaces in their own words before you name it.
Understanding. Now pair the two. Put that blind spot beside the strength they just described. The same eye that catches every flaw is the one that won't let a rough draft breathe. There is nothing to defend now, because you are not taking anything away.
Choice. Hand the wheel back. Ask what they want to do differently in one specific moment coming up this week. Keep it small and cued to something already on their calendar. Something like: "In Thursday's standup, before I push my plan, I ask one question first." One behavior, in one moment, is what they leave holding.
This is the solo version, read off the client's own report. Sometimes one particular relationship keeps surfacing the pattern, and the client can't see their part with that one person. That takes a second person's profile, so use the paired-blind-spots activity (C28) for it.
A blind spot you are told about, you argue with. One you find for yourself, you can't un-see. So build the path, don't point down it.
Coaching questions
This isn't a worksheet to run in order. Once you've picked the blind spot to work, pull whatever fits the room and follow the client where they go. A few that help.
Drawing the recognition out
- Tell me about a recent moment where this strength ran high.
- Walk me through it from the other side of the table.
- What did that moment cost you, if anything?
- Where have you watched this show up before?
Sitting with it
- What is it like to see that the thing costing you here is the thing you are best at?
- If this is a strength run past its edge, where is that edge for you?
- What would ease if you read this one moment differently?
Moving to one change
- What is one moment this week where you would want this to go differently?
- What is the smallest thing you could try there, so small it almost can't fail?
- How would you know, by Friday, that it moved?
