"I'm just not strategic enough for that role," Joe told me, shaking his head. With fifteen years of stellar technical leadership and a track record of flawless execution, he seemed like an obvious candidate for the open VP position.
But he wouldn't even consider applying. He disqualified himself before anyone else could.
What fascinated me wasn't Joe's self-assessment. It was the certainty of his conviction.
In my coaching work, I've found that the hardest limitations to overcome aren't the external barriers we face. Instead, they're often ones we architect ourselves, albeit unknowingly.
It’s a case of Schrödinger’s Cat but in reverse: instead of being trapped by an external observer, we become both the cat and the box-builder, actively creating our own containment.
My last newsletter showed how leaders shape organizational reality through observation, and the implications on perception of performance. Today, we examine something more insidious: how the cat creates its own box irrespective of the observer’s actions.
We actively create the conditions for a certain kind of observation to take place —sometimes in our favor but often one that works against us. When was the last time you said "I'm just not good at..." or "People like me don't..."? Where did these indisputable facts come from?
What made Joe so certain about his lack of strategic ability? The answer might surprise you.
The logic of our boxes
The range of what we see and do
Is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
That we fail to notice,
There is little we can do
To change
Until we notice
How failing to notice
Shapes our thoughts and deeds.
— R. D. Laing
In Schrödinger’s classic formulation, the cat is passive and at the mercy of the observer. However, lived reality is different.
We (the cats) have an entirely different class of boxes we put ourselves into regardless of the environment (organizations) and the observers(leaders).
Examples of these “boxes” include:
- "I'm better at execution than strategy."
- "I lack the natural charisma that leaders need."
- "My analytical approach stops me from being inspiring."
- "I'm too direct/honest for organizational politics."
- "People from my technical background don't reach the C-suite."
- "I need more credentials/experience before I can lead at that level."
What’s interesting is that on the surface they feel intuitive and seem to follow logically from our experiences. This is especially true if you are the thoughtful, conscientious type.
So what’s wrong with this?
As it turns out, our “proof” is often built on shaky premises.
The primary mechanism that leads to the convincing sounding “proof” is what organizational theorist Karl Weick calls “enactment of limitations”****.
What exactly is enactment?
Enactment is the active process through which we create and shape our environment through our actions and interpretations. It’s fundamental to how we as individuals, and also entire organizations, construct reality.
What makes enactment distinct is that it's not just about responding to the environment - it's about creating that environment through our own actions. When we act, we create "ecological changes" that then constrain or enable our subsequent choices. These actions don't happen in isolation; they create tangible changes that shape what is possible next.
Here’s a simple example from Weick:
If I wander into a strange gathering with a chip on my shoulder and people are gruff with me and I leave in a huff, my actions are intertwined with those of the people milling around when I walked in. It remains for the selection activity to untangle how much hostility I generated and how much hostility was there already.
Are they to blame for the rude reception, am I, are we both, or are neither?
He emphasizes two key forms:
- The bracketing of experience - where we isolate and pay attention to only certain aspects of our environment.
- The creation of change - where our actions produce environmental shifts that then influence future actions.
The key thrust is that we aren't passive recipients of our environment - we are active participants in creating the very conditions that then come to shape us.
Our actions and the system's response form an ongoing, interactive cycle.
Enactment of limitations
The notion of “self-limiting beliefs” is common in our culture. And the usual explanation tends to be psychological. But this is often not actionable and only half-true. How did these so-called “beliefs” come about?
A more useful approach is to interpret them as stemming from a “lack of testing” or, more bluntly, “inaction”.
In his classic, The Social Psychology of Organizing, Weick puts it this way:
Perceptions of personal "limitations," … turn out to be a failure to act rather than a failure while acting.
Limitations are deceptive conclusions but, unfortunately, people don't realize this. What they don't realize is that limitations are based on presumptions rather than action. Knowledge of limitations is not based on tests of skills but rather on an avoidance of testing.
On the basis of avoided tests, people conclude that constraints exist in the environment and that limits exist in their repertoire of responses. Inaction is justified by the implantation, in fantasy, of constraints and barriers that make action "impossible." These constraints, barriers, prohibitions then become prominent "things" in the environment. They also become self-imposed restrictions on the options that managers consider and exercise when confronted with problems.
