Blind to Emergent Possibility
Focus can be fine. Yet it can automatically filter out what needs to be seen.
Would Claude Monet’s series on Water Lilies be as impactful if the paintings contained just one lily? What if he preferred the flower yet ignored the water? The paintings would still exist, yet it wouldn’t tell the same story. And if Monet had only painted one element of each masterpiece, would his work have had the same influence in the art world?*
A Single Lily, taken from Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1914–17. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Apparently, writers face a challenge of this sort:
“A few days later, outdoors with friends in a complex and difficult environment, I realized I was doing the same thing with my painting. I disliked some areas in my work and avoided them. Other areas held my attention and kept me busy. Checking on my fellow painters, I was happy to note that some were stuck with the same sort of blind spots.
This was a sophisticated ‘avoidance syndrome’ and a previously unexplored mind trap, I thought, slipping into my irregular Freudian bonnet. It’s as if an area of the painting turns on you and alienates you. And you don’t see it properly because you don’t want to recognize it.”
- Robert Genn, The Blind Spot, PaintersKeys
The Full Picture
We do the same in business and leadership. Certain ideas, trends, and signals draw our attention, while others - often the ones that matter most - seemingly go unseen. Not because they are hidden, yet because we prefer to not look.
Blind spots and biases shape what we notice and what we miss. Blind spots are gaps in awareness, where leaders overlook critical shifts, emerging competitors, or market realities that sit just outside their direct line of sight. Biases are mental shortcuts, reinforcing what we already believe, making it harder to challenge assumptions or recognise opportunities beyond familiar spaces.
When focus stays internal - on teams, boardrooms, and known markets - leaders miss external shifts, leaving them vulnerable to disruption. The instinct to control what’s close is natural, especially in uncertain times, but it comes at a cost.
The challenge goes beyond seeing more - it’s to know what to monitor, manage, and mitigate before external forces demand a reaction.
Here are 17 pieces of the bigger picture that leaders often fail to see. Each blind spot and bias signals a growing risk, with real-world examples of missed global shifts and their consequences.
Blind Spots
1. Geographic Myopia
A number of leaders assume that the most significant innovations and market opportunities emerge from established economic hubs and, at times, traditional trading partners, often overlooking fast-growing regions. For example:
China’s EV Dominance: Western automakers underestimated China’s rise in electric vehicles (EVs). Companies like BYD and Nio have outpaced traditional manufacturers by leveraging state support and aggressive battery technology innovation.
TikTok’s Global Expansion: Initially dismissed by Silicon Valley, TikTok (owned by China’s ByteDance) disrupted social media with its AI-driven algorithm, and in 2024, becoming the world’s most popular app, with 825.5 million downloads.
2. Echo Chamber Thinking
Relying only on familiar sources of information creates a closed-loop perspective that prevents leaders from seeing the full picture.
Kenya’s M-Pesa Revolution: Western financial institutions ignored Kenya’s success with mobile money, assuming traditional banking models would dominate. M-Pesa now facilitates over half of Kenya’s GDP in mobile transactions.
Nokia’s Smartphone Decline: Once the global leader in mobile phones, bringing the video game Snake into the world, Nokia failed to adapt to the rise of smartphones. While Apple and Samsung focused on software-driven ecosystems, Nokia remained committed to hardware and its outdated Symbian OS. Its reluctance to embrace touchscreens and app-based ecosystems led to a dramatic loss of market share, eventually forcing it to sell its mobile phone division to Microsoft.
3. Underestimating Informal Economies
Many businesses ignore informal markets, which play a critical role in global economic activity.
Nigeria’s Informal Trade: An estimated 75% of Nigeria’s workforce operates in informal sectors, yet many global companies struggle to integrate their offerings into these markets.
China’s Daigou Market: Luxury brands failed to anticipate the impact of daigou shoppers - Chinese buyers purchasing goods overseas for resale - leading to regulatory shifts and pricing realignments.
