Seeing Through the Façade

Nov 29 2007

Published by Roger at 10:32 pm under Personal Development

I hope you enjoyed the 2 previous posts about the Johari Window (Self Knowledge and Johari Window) and found the idea useful in increasing your self-knowledge. Did you try the web site ?

Today I just want to finish this subject by thinking a little more broadly about the Johari Window.

The diagram below shows, as we know, that feedback from others leads to an expansion of the information in the Arena and a reduction in the Blind Spot. This is what we discussed yesterday.

Advanced Johari Window

The Johari Window also serves as a model for our interactions with new people. Let’s imagine you start a new evening class and you don’t know anyone there. Well, initially, there will be no information in the Arena because nobody there knows anything about you. However, as you introduce yourself, you reveal some personal information, even if it’s just your name. As the weeks go by you become more friendly with some of the people there, and, as you begin to trust them more, you naturally start to tell them a bit more about yourself. So, the Arena starts to grow as you disclose more about yourself and as a consequence the Façade shrinks.

This process of disclosing more about ourselves is dependent on us trusting the other and, in doing so, it also engenders trust in the other. This in itself can lead to more productive relationships and greater co-operation.

Conclusion

That’s all I want to say about the Johari Window. It is a simple model which gives us a means of depicting where information about us is held. Personally, I like the idea of using feedback from others as a way of helping me understand more about myself. I am convinced that the more we know about ourselves, the better our relationships with others will be and the more satisfaction and pleasure we will gain in our lives. I hope you agree. Do let me know your views via the feedback.

Thanks for reading.

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