How to make others trust you more? Try to open this "Joe Harry window"
Editor’s note: This article is from IDG Capital, written by IDG Jun, and reproduced by Entrepreneurial State with authorization.
The connection between people constitutes our world. However, it is often difficult for us to handle all kinds of relations in society skillfully. There will be gaps between husband and wife because of trivial matters, and it is not easy for parents and children to understand each other because of the generation gap. Without empathy between teams, contradictions will develop.
Here is a coaching tool called "Johari Window", which has been widely used in work and life. It can help us to recognize ourselves, help us grow up, be comfortable in social relations, and step into a more ideal life stage.
In 1950s, American psychologists Joseph Loew and Harry Ingram established this set of tools when they were studying tissue dynamics. With the progress of modern society, people attach importance to "soft" skills, including behavior, empathy, cooperation, group relations and interpersonal development, and the Johari window model becomes more and more important.
If you can explain Joe Harry’s window in one sentence, it is: what you said is probably different from what others heard.
This is due to two reasons: one is because we hide our true selves, and the other is because we don’t want to listen. As a result, we have no chance to receive high-quality feedback and become the biggest obstacle to establishing a connection with the world.
To this end, Johari Window compares the inner world of a person to a window, indicating a person’s openness to his own information and that of others. It is divided into four quadrants:
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open zone-You know what others know.
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blind zone-information you don’t know but others know.
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Hidden area-information you know but others don’t know.
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Unknown region-information that you don’t know and others don’t know.
Let’s understand the profound connotation of the Johari window model one by one.
The first quadrant: open area
All effective communication starts here.
This quadrant is also called "free activity area". It contains information that individuals and team members know together-including behaviors, attitudes, feelings, emotions, knowledge, experience, skills, opinions and so on.
Any team goal should develop "open areas" for each individual as much as possible, because individuals are most efficient and productive when working in open areas, which can maximize the productivity of the team. The open free quadrant stimulates good communication and cooperation, and avoids distraction, distrust, confusion, conflict or misunderstanding to the greatest extent.
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Formed team members usually have a larger open area logically than new team members. Due to the initial lack of common understanding of new team members, new team members need to start from a relatively small open area. Individuals can actively seek to listen to the feedback from other team members and expand the size of the open area to the blind area. This process is called "feedback request".
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Of course, other team members can also help individuals expand their open space through feedback. Let individuals disclose their feelings and thoughts to the group members, and the size of the open area can be expanded vertically downward to the third hidden quadrant.
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Team leaders can also promote feedback among team members and indirectly communicate their own blind spots to team individuals.
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Team leaders also have a responsibility, that is, to promote an open and helpful positive communication culture, so that the whole team can share knowledge. The best performing team always tends to maintain an active and open communication culture, so encouraging subordinates to actively develop "open areas" is also a simple but basic aspect of effective leadership.
For individuals, only by constantly expanding the open area can we enhance mutual feelings, reduce the understanding errors in communication and increase our organizational influence, which is also an important part of the so-called "upward management". For an organization, the more information is shared internally, the deeper the understanding among members will be, which will provide a good space for communication and cooperation.
The second quadrant: blind area
Use others to see who you really are.
A blind spot is the information that other people in the team have about an individual, but this person doesn’t know it himself.
For example, it is a common understanding that people need to wear masks in public places during the epidemic, but sometimes when you go out and rush to the company, you forget to bring them and don’t even notice them until you rush into the elevator and find that everyone is looking at you differently. Then you will suddenly realize.
What should we do about blind spots?
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We should try our best to reduce the blind area and increase the open area by soliciting feedback from others, which is also a process of increasing self-awareness.
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No matter for individuals or groups, blind areas are not effective or productive spaces. Blind spots can also be called individual self-neglect.
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Blind spots may also include problems that others in the team deliberately hide, similar to the difficulties encountered when a person is "trapped in the dark."
Team members and management can share the responsibility of narrowing blind spots, provide relatively sensitive feedback and encourage communication to help individuals reduce blind spots and increase open areas.
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Management should create a non-critical feedback atmosphere, and give feedback to individuals in a friendly and positive form in a collective unit, so as to reduce the worries and fears of communication, thus encouraging the two-way process of communication to occur.
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The information area and degree that an individual seeks feedback should be left to him to decide.
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Some people are more resilient than others-it is necessary to avoid causing personal depression here. The process of "self-realization" mentioned in Maslow’s demand development and motivation model also refers to the process of soliciting serious and profound feedback.
In fact, as long as we pay more attention, we can check whether our behavior is appropriate through the attitude of others, and at the same time, we can go further and actively seek feedback from others, such as, "Can you accept my way of speaking?" "Do you feel pressure to communicate with me? These are all good ways to narrow the blind spot.
