Anyone who has studied biology would know there are three things when you study vision: the central vision, the peripheral vision and the blind spot.

Central vision is what you can see in front of you. When you focus your eyes, you are able to clearly see what is in front of you, you are able to see fine details and you can accurately judge distance between objects in your line of vision.

Peripheral vision refers to what you can see to each side or up and down without moving your head, or everything that you can see that isn’t in your central vision. The “corner of the eye” thing.

The blind spot is when your visual field ends and technically that is where the optic nerve starts and has no optic receptors.

When a player is dribbling with the ball at high speed, his central vision gives him the ability to see the players in his line of vision, the distance between the players and the consequent spaces between them, the distance he has to cover for his shot to go into the goal. But a great player knows that, it’s not only what’s in front of him but what his peripheral vision is able to see may actually be the differentiating element whether the ball will go unto the goal or will his effort be wasted. His peripheral vision tells him, where his team mates are and who is approaching for a tackle, who in his team is better placed than him to take the ball forward into the D and maybe to shoot it through the goal post.

You may ask why am I giving you lessons on biology. Well, it has great application for success in the corporate world.

We all know, that success in a job happens when we are able to focus on the job ie when we activate our central vision. We are able to see the task at hand more clearly, we are able to perceive finer details and contours of the job and hence able to kick the ball into the goal. As we focus, with multiple tasks at hand, we are able to perceive, which task needs to be done now and which can be done later- the ability to judge distance when you focus.

But as you get elevated into team role, you start attending cross functional meetings, even become a team leader, you realise that, doing more of the same, ie bringing more focus onto the job, isn’t giving you success. The boss, in your appraisal meeting, says “keep your eyes on the ball and hit through the line of the ball”- but you still find yourself missing the line of the ball even with all the focus. What’s gone wrong? This is where the role of the peripheral vision comes in. Once you activate your peripheral vision, without losing your focus, you can monitor the ball and opponents better.

You will be able anticipate which task is getting done and where it is entering a cess pool. You will know detecting motion in the outer edge of the visual field is vital and allows you to react and respond quickly. It makes you a better corporate player and enables you to nuance your actions and decisions to avoid accidents and injury.

And lastly, you may ask, what about blind spot? No matter how great a corporate player you are, you will have a blind spot. Recognise where is your blind spot and devise a strategy to tackle the blind spot. But that is a lesson by itself.