Today our group had a Personal Development weekend and we learned about the Johari Window.
The Johari’s Window model is a psychological tool for people to better understand themselves, their relationships and other people. It was developed in 1955 by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham and has been proven to help with self-awareness, personal development, improving communication, interpersonal relationships, group dynamics, team development and inter group relationships. It promotes honesty and openness, as well as the tactful giving and receiving of feedback.
It is a 2×2 grid divided into four squares. If you are using the Johari Window for yourself, then each square represents an aspect of you as an individual. It helps to use the Johari Window along with others in a group of people you know well, usually fellow students or work colleagues.
Anything you know about yourself and are willing to share is part of your Open Area. You can build trust with others by disclosing information about yourself, and learn about them by the information they disclose about themselves. These are usually quite obvious traits like your height, your build, the colour of your hair, or whether you are outgoing or shy.
There are aspects of yourself that you are aware of but might not want others to know such as your religious beliefs, your hopes, fears and dreams and this square is known as the Hidden Area. This information can be disclosed to others to build trust or to seek assistance, or to gain further understanding of yourself, depending on what the information is.
Any aspect that you do not know about yourself, but others within the group have become aware of is part of your Blind Area. With the insight of feedback from others you can become aware of positive and negative traits that you were previously oblivious to. By seeing how you are perceived by others you can overcome personal issues that may have been inhibiting your personal growth or interfering with dynamics within your group.
The Unknown Area contains what you don’t know about yourself and what others don’t know about you. This could include things like natural aptitudes or abilities you do not know you have because you have never needed to exercise them, or undetected fears and aversions you don’t know you have. You can eventually come to discover some of these aspects as you interact with other people and build relationships with them, as well as gaining more life experience.
The windows will change as you communicate with others in the group. The Open Area will become larger as you realise how much is obvious about you, as well as because hidden and blind aspects will be revealed. The Hidden Area will shrink, if you choose to share things with the group. Your Blind Area will initially grow; but shrink over time as you become more aware of these aspects of yourself that you were blind to. A similar thing will happen with the Unknown Area – it will initially be empty, then suddenly grow as you discover yourself, but the nature of their discovery will immediately put them into your Open or Hidden Area, depending on how they were discovered.
The Johari Window model is very elegant and potent, and in helping people understand themselves, it empowers them to use their personal thinking and the discoveries they make in their own way, and to incorporate the underlying principles into their future thinking and behaviour.
