Have you ever noticed that it’s easy to figure out what other people need to do differently, but it’s really hard to work out what you need to do differently for yourself?

Last week I presented to a business group on the four main behavioural styles.

The presentation was videoed, and my 11 year old son Ben watched the playback with me.

As soon as we’d finished watching the presentation Ben picked out with absolute accuracy what style his little brother was, and what style his dad was.

But then he said to me, “Mum, how come I can pick out Dad’s style and Daniel’s style, but I’ve got no idea what mine is?”

I know who you are, but who am I?

The reason he couldn’t figure out his own style isn’t because he’s 11 years old.

Over and over again, in workplaces everywhere, I see people who can learn the basics of a behavioural style model and apply it to their colleagues, even to their clients.

But they can’t, for the life of them, apply it to themselves.

It’s so prevalent, in fact, that I gave it a name – Own-Style-Blindness, or OSB, for short.