The third quadrant: hidden area
To break the barrier, try "self-exposure"
A hidden area is information that you know but hide from others.
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This hidden quadrant represents that individuals will not share what they know, such as feelings and feedback.
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Hidden areas can also include sensitivity, fear, manipulation and secrets-for whatever reason, these are information that you know but don’t want to disclose to others.
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Hiding private information and personal feelings is a natural phenomenon. In fact, some information feelings and experiences that have no impact on work do not need to be made public. But usually, a lot of hidden information is not personalized, and it will affect work and individual performance, so it is best to put it in an open area.
Related hidden information can be transferred to the open area through the "open" process.
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The purpose of the public process is to publicly display the relevant information and feelings of individuals. Here, Johari Windows adopts the terms of "self-disclosure" and "disclosure process", thus increasing the open space.
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By telling others about our feelings and other information about ourselves, we can reduce the hidden areas and expand the open areas, so as to better understand, cooperate, trust and promote the effectiveness and productivity of teamwork.
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Reducing hidden areas can also reduce the possibility of confusion, misunderstanding, poor communication, etc., otherwise these will distract the team and weaken efficiency.
Organizational culture and working atmosphere have a great influence on whether the team members are willing to disclose their secret selves. Most people are afraid of being criticized or being known about their weaknesses, so they choose to hide their information feelings. If we move these information feelings to an open area and let others in the team know, it can enhance mutual understanding, improve team awareness, and further improve individual performance and team productivity.
The extent to which individuals share information and the content of the information they share should be decided by individuals themselves. Like feedback, some people are more resistant than others-we need to be careful not to cause personal depression. Just like asking for feedback, the process of careful disclosure is similar to the "self-realization" process described in Maslow’s demand development and motivation model.
Ma Erdun once said, "To attract friends, you must have all kinds of qualities. People who are selfish, stingy, jealous, don’t like the beauty of adults and don’t like the reputation of others can’t get friends. " It is always the best way to be more efficient to be frank with others.
The fourth quadrant: unknown area
Keep curious and always walk on the road of learning.
This quadrant contains information that the individual does not know and others in the team do not know, including feelings, potentials, talents, experiences and so on. These unknown problems take many forms:
They can be feelings, behaviors, attitudes, abilities and so on. This information may appear on the surface quickly, which may be positive and beneficial, or it may be deeper, which will affect the behavior of individuals to varying degrees. Large areas of unknown areas usually appear among young and inexperienced people.
Examples of unknown factors are as follows. The first example is very common and closely related to us, especially in typical organizations and teams:
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Ability that is underestimated or undeveloped due to lack of opportunity, encouragement, confidence or training.
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A person is not aware of his natural abilities.
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A person’s unknown fear or disgust.
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Unknown disease
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Depression or subconsciousness
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Childhood behavior habits or attitudes
The process of discovering this information is varied, which can be prompted by self-exploration or observation by others, or in some cases by collective or two-way exploration. Such consultation can also help to explore personal unknown problems, but this situation is best only known to myself and the discoverer.
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For these unknown but discovered information, the transfer to hidden blind areas or open quadrants should depend on who the discoverer is and how he handles the information, that is, the process can be passive feedback or active disclosure. Like the process of soliciting feedback, trying to explore unknown information is related to the "self-realization" process described in Maslow’s demand development and motivation model.
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Similarly, like publicity and soliciting feedback, the process of self-discovery is very sensitive. The degree and depth to which an individual can discover his unknown feelings must always be determined by himself.
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Exploring "hidden talents" is another aspect of developing the unknown, which is not as sensitive as the feeling of the unknown. "Hidden talent" is an unknown skill, not a "hidden area" for developing Johari Windows. The opportunity to try new things with a try mind is usually one of the useful ways to discover unknown abilities and reduce unknown fields.
Team management can create an environment that encourages self-discovery, promote self-discovery among team members and constructively observe the feedback process. Creating such a team culture will help people to play more potential, thus achieving greater achievements and making more contributions to organizational performance.
Augustine, an ancient Roman thinker, said: "If you are uncomfortable with anything that turns around, it is caused by your feelings, not the thing itself. Through the adjustment of feelings, you can be excited at any time. " People can deepen their understanding of the characteristics of open areas, hidden areas, blind areas and unknown areas, constantly adjust themselves and improve their relations with others.
When you encounter the confusion of interpersonal relationship, please open the window of johari without stint, because the world outside the window is not only pleasant, but also wider, which can be used for us to gallop infinitely and lead to a farther future.
This article is compiled from https://www.businessballs.com/self-awareness/johari-window-model-and-free-diagrams/johari window model and free diagrams.
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