Johari Window?

[KCC]

Has anyone here used the Johari Window tool in any of their leadership training classes? Was it at all useful? I was asked to administer the tool to a small team of about 6-8 people (I only know one person on the team), but am not familiar with it and don't want this to become another useless, exercise in the obvious. I'd like to make a good impression and to volunteer with them in the future. Here is a link for a cursory summary of the tool: http://sourcesofinsight.com/know-and-share-yourself-enough/ I'm looking for what kinds of insights one might glean from using this tool because honestly, at first glance, it doesn't seem that useful.

 

[Prancer]

LOL, they still use the Johari Window? Way back in ......1985, maybe?--we did Johari Window exercises an Interpersonal Communication class I took. I never forgot about it because of the weird name and mentioned it once to a psychologist friend of my husband's, who laughed and told me that, honest to god, the name came from the fact that it was devised by a guy named Joe and another one named Harry (as it says as your link).

I have always found that hilarious, sorry.

I watched part of this video to see if it would help me remember anything useful from the exercises and it brought it all back, We had to break off into pairs (the Johari window was intended to be used for pairs, although apparently it is also used in small groups) and tell the other person something hidden about ourselves (I believe we were supposed to do a worry or concern) and the other person was supposed to give us feedback that was neither advice nor criticism.

The hangup for me on all this is something it says in the video right near the beginning--this works best in an environment of great trust. Since we were all strangers in class, we had no trust in one another, no matter what the professor said, and so we all told each other pretty innocuous things. I told the first person I was paired with that I was worried about a friend, which even I knew was deflection, and she gave me a whole lot of advice . So, nothing was accomplished there.

But anyway, right there are what I would consider your two biggest challenges--creating an environment of great trust and making sure people understand what they are supposed to be doing well enough that they actually do it. Most people are too self-protective to say anything too revealing (although if that one person who always overshares is in the group, you will know it immediately) and conversation will proceed cautiously, and everyone will wonder why they are doing this. As group leader, you need to be the one who knows why they are doing this. Good luck!

 

[KCC]

@Prancer, thanks so much for the insights - this is helpful. I had to go through a lot of these exercises back when I worked for a big corporation and found very few that provided insights worth the time. Your comments give me some thoughts about how to come at this with some other discussion topics first.