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Overview

Most leaders believe they see the whole picture. The trouble is, we all have blind spots. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch talks with international leadership expert Cornelia Choe, co-author with Marshall Goldsmith of The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently. Choe unpacks what she calls perspective blindness.

The conversation covers how AI has made data cheap but judgment scarce, why more than half of employees using AI never verify what it gives them, and the reasons senior teams often disagree on how ready their own companies are for change.

Choe introduces her GEM framework (Get up close, Establish meaningful bonds, Map your evolving perspective) to help leaders close these gaps before they cause damage. She also shares her personal history of moving from Minnesota to Seoul at age 10, and how that experience has shaped her thinking with regard to mental maps and blind spots.

This episode is for small business owners, agency leaders, and consultants managing teams through constant change. If you’ve ever assumed your customers, employees, or leadership team see the business the way you do, this conversation will challenge that assumption and give you a framework to address it.

Guest Bio

Choe is an international leadership expert, global keynote speaker, and Thinkers50 Radar honoree. She is the founder of The Leaders Alliance and has advised leaders at organizations including the United Nations and the White House. She is the co-author, with Marshall Goldsmith, of The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently. Choe grew up across eleven different places on three continents by age eighteen, an experience that informs her work on mental maps, cultural blind spots, and perspective in leadership.

Key Takeaways

• AI made information easy to access, but it has not made judgment easier. More than half of employees using AI do not verify what AI gives them, and have made mistakes because of it.
• Perspective blindness is the belief that you see the whole picture when you only see a piece of it. No single leader can track every change happening across a company or market at once.
• Choe’s GEM framework offers three steps: get up close to people who think differently, establish a trusted relationship with them over time, and map how your view of the situation changes as a result.
• Microtranslations matter. Two leaders can look at the same data and walk away with completely different conclusions if they never explain their reasoning to each other.
• Outside perspective is one of the fastest ways to spot a blind spot, since an outsider will question “this is how we’ve always done it” in ways insiders rarely do.

Great Moments

• [00:02] – John opens with the question driving the episode: what if the thing limiting growth is not what you’re doing, but what you can’t see.
• [01:41] – Choe explains how AI has commoditized data and why that is dulling judgment, backed by survey data on employee mistakes and unverified AI use.
• [03:53] – Choe defines perspective blindness and explains why no leader can track every change happening around them.
• [05:00] – John and Choe discuss why there is no lasting “new normal,” just a series of short-lived ones.
• [07:06] – Does perspective blindness apply to an eight-person business with no board? Choe says it matters even more for small teams.
• [08:56] – Choe shares her personal story of moving from Minnesota to Seoul at age 10 and having to rebuild her entire mental map of who she was.
• [12:06] – Choe introduces the GEM framework: get up close, establish meaningful bonds, map your evolving perspective.
• [16:01] – A case study of a new CEO who nearly quit after conflict with a departed founder, resolved through a facilitated conversation with another former founder.
• [17:25] – Choe unpacks microtranslations and how a 39 percent versus 7 percent readiness gap between CIOs and COOs shows up inside companies.
• [19:15] – John and Choe discuss why outside perspective is one of the fastest ways to expose a blind spot no one inside the company can see.

Memorable Quotes

• “The higher you go in the hierarchy, the less you hear of what people actually think and you hear more of what people think you want to hear.” — Cornelia Choe
• “What we’re really lacking and losing today is judgment.” — Cornelia Choe
• “Perspective blindness is a state in which we believe that we see the whole picture.” — Cornelia Choe
• “Things are changing so quickly that the disruptors are being disrupted.” — Cornelia Choe
• “When you get closer, you see the situation much clearer. And you’re able to find a lot more, many more solutions.” — Cornelia Choe

Resources

Cornelia Choe, perspective blindness, Small Business Leadership, Thought leadership