Recognizing that Your Vision is Foggy

I came across a great post about how to recognize if your vision is working from George Ambler at The Practice of Leadership. George quotes an analogy from The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes & Barry Posner. When they ask people what they do when they are driving and run into a thick fog bank, they always get the same answers:

• I slow way down.
• I turn my lights on.
• I grab the steering wheel with both hands.
• I tense up.
• I sit up straight or lean forward.
• I turn the radio off so I can hear better.

This is how people react to the fear of not being able to see far enough ahead to feel safe. This gives us good parallels to noticing if our team's vision is foggy: Our teams become more careful than usual, they search for clarifying answers more frequently, and they seem to tense up. Helping them clarify the vision helps to lift the fog.