Inside Blinders

This week’s blog post marks the first in a new four-part series – Breaking Barriers (In) Real-Time. Each week in May I will be exploring popular examples of emergent issues in business and popular culture. These issues will be analyzed through my Breaking Barriers system of professional development. I hope that the insights gleaned from these everyday examples will provide accessible, constructive support for you as you navigate similar challenges.

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Last week Vice President Joe Biden found himself embroiled in another gaffe; this time regarding his supposed personal advice to family members on how to avoid exposure to swine flu. Slightly led into the off-message comments by the interviewer, Vice President Biden seemed to relish the chance to speak for the crisis. While many in the media immediately dismissed the comment as “Joe being Joe,” I recognized a barrier to learning and performance that played a role in his collapse. I refer to this barrier as Inside Blinders and it means that you narrowly see yourself as you want to, not as others do.

As I watched the interview, to me there was a visible instant of choice - the split second in which Mr. Biden made a decision to share the hard truth regarding the crisis in an unabashedly honest way. Perhaps this is too generous for a public figure known for not always thinking before he speaks; but my guess is that his calculation included the assessment that keeping things real with the American public would be better than providing stock answers that don’t actually say anything.

While this kind of candor could really work as a refreshing alternative for the constant media drone of safe political statements, in this case it didn’t. For the 25 second unscripted portion of the interview, The Vice President saw himself as a brave truth teller and did not perceive the public’s view of him as the voice of the administration’s policy on the crisis. The Vice President’s inside blinders made it infeasible for him to measure the cost of his candid comments. As a result, he was not only off the political message and inconsistent with the administration’s health advisory, he appeared naïve and over-reaching about the nature of the threat.

The negative impact of these Inside Blinders does not to suggest that a person should operate exclusively at the whim of others’ perceptions. However, if we can learn to shape our attitudes, behaviors and choices with respect to a balance between how we see ourselves and how other people view us, our calculations can produce better net results. My guess is that this won’t be the last time this happens to the Vice President, so stay tuned for an update…