The habits we build around how we communicate become automatic over time. And automatic means unexamined. We stop questioning whether they are working because they feel normal. They are just how we do it.

I was reminded of this recently, in a fairly personal way.

I received feedback from a participant after a session. I read it. I always read feedback, not out of habit but because I am genuinely curious what people notice. One observation stopped me: she had noticed that I close my eyes too often when I am speaking.

My first instinct was not to agree or disagree. It was to go and look.

I watched a recording of myself facilitating. And there it was. Exactly as she had described. A habit I had no idea I had developed, clearly visible once someone had pointed it out.

The odd thing was not the feedback itself. It was realising it had been there for a while, and I had not seen it. Not because I was not paying attention. But because it had become habitual, and habits stop asking for our attention.

That is how blind spots work. They are not hidden because we are careless. They are hidden because they are familiar.

I see the same thing in teams. Communication habits that developed gradually, in how meetings run, how decisions get shared, how people give and receive feedback, become invisible to the people inside them. Not because no one cares. Because no one has looked from the outside recently.

Awareness rarely comes from intention alone. It usually needs a second pair of eyes.

What brought a communication blind spot into view for you, and did it come from inside or outside?