4. Localised Risk Assessment
Leaders often assess risk from a domestic lens, ignoring global supply chain and geopolitical factors.
COVID-19 Supply Chain Disruptions: Many companies failed to diversify their supply chains before the pandemic, leaving them vulnerable when China shut down manufacturing.
Europe’s Energy Crisis: European nations underestimated their reliance on Russian gas, leading to energy price shocks following the invasion of Ukraine.
5. Innovation Blindness
Many assume that technological advancements only emerge from Silicon Valley, missing disruptive innovations from other regions.
India’s UPI System: Unified Payments Interface (UPI) revolutionised digital payments in India, handling over 16 billion transactions in October 2024 alone, outpacing models from advanced economies.
Africa’s Mobile Money Boom: Safaricom’s M-Pesa transformed financial access in Kenya, long before similar models gained traction in advanced economies.
6. Regulatory Lag
Failure to anticipate regulatory shifts can lead to fines, bans, or loss of market access.
GDPR Compliance Failures: Many U.S. tech firms faced multi-million Euro fines for non-compliance with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
China’s Crypto Crackdown: Bitcoin miners suffered when China abruptly banned cryptocurrency mining, shifting global mining operations to the U.S. and Kazakhstan, albeit energy crisis keeps them from settling.
7. Missed Demographic Shifts
Ignoring population trends leads to missed opportunities.
Japan’s Ageing Market: Companies that failed to adapt to Japan’s ageing population lost ground to startups catering to senior consumers.
Africa’s Youth Boom: With over 60% of its population under 25, and a forecast that one in four people on the planet will be African by 2050, Africa’s young consumer base is reshaping demand, yet many global brands have been slow to respond.
8. Underestimating Resource Shifts
The control and availability of key resources are shifting globally, impacting industries.
China’s Rare Earth Dominance: For years, advanced economies overlooked China’s strategic move to dominate the production of rare earth elements - materials essential for green technology and modern weapons systems. By securing around 90% of global production, China now holds a commanding position in the supply chain, leaving other nations scrambling to reduce their dependence.
Latin America’s Lithium Rush: As lithium demand surged, countries like Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina have become essential to the global battery supply chain, catching a number of auto firms unprepared.
9. Assuming One-Size-Fits-All Models
Global expansion often requires adapting to local preferences.
Walmart’s Failure in Germany: Walmart’s U.S. retail strategies, such as employee greetings and bulk purchases, clashed with German consumer behaviour, leading to its exit and a US$1 billion loss.
Netflix’s India Pricing Pivot: Netflix reduced its high-cost subscription model by 60% in India after failing to attract subscribers at pricing levels in advanced economies, in a push to secure the market’s more than 500 million smartphone users.
10. Underestimating Non-Market Forces
NGOs, activists, and grassroots movements increasingly influence business operations.
Shell’s Exit from Nigeria: Facing environmental and community opposition, Shell agreed to sell its onshore oil business to a consortium of Nigerian firms for US$1.3 billion, while retaining its offshore and gas operations. However, the deal requires government approval and may face legal hurdles, similar to ExxonMobil’s blocked sale in 2022. Local environmental groups and residents are demanding land and water cleanup and compensation for oil spills before the sale proceeds.
China’s Expanding Control Over Digital Platforms: The Chinese government has intensified regulation of social media and tech companies, enforcing strict data localisation laws, content censorship, and algorithmic oversight. Platforms like WeChat, Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese counterpart), and Weibo must comply with real-time content moderation and state-mandated restrictions. Crackdowns on gaming, live streaming, and online discussions have reshaped the digital landscape, with foreign tech firms like LinkedIn exiting China due to regulatory pressure.
Biases
11. Traditional Power Structures Bias
Ignoring shifts in economic and political influence can be costly.
BRICS Rising Influence: The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) have strengthened their economic collaboration in a push to restrict power by Western players in international institutions.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Many firms in advanced economies underestimated the reach and impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has reshaped infrastructure and trade flows in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, expanding China’s economic and political influence.
