building a foundation for team cohesion and peformance

Does what you disclose about yourself to team members affect your entire team’s level of trust, hence, shared productivity? Industry research says yes, and it can mean your team can become synergistic and five times more productive.

Synergistic teams tend to be highly cohesive. Team cohesiveness has been shown in study after study to be far more important than individual competency in raising a group’s ability to work together to produce results.

The Johari Window model is a simple and useful tool for illustrating and improving self-awareness, and mutual understanding between individuals within a group. The Johari Window model was developed by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in the 1950s, while researching group dynamics.

Today, the Johari Window model is especially relevant due to modern emphasis on, and influence of, "soft" skills, behavior, empathy, cooperation, inter-group development and interpersonal development. Since team synergy leads to levels of up to five times the amount of productivity, establishing trust and mutual respect via increased transparency of communication about ourselves and others makes the Johari Window a viable model for self- and other-awareness.

The Johari Window model is also referred to as a "disclosure/feedback model of self-awareness" and, by some people, an "information processing tool". The Johari Window actually represents information--feelings, experience, views, attitudes, skills, intentions, motivation, etc--within or about a person in relation to others or their group, from four perspectives, which are described below.

Top performing groups, departments, companies and organizations always tend to have a culture of open positive communications, so encouraging the positive development of the "open area" or "open self" for everyone is a simple yet fundamental aspect of effective leadership.

The four panel Johari Window (download Johari Window diagram) divides personal awareness into four different types, as represented by its four quadrants: Open, Hidden, Blind, and Unknown.

Quadrant 1 – Open area: Also known as the "area of free activty". This is the information about the person--behavior, attitude, feelings, emotions, knowledge, experience, views, etc.--that is known by the person (the "self") and is also known by the group (others).

The aim in any group should always be to develop the "open area" for every person, because when we work in this area with others we are at our most effective and productive, and the group is at its most productive, too. The open area, or "the arena", can be seen as the space where good communications and cooperation occur, free from distractions, mistrust, confusion, conflict and misunderstanding.

Quadrant 2 – Blind area: This area is what is known about a person by others in the group, but is unknown by the person about him/herself. By seeking or soliciting feedback from others, the aim should be to reduce this area and thereby to increase the open area (see the Johari Window diagram), i.e. to increase self-awareness.

The blind area is not an effective or productive space for indiviuald or groups. This blind area could also be referred to as ignorance about oneself, or issues in which one is deluded. Group members and managers can take some responsibility for helping an individual to reduce their blind area--in turn, increasing the open area--by giving sensitive feedback and encouraging disclosure.

Managers should promote a climate of non-judgmental feedback, and group response to individual disclosure, which reduces fear and therefore encourages both processes to happen. The extent to which an individual seeks feedback, and the issues on which feedback is sought, must always be at the individual's own discretion.

Quadrant 3 – Hidden area: The third quadrant is what is known to ourselves but kept hidden from, and therefore unknown, to others. This hidden or avoided self represents information, feelings, etc., anything that a person knows about him/herself, but which is not revealed or is kept hidden from others. The hidden area could also include sensitivities, fears, hidden agendas, manipulative intentions, secrets--anything that a person knows but does not reveal, for whatever reason. It's natural for very personal and private information and feelings to remain hidden, indeed, certain information, feelings and experiences have no bearing on work, and so they can and should remain hidden. 

Organizational culture and working atmosphere have a major influence on group members' preparedness to disclose their hidden selves. Most people fear judgment or vulnerability and therefore hold back hidden information and feelings, etc., that if moved into the open area, i.e. known by the group as well, would enhance mutual understanding, and thereby improve group awareness, enabling better individual performance and group effectiveness.

Quadrant 4 – Unknown area: Johari region 4 contains information, feelings, latent abilities, aptitudes, experiences, etc., that are unknown to the person him/herself and unknown to others in the group. These unknown issues take a variety of forms: they can be feelings, behaviors, attitudes, capabilities, aptitudes, which can be quite close to the surface, and which can be positive and useful, or they can be deeper aspects of a person's personality, influencing his/her behavior to various degrees. Large unknown areas would typically be expected in younger people, and people who lack experience or self-belief.

Examples of unknown factors are as follows, and the first example is particularly relevant and common, especially in typical organizations and teams:

• an ability that is under-estimated or un-tried through lack of opportunity, encouragement, confidence or training
• a natural ability or aptitude that a person doesn't realise they possess
• a fear or aversion that a person does not know they have

A note of caution about Johari region 4: The unknown area could also include repressed or subconscious feelings rooted in formative events and traumatic past experiences, which can stay unknown for a lifetime. In a work or organizational context the Johari Window should not be used to address issues of a clinical nature.

Summary

The processes by which this information and knowledge can be uncovered are various, and can be prompted through self-discovery or observation by others, or in certain situations through collective or mutual discovery, of the sort of discovery experienced on Outward Bound courses or other deep or intensive group work. Counselling can also uncover unknown issues, but this would then be known to the person and by one other, rather than by a group.

Managers and leaders can help by creating an environment that encourages self-discovery, and to promote the processes of self discovery, constructive observation and feedback among team members.

It is a widely accepted industrial fact that the majority of staff in any organization are at any time working well within their potential. Creating a culture, climate and expectation for self-discovery helps people to fulfil more of their potential and, thereby, to achieve more, and to contribute more to organizational and project team performance.

As the group grows and matures, the open area expands in size, and this usually means that people are at liberty to be more genuine, open and honest, and are more likely to perceive others as they really are.  When this happens, trust is built and the synergy of team, which can be up to five times the productivity level on a non-synergistic group, can be leveraged.

 

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