Blind spots are a required part of a judgement, which means the absence of any listed is itself a finding.
Why it matters when the plan changes
Every reading of an organisation is partial. The choice is between saying where it is partial and letting a reader assume completeness. A leader who knows which two pillars rest on thin evidence treats them differently from the six that do not; a leader who is not told treats all eight the same. Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull found that only nine per cent of managers say they can rely on colleagues in other functions and units all the time, so what a leader cannot see is systematic rather than random.
The tension is commercial and personal. Naming what could not be seen reads as a weaker deliverable, yet it is what makes the rest usable. Suppliers and teams face pressure to present a complete picture, and a picture presented as complete is the one most likely to be acted on where it is weakest. Confirmation bias, the tendency to favour and recall information that confirms existing belief, is what makes an unnamed gap invisible.
In practice
A readiness review covers eight areas. Six rest on current documents, decision records and observed patterns. Two rest on a single interview and an organisation chart predating the restructure. Listed as blind spots, those two become the board's first questions. Left unmarked, they would have been read as the six were.
Evidence
Information about how execution is going weakens as it travels upward, so what leaders cannot see is systematic rather than random.
Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull, Why Strategy Execution Unravels and What to Do About It, Harvard Business Review (2015)People search for, favour and recall information confirming what they already believe, which is what makes unnamed gaps invisible.
Confirmation bias, Wikipedia (2026)
What it cannot tell you
Naming a blind spot does not resolve it; it only marks where evidence is missing and who would need to supply it. The term does not tell you how large the risk behind the gap is, nor whether it is safe to proceed regardless. A list of blind spots is a map of ignorance, not a measure of its consequence.
Questions
Counter-evidence is something found that argues against a conclusion; a blind spot is something not seen at all. Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull found in Harvard Business Review (2015) that only nine per cent of managers trust colleagues across functions fully, which is closer to a blind spot than counter-evidence.
Yes, and prominently. A reader can only calibrate how much to rely on each part of a judgement if they know which parts rest on thin evidence. Concealing the gaps makes the strong parts less useful, because nothing on the page can be distinguished from anything else.
What is not visible, why it is not visible, what evidence would resolve it, and who would need to supply that evidence. An entry with those four elements carries an action. An entry that simply says an area is unclear carries a shrug.
Some are structural and recur: cross-unit dependencies, informal ownership, and anything the reporting line has an incentive to soften. Others are specific to what access and documentation exist in a given case. The recurring ones are worth looking for by default.
Usually that they were not looked for. Every reading of an organisation is partial, and the Confirmation bias entry on Wikipedia (2026) notes that people search for and recall information that confirms existing belief. A report listing none is a reason to ask more questions, not fewer.