12. Stability Assumption
Assuming some markets are always stable and others are inherently volatile leads to misjudged risks.
Sri Lanka’s Economic Crisis: Once seen as a promising emerging market, Sri Lanka’s financial collapse shocked investors.
UK’s Post-Brexit Challenges: Businesses that assumed the UK’s stability post-Brexit faced regulatory and trade uncertainties. Brexit-related uncertainty is estimated to have caused a 9.2% yearly decline in UK services exports, resulting in a total loss of US$146.8 billion from 2016 to 2019.
13. English-Language Dependency
Relying solely on English-language sources limits awareness of emerging global trends.
China’s AI Research: A significant portion of China’s AI research is published in Mandarin, making it less accessible to Western researchers and businesses that rely primarily on English-language sources. A study by Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) found that China produces more AI research output than many English-language analyses suggest, due in part to the volume of Chinese-language publications.
14. Legacy Industry Thinking
New entrants often disrupt established industries unexpectedly.
Airbnb vs Hotels: What has become a classic case study, the hotel industry failed to see Airbnb’s potential before it became a dominant global player.
Winning the AI Arms Race: China has taken a different approach to AI development than the US, where proprietary models dominate. By embracing open-source ecosystems, China has sidestepped restrictions in advanced econmies and scaled innovation more rapidly. While the US, despite its free-market reputation, has prioritised closed systems, China has built a collaborative AI landscape, integrating government-backed research institutions and major tech firms to drive advancements.
15. Ignoring Digital Sovereignty
Governments increasingly regulate digital platforms, affecting global businesses.
India’s Data Localisation Laws: Companies like WhatsApp and Google faced new compliance challenges and costs to doing business in India.
Russia’s Internet Controls: Foreign tech firms have faced increasing restrictions as the Kremlin pushes to replace digital services from advanced economies with domestic alternatives. Internet controls, including data localisation laws, censorship policies, and platform bans, have forced companies to either comply, exit, or adapt to Russia’s tightly regulated digital space.
16. Linear Growth Expectations
Assuming emerging markets will develop the same way as mature economies leads to missteps.
Africa’s Fintech Leapfrogging: Digital financial services across Africa are expanding without traditional banking infrastructure.
China’s EV Market Boom: The rapid adoption of EVs in China disrupted global automakers’ projections, with Chinese automakers producing half of the EVs manufactured in the world.
17. Underestimating Global Collaboration
Cross-border partnerships can deliver out-sized returns and drive important missions that cross borders and break down barriers, despite deep-seated challenges.
SESAME Project: Scientists from politically opposed Middle Eastern nations collaborate in Jordan on physics research, with a mission to “contribute to a culture of peace through international cooperation”.
Airbus Consortium: The European aerospace giant succeeded due to cooperation across the continent, taking dozens of smaller European plane makers spread across France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and uniting them under one umbrella, with the mission to “to pool the industrial capacity and areas of excellence offered by each country”.
*Monet and the Money
Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (1914–17), part of his Water Lilies series, was sold for US$65.5 million at Sotheby’s auction in November 2024, after a 17-minute bidding battle. The full picture, it turns out, can hold significant value.
The Full Picture, Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1914–17. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
Seeing the Full Picture
Like the painter, it is natural in business to focus on what feels most important, yet this can create blind spots and biases. Without the full picture, risks and opportunities remain - whether we notice them or not.
Seeing the bigger picture allows us to play a bigger game.
It provides critical context, helping us zoom out to understand shifts and zero in to monitor, manage, and mitigate risks - both in the world around us and in our own blind spots and biases as they emerge.
In 2025, many leaders are reinforcing borders and putting up barriers. This containment mindset misses the point and the opportunities to create businesses, products, and services that cross borders and break down barriers.
The world is more dynamic, connected, and full of possibility when we see more and fear less.
Which global shifts have come into focus and matter most to your leadership and business?
