The Happy and Prosperous Blog

Has anybody ever told you you were good at something and you didn’t quite believe them ? Then someone else told you the same thing, then another person said so too and gradually you began to realise that they were right. So they knew something about you that you didn’t know about yourself. How did they know ?

Johari Window

Today we’re going to look at a tool called the Johari Window that can help us understand how others see us and how we see ourselves. It’s a simple concept which was invented by 2 psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham (Jo and Harry - hence Johari !)

It’s a 4×4 matrix - like a simple window. Here it is…

OK, so there are 4 areas, labelled Arena, Façade, Blind Spot and Unknown. As you can see from the labels outside the matrix, we are going to look at things you know about yourself and things other people know about you. So you need to decide which group of people you are going to consider. I suggest you take your close friends to start with.

Let’s now look at each part of the Johari Window in turn.

Arena

In this quadrant you would put the things which both you and your group of friends know about you. This could be facts about where you live, number of children, or, more interestingly, qualities that you demonstrate (e.g. kindness, sensitivity, shyness, bravery etc.), feelings, beliefs, anything you willingly share with others. So this information is public.

Façade

The Façade is the information that your group of friends don’t generally know about you. These are the things that you keep secret, either deliberately or maybe these friends have just not seen this aspect of your character. E.g. your insecurities and anxieties and maybe some bad experiences from the past. It could be private information that you chose not to declare

Blind Spot

The Blind Spot contains things that you don’t realise about yourself but which other people are aware of. Perhaps you don’t think of yourself as a good listener but other people think you are. These are things that you unwittingly demonstrate or disclose.

Unknown

The unknown quadrant contains things that you don’t know and others don’t know either. These could be hidden talents or skills waiting to be discovered. These may surface given the right set of circumstances.

Use of Johari Window

OK, so much for the theory - how do we use it ? There are lots of ways in which this model can be used. I am going to focus on using it as a means of finding out more about ourselves. If we understand ourselves better then, we understand our emotional responses better and that implies that we will have more choice about how we behave. If we can choose more productive and useful behaviours, our lives are likely to become less stressful and our relationships should improve. Self-knowledge is powerful stuff.

I’m going to stop there for today. Tomorrow I will introduce you to an online tool you can use to help in understanding more about yourself by asking other people for their feedback.

Thanks for reading.

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