The Johari Window: A Helpful Interpersonal Awareness Tool

The Johari Window

The Johari window is a model of interpersonal awareness. It’s a useful tool for improving self awareness and, through it, our abilities to work well with others. It works by helping us understand the differences between how we see ourselves and how others see us.

The premise behind the Johari Window is that our interactions with others are shaped by how we see ourselves and how the person we’re interacting with sees us. If our views are aligned, we’ll have more effective, engaging and helpful interactions than if our views are differing. As an aside you might like this quote by Charles Horton Cooley.

The Johari Window gets its name from the combined first names of its inventors, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham.

How the Johari Window Works

The Johari window works by helping individuals visualize the difference between how they see themselves and how others see them.

The tool requires individuals to capture their own thoughts on who they are and to get feedback from others on how they are perceived. This information is then used to populate a two by two matrix, the Johari Window. The window helps people visualize any disparity between how they see themselves and how others see them.

The four quadrants of the window are:

• “Open” (things known by self and others),
• “Blind” (thing known by others but unknown by self),
• “Hidden / Facade” (things known by self but unknown by others), and
• “Unknown” (things not known by either self or others).

Discover Your Johari Window

Discovering what your Johari Window looks like requires some honesty, a group of peers and some trust. To complete the activity, you need to choose words that you think describe you from a set list and get your peers to do the same. You then explore at the differences between the words you and they chose. Once you understand where the differences are you can create a plan to help you bridge the gap. The following steps will help you do this:

1. Choose your peers: Identify people who you trust and who you think know you, or members of your team if you’re completing a team activity. 
2. Select your words: Review the list of 56 words and circle 5-10 words that you think best describe you.
3. Get your feedback: Ask your chosen peers to complete the same exercise, choosing the 5-10 words they think best describe you.
4. Plot your words: Place words both you and others selected in “Open” pane. Place words that only you selected in the “Hidden” pane.
5. Plot your feedback: Place words your peers selected but that you didn’t in the “Blind” pane. Place the remaining words in the “unknown” pane. Alternatively, you can choose to leave the “Blind” pane empty.
6. Review your Window: Review the words in the four pains of the window. How aligned is your view of who you are with how others see you? How open are you as a person?

The Words to Use

The 56 words below are the “Johari Adjectives” which are most commonly used for this activity. You can use alternative lists of words if you would like. Whatever words you choose to use, make sure there is a large, varied group to choose from.

Your Window

Once you’ve completed the activity and drawn your window you will get a sense of how much overlap there is between how you see yourselves and how others see you.

The relative size of the different quadrants of your window will be a function of how long you’ve been in the team, how open you are, how perceptive your peers are and a range of other factors. You may need to repeat the exercise a few times to get a really clear picture of your window.

Regardless of what your window looks like, the important thing from the premise of the model is to see what you can do to increase the size of your “open” pane and reduce the sizes of your other panes.

The more open we are in our relationships, the more others tend to understand us. Generally speaking this helps communicate effectively and build trust, among other things.

Next Steps

Once you’ve completed The Johari Window activity and have a clear view of what your window looks like, you can start to work towards changing your window.

Most people aim to increase the size of their “open” window and shrink the size of their other windows. There are two main ways they do. Firstly, they try being more open and transparent with others about how they think and feel. This increases the size of their open window and reduces the size of their hidden window. Secondly they seek more feedback from others, which reduces the size of their “blind” window. Some people also look to reduce the size of their “unknown” window, though this can be more difficult. Doing this often requires investing some time in self-discovery and developing self awareness.

If you would like to increase the size of your “open” window and reduce the size of your other windows, you may wish to:

1. Plan for your hidden pane: Consider if there is more you would like to share about yourself, and how you could disclose it.
2. Plan for your blind pane: Consider if there is more you would like to learn about how others perceive you and how to get more feedback.
3. Share your window and plans: Share your completed window with the peers that provided your feedback and let them know your plans to grow your open pane and shrink your other panes.

A Group Activity

The activity we detailed above is usually an individual discovery activity. But the Johari window can also be completed as a group activity.

To make this a group activity, simply bring a group of peers together in a room, or virtually, and get them to select their own words and the words they’d use to describe each of their peers. The individuals in the activity can then create their own windows based on their feedback. If they wish they can then share their windows and discuss action plans within the group environment.

The Johari window explores self awareness and interpersonal awareness. These factors are important for building trust in teams. The also can increase a sense of connection and cohesion and teams leading to improved employee experience and employee engagement. To get further insights into these areas it’s worth exploring your personal values.

The Johari window is a good, simple tool to use to increase self awareness as well as to start conversations about perception and the importance of feedback. It’s for these reasons that it’s quite a popular tool in the world of work.

It’s most effective in environments with higher levels of trust and honest. If trust and honest are low, disclosure will be low and people may not learn, or may get a false impression of themselves.

While it it can be a helpful tool, not everyone feels comfortable being open, sharing and giving or receiving feedback. If you’re using it as a team exercise, make sure that your team is comfortable using it and willing to give it a go. If you don’t, you may end up alienating or upsetting people .

It’s also worth noting that, like many similar exercises, you’ll probably get different results every time you do the activity. It’s best to think of it just as guidance, not as an objective truth.

Overall we like the model, despite some of its limitations.

This post is based on interpretations of work originally produced by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham. You can read more in Joe Luft’s 1969 book: Of Human Interaction: Johari Model.

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