He thought he was being so careful. When picking up the rental car, he scanned every inch and photographed each scratch, as he didn’t want to get stuck paying for damage that wasn’t his.
Then, after a sight-seeing stop, he returned to the car and found a massive dent on the back left side.
Seriously? Who hits a car and drives away without even leaving a note? He spent the next several days worrying about the cost of the damage, wondering if the parking lot had security cameras, and drafting conversations with the rental company—all while trying to focus on enjoying his vacation.
Then, while packing up, he noticed the original rental agreement. The damage section clearly documented an existing large dent on the back left side. He was shocked. How could he have missed it? He went through his photos from day one, and sure enough, the dent was plainly visible in one of the pictures, just above the scratches he’d been so focused on capturing.
When he told me his story, I thought about how often we do the same thing at work.
We enter a situation with an idea of what we expect to find. We ask questions designed to confirm what we think we already know. We find evidence that supports our hypothesis, and we don’t notice other, possibly conflicting data. We consistently scan for scratches and inadvertently ignore the much bigger dents.
That is how real problems remain unresolved. A leader assumes the problem is a particular employee when the real issue is trust and team dynamics. A manager rolls out a new communication protocol when the real issue is that people don’t feel safe speaking up. Team members blame each other when the real issue is role clarity. An organization implements a new performance review process when the real issue is that managers lack the skills or confidence to have honest conversations with their direct reports.
What if we approached challenges with curiosity first? What if we asked open-ended questions with the honest intent to learn? What if we were willing to be surprised, and even proven wrong, by what we find?
Dents don’t disappear just because we don’t notice them. And, when we slow down, zoom out, and approach each situation with openness and curiosity, we have a real opportunity to solve what’s actually broken.
I’m curious where you’ve found real dents once you stopped looking for scratches!