The “business blind spot”: what owners don't see, managers won't say, and employees can't fix
- GrowthCatalyst Team
- Jun 17
- 9 min read
Picture this: you're the owner of a growing business. Revenue is at a decent level, you're landing new clients, and on paper, things look pretty good. So, how come it feels like you're constantly pushing water uphill? Why do seemingly simple decisions take forever? And why, despite your best efforts, does growth feel more like a grinding slog than the exciting journey you thought it would be?
It's our favourite question: Why?
The answer often lies in what we might call the Business Blind Spot—a phenomenon so common that we see it more often than not. It's the gap between what owners think is happening, what managers are actually dealing with, and what employees are experiencing day-to-day.
The scary part? Everyone in your business knows this gap is real. Except, perhaps, you.
Buckle up. This could be confronting for some readers.
Key takeaways
Your business is, in fact, three businesses in one: your version, your leaders' version and your employees' version
Innovation, engagement and productivity all suffer when you experience the Business Blind Spot phenomenon
The misalignments in your business result in hard costs that could be minimised or avoided altogether
A deep and broad business diagnostic can help identify and rectify those misalignments.
As ever, if you enjoy this Insight, please feel free to share it with contacts, colleagues and clients
Three versions of reality
In working with SMEs, we've discovered that most businesses are actually three different businesses operating under one roof:
Version 1: The Owner's Business
This is the business as you, the owner, see it. Strategic, purposeful, growing. You know where you're heading and why. The vision is crystal clear (in your head), the values are obvious (to you), and the plan makes perfect sense (from your perspective). Everyone should be as excited about the future as you are…right?
Version 2: The Manager's Business
This is the business in which your leaders are trying to execute your vision. But they're getting mixed signals. You say one thing in Monday's meeting, but your actions suggest something different by Wednesday. They want to tell you about the day-to-day challenges they face, but you seem more interested in the next business development opportunity. So they smile, nod, and try to make it work with what they've got.
Version 3: The Employee's Business
This is the one your team works in every day. They might hear about the vision occasionally, but mostly they're just trying to figure out what's expected of them today, this week, this month. They see the gap between what leadership says and what leadership does. They watch good ideas get buried under an apparent lack of commitment to them. And slowly, they either disengage or leave.
Sound familiar?
If you're feeling a bit uncomfortable right now, it’s a good thing. That discomfort is your first clue that the Business Blind Spot might be alive and well in your business.
What owners don't see
Here’s a story that perfectly illustrates this blind spot. We recently worked with a client—let's call him Chris—who was convinced his main challenge was finding new clients and new markets. Revenue had plateaued, and his solution was classic owner thinking: "We need more customers."
Meanwhile, his business had experienced almost 100% staff turnover in the previous year.
Chris genuinely didn't see the connection. He was so focused on business development (which, to be fair, he was brilliant at) that he missed the operational chaos happening right under his nose. To him, staff turnover was just one of those things you deal with in business, and always about the people themselves. Annoying, but not strategic.
Here's what owners typically don't see:
The ripple effect from mixed messages
Be honest…have you ever done this? You announce a new strategic direction in January, change direction slightly in March, and introduce a further “minor adjustment" in June. To you, this demonstrates the business is “agile” and “responsive”. To your team, it looks like you can’t make up your mind.
The innovation graveyard
Your managers and employees have ideas—lots of them. But after watching great suggestions disappear into the void of inaction or get buried under the next shiny opportunity, they stop offering them.
You wonder why people aren’t more innovative.
They wonder why you stopped listening.
The engagement erosion
You notice people seem less enthusiastic about the business than they used to be. You might chalk it up to complacency or the wrong people in the wrong jobs. What you don't (or won’t, or can’t) see is that every mixed message, every commitment to "get more organised’ that falls through the cracks, and every time strategic planning with its long-term focus gets bumped for a sales meeting, engagement drops a little more.
The productivity paradox
Everyone seems busy. And they look busy. But the outcomes you want just aren’t happening. You assume people need to work harder or maybe smarter. What you're missing is that your team is working around sub-par systems, unclear priorities, and misaligned expectations. And for sure, they're busy—busy trying to guess what you want from them.
What managers won't say
Here's where it gets interesting.
Your managers—the people you rely on to execute your strategy and help you achieve your vision—often know exactly what's broken.
They see the problems, understand the consequences, and probably even know how to fix most of them.
So why don't they tell you?
Fear of appearing incompetent
"If I can't make this work, maybe I'm not up to the job." Sound familiar? Your managers don't want to appear as though they're constantly bringing problems without solutions. So they suffer in silence, trying to make unworkable situations work.
“Learned” helplessness
They've tried to raise issues before. Maybe you were busy, or maybe you looked like you were listening, but nothing changed. After a while, they give up trying. It's not that they don't care—they've just learned that speaking up doesn't lead to meaningful change.
Confusion
You frequently say you want honest feedback, but your reaction when you receive it suggests otherwise. Or you ask for their input, then make decisions without considering that input. Pretty quickly, they learn to tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to know.
Resource reality
They know what needs to be done, but they also know there's no budget, no time, or no authority to do it. They know these things because you tell them. Every chance you get. So they work around the problems rather than fixing them, and the solutions get more creative (and more fragile) over time.
The most ironic part of all this?
Ask them, and most of your managers will honestly tell you they’re genuinely trying to help you…perhaps even protect you. They see how hard you're working, how much pressure you're under, and they don't want to add to your stress. So they absorb problems that should realistically be escalated and instead try to handle things that are beyond their scope.
