What quadrant contains information that is known to you and known to others?

The Johari Window model is designed to help you and your team members find out more about yourselves and each other, and to develop and enhance the way you interact.

What are the principles of the Johari Window model?

A simple psychological tool,the Johari Window encourages individuals to reveal information about themselves and receive feedback from others in order to facilitate trust, self-awareness and mutual understanding.

It can be used within one group or between different groups as a model of human interaction.

What are the four quadrants of the Johari Window?

The four quadrants or “panes” of the Johari Window are:

1. Open Self (or open area/free area/public area)
2. Blind Self (or blind area/blind spot)
3. Hidden Self (or hidden area/avoided self/façade)
4. Unknown Self (or unknown area/area of unknown activity)

By examining them in more detail, an individual can get a better understanding of themselves and how they fit into a group dynamic.

In more detail:

1. Open Self – We all have aspects of ourselves – motives, knowledge, behaviours, skills – that we are familiar with and happy to share with other people. These make up our Open Self.

A productive group will have a well-developed open area, with positive communication and co-operation.

• Blind Self – Some aspects of our personality and behaviour may be recognised by others but not by ourselves. These aspects of our Blind Self may have come about through unconsciously copying others at an early age.

Aspects of our blind self can become those of our open self if we ask for feedback. A good manager can also facilitate non-judgemental feedback. However, it’s important that the provision of feedback takes into account the personality type and resilience of the individual, otherwise it could be ineffective or even damaging to the person and/or the group.

• Hidden Self – The Hidden Self represents those parts of us that we know about but that we hide from others. These could range from insecurities to hidden agendas. Introverted personality types are particularly likely to have a strongly developed Hidden Self.

Hidden areas can cause mistrust, misunderstandings and poor communication; however, it’s important to recognise that some aspects of our lives or personalities are not relevant to our work and should remain separate from it. As with feedback from others about the Blind Self, disclosure about the Hidden Self should be carefully managed to ensure people – especially vulnerable personalities – do not feel forced to reveal information about themselves or judged in any way.

• Unknown Self – The deepest layers of our being, which are unknown to both us and others. This is the most challenging “pane” to understand and tends to be more prevalent in those who are young or who have limited self-awareness and/or experience.

Revealing the Unknown self can be positive, for example, a team member may have a hidden talent that has never had the opportunity to shine. Conversely, they may have a deeply buried fear or repressed feeling that only comes to light when they are placed in a particular situation. As these can be sensitive and personal issues, care should again be taken when uncovering information about the Unknown Self.

What does the Johari Window aim to achieve?

The aim of applying the Johari Window model to a particular group is to improve working relationships and achievements, both on a personal level and as a member of a wider group.

It can enhance personal and team development, interpersonal relationships, empathy, co-operation and communication among the group or with another group.

Who devised the Johari Window model?

The idea was developed in 1955 by two American psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham. The name comes from the first letters of their names: Joseph and Harrington.

At the time, Luft and Ingham were at the University of California, working together on group dynamics; Luft went on to further develop the system alone.

Conclusion

While the Johari Window can be a positive model that helps people and teams to thrive, care should be taken when opening up hidden aspects of people’s personalities and behaviours, as there can be the potential for this to cause harm to the individual and break trust in the team.

In this blog I share an interesting exercise I have done together with a friend of mine, using the so called Johari window model. The goal of the exercise is to improve the perception you have of yourself and others. Hence it is useful both for your self development and for team working and collaboration.

The Johari window model was developed in 1955 by the American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (the word Johari is a mix of their first two names). Sometimes this model is also denoted as feedback/disclosure model of self-awareness.

The model consists of four quadrants, as shown in the figure below.

Let’s have a look at the four quadrants, one by one.

The attitudes, behaviors, emotions, feelings, skills in this quadrant are known by you and by others.

The larger the arena quadrant, the more effective your relationships with others, because it means that your behaviors are coherent and consistent with your persona.

You can increase the arena horizontally decreasing the blind spot by explicitly asking for feedback (see The email that could change your life).

Also you can increase the arena downwards reducing the unknown area by revealing your thoughts and feelings more openly to others.

The blind spot quadrant includes the information about yourselves that others know but you are unaware of. Basically, others may interpret you differently than you expect. It means that you are not completely aware of your behaviors and skills.

As explained above, by seeking feedback from others you can reduce the blind spot.

In the façade quadrant there is all the information that is known to you but unknown to others. This can be any personal information which you feel reluctant to reveal, like for instance your feelings, past experiences, fears, secrets and so on.

If the façade area is too big, it can affect your relationships, hence it shall be reduced by moving the information to the arena. I personally try to be as transparent as possible with everyone and I appreciate when others do the same.

In the unknown quadrant there is everything that both yourself and others don’t know.

The unknown quadrant includes the information, feelings, capabilities, talents that are still unknown or gone lost due to traumatic past experiences. You are unaware of these qualities until a certain point in you life, when you or others discover them.

Let me explain now the exercise I made with my friend.

1. First of all, we selected a list of personal core values from the following website.
2. Then we rated each quality for both ourselves and the other, using a scale between one and five. For example, if I think I am very honest I would rate honesty with a five. On the other hand, if I think my friend is just average compassionate, I would give her a three in the compassion field.
3. Finally, we compared the results (how I rated myself VS how my friend rated me, and viceversa) and discussed the main deltas.

The idea is the following:

• If I rate something high and my friend also rates it high, this quality is in the arena quadrant;
• If I rate something low but my friend rates it high, this quality is in the blind spot quadrant;
• If I rate something high but my friend rates it low, this quality is in the façade quadrant;
• If I rate something low and my friends also rates it low, this quality is in the unknown quadrant.

We both agreed that arena and unknown are not that interesting to discuss, because the first category is already clear to everyone and the second one is not really relevant.

Hence, we focused our discussion on the blind spot (i.e. area of improvement) and façade (i.e. unknown strengths) areas. The discussion was really interesting and definitely time well spend on self-reflection and feedback collection.

What quadrant contains information that is not known to you and not known to others?

What are the 4 quadrants of Johari?

What quadrant represents things about you that you aren't aware of but known by others?

Which quadrant reflects information about yourself?