The eye and the brain have a deal: the brain agrees to believe what the eye sees, and in return the eye agrees to look for what the brain wants. Awareness isn’t general knowledge — it’s a choice.
The same speech, two conclusions
Two people hear the identical words and walk away certain of opposite things. Give the speech a political edge and it’s obvious: each person spots the facts that confirm what they already believed. We don’t see the world as it is; we see it as we’re primed to.
The word-search trap
Think of a word search with ten words listed on the side. You hone in on first letters, chunk a few together, scan — and you find those ten. The grid is full of other real words too, but you never see them. It’s not that they aren’t there. It’s that you weren’t looking for them, so in your world, they don’t exist.
Now hand two people different lists. Like the two listeners, they’ll find completely different things in the exact same puzzle — and each will be sure they saw ‘what was there.’
What it means for your team
This is confirmation bias, and it quietly runs teams: we look for evidence a colleague is difficult, or that a plan won’t work, and — reliably — we find it. The good news is the flip side: awareness is a choice, so a team can decide what to look for. Point people at strengths and possibility and they’ll find those too.
It pairs closely with the Ladder of Inference (how we climb from a sliver of data to a confident story) and the ‘making stuff up’ lesson — and it’s exactly the kind of shift a good facilitated experience makes visible.
Frequently asked questions
What does 'we see what we look for' mean? +
That perception is selective and primed: our brain believes what our eye sees, and our eye looks for what our brain already expects. We notice the evidence that fits our existing view and miss the rest.
How does confirmation bias affect teams? +
Teams look for proof of what they already believe — that a coworker is difficult, that a plan will fail — and reliably find it, while missing everything that doesn't fit. It shapes decisions and relationships without anyone noticing.
How do you get a team to see differently? +
Make the bias visible through a shared experience and debrief, then consciously choose what to look for — strengths, possibilities, disconfirming evidence — rather than only what confirms the current story.
What is your team not seeing?
The most useful shifts start when a team sees its own blind spots. Tell us what’s going on, and we’ll design an experience that brings it into the light.