…
Enormous amount of talk, socializing, consensus- building, and vicarious learning that goes on among managers often results in pluralistic ignorance … about the environment. Stunted enactment is the reason.
Each person watches someone else avoid certain procedures, goals, activities, … and concludes that this avoidance is motivated by “real" noxiants in the environment. The observer profits from that “lesson" by himself then avoiding those acts and their presumed consequences.
As this sequence of events continues to be repeated, managers conclude that they know more and more about something that none of them has actually experienced firsthand. This impression of knowing becomes strengthened because everyone seems to be seeing and avoiding the same things. And if everyone seems to agree on something, then it must exist and be true.
If people want to change their environment, they need to change themselves and their actions—not someone else. Repeated failures of organizations to solve their problems are partially explained by their failure to understand their own prominence in their own environments.
Problems that never get solved, never get solved because managers keep tinkering with everything but what they do.
Not only do we actively construct these limitations ourselves, but they are built on avoidance of action rather than evidence from action.
Joe's belief about lacking strategic capability wasn't based on a string of actual failed attempts at strategic work. Instead, he had systematically avoided strategic responsibilities throughout his career, interpreting his successful focus on execution as evidence of where his "natural" abilities lay.
Breaking the boxes
Building awareness of our role in this mechanism is a powerful tool for development. Instead of seeing limitations as facts, we can treat them as untested hypotheses. There’s a lot to gain from a willingness to test conventional wisdom and developing what I call a cultivated naïveté.
It shifts the question from "What are my limitations?" to "What assumptions am I avoiding testing?"
For Joe, this meant starting small. He volunteered to lead a strategic planning session for his team; something he would have instinctively avoided before. To his surprise, his deep technical knowledge provided unique insights into future opportunities.
While the experience didn't prove he was "strategic," it sure challenged his assumption that he couldn't be.
Here are some of my observations “from the field”:
We are not passive recipients of ability.
Capability is an ongoing dynamic, negotiable construct. Growth is not just about acquiring new skills (external) but also about identifying and negotiating internal barriers, or what I call the subtractive approach to mental models.
Limitations aren’t just mental; they’re performances in physical reality.
From an enactment perspective, we don’t just think our limitations - we act them out consistently. The ultimate challenge then is not to become limitless, but to become a conscious architect of constraints. Rather than treating them as “beliefs”, treat them as hypotheses to be tested. This makes every boundary a potential doorway to previously unavailable action sets.
Expertise, while great, also breeds limitations.
The more knowledgeable we become in a domain, the more likely we are to develop sophisticated reasons why certain things cannot be done. Experts are often more constrained by their understanding than novices are by their ignorance. In this way, success and knowledge become stronger limitations than failure and ignorance.
Avoidance rewires agency.
Enacted limitations don’t just confine present choices — they recursively shape future capacity for action. The longer they persist, the more ingrained they become. We no longer see them as negotiable but as fixed features of reality. This shift affects how we engage with risk and if we even examine, let alone challenge, accepted norms.
The smarter you are, the better you are at constructing a convincing case for inaction.
The more conscientious and smart you are, the better you are at rationalizing limitations, giving them a kind of intellectual solidity. We justify limitations by framing avoidance as “prudence” or “strategy.” Or we justify our reluctance to change by claiming we’re being “true to ourselves” aka “authentic.” However, this is often post-hoc justification for discomfort avoidance, or a lack of frustration tolerance, rather than real foresight.
The way forward
Breaking through the architecture of limitations isn't just about awareness of self-imposed constraints. The real opportunity lies in actively testing them.
This doesn't mean ignoring real limitations or attempting everything. Rather, it means becoming a conscious architect of constraints - thoughtfully choosing which boundaries to accept and which to challenge.
The next time you catch yourself saying "I'm just not good at x," ask: Is this a well-tested fact or a correct-sounding but ultimately untested presumption?
The answer might surprise you. More importantly, testing it might surprise you even more.