Episode 75: The Johari Window Video Lecture | Business Communication: The Ultimate Guide

well the Johari Window is a
communication model that's designed to
help improve our interpersonal
communication meaning our ability to
communicate with other people and it
starts with self disclosure and the
argument is is that as we disclose
information about us others tend to
reciprocate meaning they also do the
same and then we in turn develop a
better understanding not only of
ourselves but also of others and that
helps us communicate more effectively
and so the Johari Window is you know one
of the I say better known communication
models and it was developed by two
individuals one by the name of Joseph
Lutz and the other by the name of Harry
Ingham and the way they got the Johari
Window is they kind of took the first
sections of their first names and
combined them and kind of made that to
be the the Johari Window which we all of
course know today
so what I want to do is go ahead and
explain kind of what the Johari Window
is I'll give you a kind of an
illustration so you can see what it
looks like I'll explain each of the
areas or panes if you will and have a
little discussion regarding that so let
me first go ahead and draw out this
quick little table
and you can see there are four boxes
windows or panes and let me pry it a
little bit more detail here so we kind
of fill in some of the information on
the top here these two columns signify
two separate things in this first column
this is information what we call known
to self and just for sake of space and
time I'll put info known to self in this
second column this is info not known to
self meaning things that we do not know
about ourselves
and in these two rows these deal with
people and their their understanding of
us and so in this first row this is
information or info known to others
meaning this is the area in which people
actually know things about us and in
this last row this is info that is not
known to others meaning they have no
knowledge of these particular
characteristic skills abilities whatever
it is that we're talking about okay all
right now in each of these particular
panes they have a specific title and
I'll give you a little description as to
what they include in this first area
which is area one we call this the open
area in the open area as you can see
consists of information that not only we
know about ourselves but also
information that others know about us
and this is open because everybody
obviously knows what the information is
and so these are things that we have
chosen to self disclose about us right
it could be things like physical
characteristics that are very basic like
well the color of my eyes are brown
I know that and obviously others do but
it can also be certain things that we
let people in on maybe discussions of
past experiences past hurts ambitions
goals whatever the case is right and
when you look at this our level of
self-disclosure is different with
everyone else right it's different with
each individual person we don't have one
specific set of disclosure that we
assume for every single person you know
we have different levels of a
relationship with each person and so how
much you let someone in is largely
dependent upon how comfortable you're
with personalities and all those other
types of things play effect in the
second area now this is information
that we don't know about ourselves but
others have an awareness of us and this
is the the second kind of stage if you
will and we refer to this as the the
blind area and the blind area as you
know is information we don't know about
ourselves but others know and this has
to deal with the way that we perceive
ourselves right we all have a certain
way that we view ourselves right there
are personalities the way that we act
way that we kind of carry ourselves and
unfortunately though we don't have the
ability to kind of see how that plays
out and so others may be at a better
vantage point to see ultimately well how
do we really come across right we try to
maybe carry ourselves a certain way so
that we come across a certain way but
perception is a very important thing and
so how are others perceiving us you know
our intentions are one thing but reality
and how that plays out is completely
different here now in the third area now
this is the phase that information that
we know about ourselves but others have
no idea and so this is actually called
the hidden area okay and oftentimes we
choose to keep this hidden for a reason
right these may be deep dark secrets
things that are very personal to us and
that really we don't have a relationship
with everyone that that dictates that we
should disclose of these things right
these can be very sensitive topics that
we don't want anybody to know of
whatever that might be and so we keep
these hidden for a very reason because
we maybe don't have the type of
relationship yet that warrants the
disclosure of them and in the last phase
this is called the unknown and then the
unknowns phase are in the unknown area
this is consists of not only things that
we don't know about ourselves but things
that others lack an awareness of and so
this might be things like unrecognized
Talent unfulfilled you know you know
kind of experiences or skills or things
of that nature right you know depending
upon the circumstances that
that we are in we may not have the
opportunity to recognize our fullest
potential and obviously we don't know
what that is and others don't know what
that is until it really plays out
and so maybe based upon the experiences
and certain you know route or course
that we take through life we don't
really recognize certain skills or
certain abilities and those stay hidden
those stay unknown because not only do
we lack an awareness of them but also
others do as well so really what's the
importance of this mono looks really
nice it fits in a box right you know
what is what is the importance of it and
the importance of it is increasing self
disclosure and the argument is is that
if we're going to improve our
interpersonal communication right those
skills we need to improve the extent to
which people have an awareness of us but
also the extent to which we are aware of
ourselves and our conscious of it and so
if you look at this everything the
importance deals with expanding this
particular area this open area right we
are trying to reduce not only this
hidden area but we're also trying to
reduce the blind area and the way that
we reduce kind of this blind area right
the area that we don't know about
ourselves but others do is through
soliciting feedback
so by essentially asking people kind of
what their perceptions of us are by
soliciting that feedback so we can get a
better understanding of ourselves we
would essentially reduce this blind area
and make it so the open area is a little
larger okay and that is you know really
where we develop as individuals where we
start to figure out you know really we
think we perform a certain way and we
think we behave a certain way and carry
ourselves a certain way but is that
reality and maybe not I mean we have to
make adjustments to that and that's okay
and so soliciting feedback is very
important a lot of companies integrate
feedback obviously for management
through 360-degree appraisals to which
everyone in the organization provides an
assessment of the managers performance
because it's designed to reduce this
blind area now the other area is
reducing this hidden area right and
obviously this has to deal with us and
our ability to disclose of information
and so as we disclose of increase of
additional information with others we
reduce this hidden area and that
essentially builds that bond and so that
that not only trust is established but
also just an awareness of others right
as we disclose we feel like we are kind
of more intimately involved with others
but also they understand us they know
how to communicate with us and that's
really how you use this model to
increase interpersonal communication