What employees can't fix
Your frontline employees are living with the consequences of the Business Blind Spot every single day. They're the ones dealing with unclear processes, conflicting priorities, and systems that don't quite work, all of which have a direct impact on the service they can provide to customers.
And here's the kicker—they often know exactly what's wrong and how to fix it.
But they can't.
They don't have the authority
The solution might be obvious, but it requires changes they're not empowered to make. Maybe it's a system upgrade, a process change, or a policy adjustment. They can see the fix, but they can't implement it. And because they can see the conditions their managers are working under, they’re a little reluctant to raise the issue with them.
They don't have the full picture
Employees see their piece of the puzzle clearly, but they don't necessarily understand how their suggested changes might affect other parts of the business. They know what would make their job easier, but they can't necessarily see the broader implications.
They don't have your attention
When did you last have a proper conversation with your frontline employees about how things are really working? Not a team meeting where you talk at them, but a conversation where you listen – really listen – to their experience of working in your business?
They don't believe things will change
This is the saddest one. After watching problems persist despite obvious solutions, many employees simply give up. They do their job, collect their pay, and save their energy for things they can realistically influence.
The real cost of the blind spot
Let's talk numbers for a moment, because we know that gets your attention.
The Business Blind Spot isn't just about feelings and engagement, though they of course matter enormously. It's about cold, hard business impact:
Staff turnover costs: most conservative estimates suggest replacement costs at around 50-150% of annual salary for each person who leaves
Lost productivity: during the days, weeks or perhaps even months it takes for new people to get up to speed
Missed opportunities: when your team isn't fully engaged or interested, they're far less likely to be on the lookout for new revenue-generating opportunities
The costs of not addressing your business blind spot can really add up quickly Rework and inefficiency caused by unclear direction and broken systems (and who knows how much that's costing your business)
Customer impact: when internal chaos affects service delivery, it can result in customers looking for substitute providers of what they buy from you
Growth constraints: because you're constantly fighting fires, with obvious consequences for efficiency and effectiveness
Going back to Chris, the client with 100% staff turnover...once we identified and addressed the real issues through our diagnostic process, turnover dropped to virtually zero with an almost entirely new team. More importantly, the business finally started growing sustainably rather than just chasing extra lumps of revenue.
The diagnostic solution to the business blind spot
When you experience the Business Blind Spot phenomenon, a proper business diagnostic becomes invaluable. And we mean a real diagnostic, not just a financial health check or a quick survey.
Our diagnostic process targets the Business Blind Spot head-on by gathering insights from three crucial perspectives:
The owner's perspective: What you (the owner) think is happening, what your priorities are, and where you believe the opportunities and challenges lie.
The manager's perspective: What your leaders are actually experiencing, what obstacles they're facing, and what support they feel they need to be effective.
The employee's perspective: What it's really like to work in your business day-to-day, what's working well, and what's making their jobs unnecessarily difficult.
Here's what makes this powerful: we don't just collect these perspectives—we identify the critical gaps. Where is there misalignment? What assumptions are wrong? What messages aren't getting through?
The results are usually eye-opening. We’ve had owners say things like, "I had no idea our people felt that way," or "I thought everyone understood our strategy, but clearly we haven't communicated it properly."
Read more about business diagnostics in this Insight.
Bridging the gap
The good news is that once you can see the Business Blind Spot, you can start to address it.
Here are some practical steps:
Create open and safe feedback channels
Not just an annual survey, but regular opportunities for honest, meaningful conversation about the business. And when people do share feedback, act on it—even if it's to explain why certain changes aren't possible right now.
Clarify and repeat your vision
What's obvious to you isn't obvious to everyone else. Communicate your vision, strategy, and priorities clearly, regularly, and in multiple ways. Then check for understanding, not just compliance.
Empower your managers
They’re the bridge between your vision and day-to-day reality. Give them the authority, resources, and support they need to be effective leaders, not just message-passers. And when you do that, don’t forget to make sure they understand they’re also accountable.
Listen to your frontline
Your employees are closest to your customers and your operations. They see problems first and often have the best ideas for solutions. Create systems to capture and act on their insights.
Align your words and actions
If you believe the adage that people are your most important asset, does your calendar reflect that? If you claim to value work-life balance, are you sending emails at 11 PM? Your team watches what you do more than they listen to what you say.
The bottom line
The Business Blind Spot isn't a character flaw or a sign of poor leadership—it's a natural consequence of growth and the increasing complexity that comes with it. The most successful SME owners aren't the ones who never have blind spots (because frankly, they don’t exist); they're the ones who actively work to identify and address them.
If you're reading this and feeling uncomfortable, that's a good sign. It means you care enough about your business and your people to acknowledge that there might be things you can't see.
The question is: what are you going to do about it?
Because here's the thing—your people are waiting for you to ask. They want to help you build the business you're envisioning. That’s why they came on board in the first place…because they believed in the story they heard during the recruitment process. They just need to know that you're willing to see what's really happening, not just what you hope is happening.
And there’s nothing more certain: once you start seeing clearly, the growth you've been chasing becomes a lot more achievable. And it’s absolutely true that the best growth strategy starts with where you really are…not where you think you are.
Are there blind spots in your business?
Want to change things up for better results?
A conversation with a GrowthCatalyst adviser could be just what you need. We'll walk you through our Business Profiler and discuss the benefits you can expect it to deliver as you work towards your long-term aspirations.
Contact us to arrange a face-to-face or virtual conversation.
Alternatively, you can book a time for an initial discussion here.
In other news...
GrowthCatalyst has joined forces with several like-minded professionals to form the advisory group Konektis (check us out here). Collectively, the Konektis team provides integrated, multi-disciplinary advice to SMEs to deliver a "one strategy" outcome.
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