Coaching and self-awareness: understanding your blind spots with the Johari window

Having a coach can really help navigating career choices and make changes less daunting.? I came across coaching around 20 years ago and this gave me a level of insight and self-awareness which I lacked until that point.

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I hadn’t faced up to some hard facts, and had an overly positive self-image around some of my behaviours and attributes.? Getting coached at that point, and over the subsequent 2 decades, has changed how I make choices.

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One description of coaching is turning ‘or’ into ‘and’.? As in:?

either I can live in the place that I love OR have a job I find fulfilling and challenging.? Instead, how can I find a way to have both?? Asking questions to tease out the underlying dynamics, preferences, hopes and fears behind a topic allows more nuanced and grounded decisions, based on a more realistic appreciation of ourselves and the situation.? This is the essence of coaching, in my experience.

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The crisis that prompted me to try coaching was being made redundant from a role after only 9 months in the position.? While on paper this was due to ?restructuring for cost saving purposes, the reality was I hadn’t been performing.

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In this position I reported to the managing director, who was also covering marketing.? I was responsible for a wide-ranging product portfolio – from managing stock, to helping sell new products to national retailers, and also poster and print advertising.? My previous roles had been more brand and communications oriented – in larger companies with a lot more support whereas here I was more on my own.?

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The final straw came when during a presentation of a new range to the board of directors, I didn’t present a coherent selling story.? The MD was clearly not pleased as this affected ?her credibility, and the redundancy followed soon after.?

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At the time, I wasn’t clear on what had happened.? I knew I hadn’t delivered at my best but struggled to understand why.? This is when I managed to get some coaching as part of my redundancy package and started to work with a coach.?

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Over 5 sessions, she asked a lot of questions: first getting clearer perspectives on what had happened, and what had gone wrong.? But also understanding what really motivated me, ?and what kind of conditions I thrived under.? It was truly revealing and sparked a deep interest in the topic, leading to me studying and qualifying as a coach the year after.?

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The overarching concepts that helped me most ?at that early stage, both as a coach and being coached, were those which helped me understand the value of different perspectives.? The idea of blind spots – that we have parts of our behaviour and character that are hidden to us – was illuminating.?

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The Johari window.?

The Johari Window is a framework for us to better understand what we know about ourselves, and what others know about us. It can help increase self-awareness and our understanding of others. ?Created in 1955 by 2 psychologists, the name comes from a combination of the creators’ first names:? Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham – Jo + Hari.

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?The 4 quadrants are:

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Open area: what you know about yourself and are willing to share with others

Blind area: what you do not know about yourself, but that others see

Hidden area: what you know about yourself and are not willing to share with others

Unknown area: aspects unknown to you or anyone else

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Coaching enables greater access to the area labelled blind spot. It’s one of many techniques that can do this – reflecting with somebody else, ideally a person removed from an event so they give greater perspective, but also journaling, reflecting on changes. All this allow us to get some distance from the day to day, so we can step back and see the ‘balcony view’ rather than being in action.?

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How to use the Johari window

1. Write out some of your attributes, skills, even descriptive adjectives – E.g. project management skills, collaborative, open, detailed oriented etc.This can be from your own experience over your career and include feedback in appraisals and from prior coaching learnings. You can also use other tools like psychometric profiles such as Strengthscope[MDV1]? as other inputs.
2. Ask others for inputs on the same dimensions – either informally or as part of a 360 feedback request (easily done using online forms like Google or Microsoft).Split these findings across the quadrants:- Findings that overlap:? group them in the? ‘Open area’ box- Things you wrote down, but others didn’t: add those in the ‘Hidden area’ box- Things that others noted, but you didn’t:? put these in the ‘Blind spot’ box
3. Ideally with a coach, or at least someone who knows you but is willing to tell you direct truths, drill down into ‘Hidden Area’ and ‘Blind spot’ box.?

‘Hidden area’

What do the findings indicate??

Do you have strengths that others recognise but you weren’t aware of??

Are there areas you weren’t aware of that pose risks to your role or your plans?

‘Blind spot’

Do you have strengths others aren’t aware of?? Do you have evidence that supports this, or are you overestimating this?? Do the strengths or potential strengths present opportunities for you?

Do you have risks areas you weren’t aware of? What contexts might these different perceptions be based on?? What behaviours are driving them?

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I find the Johari window useful as a start point for coaching because it highlights how little we know about ourselves.? As a coach or a development professional, you will have a better awareness of this. Behaviourial psychology has highlighted this scientifically and clearly with Daniel Kahneman’s Nobel prize winning work – we are strangers to ourselves, or ‘the self who does my living is a stranger to me’. ??He referenced different mental processes – System 1, fast and intuitive, but harder to access – and System 2 – deliberate and logical.?

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It's harder for us to access System 1 because System 2 is in action when we are being more considered in our responses. Journaling, coaching and other reflective practices allow us to explore this more unknown side. There are significant insights about ourselves waiting to be understood, if we’re willing to listen and dig. This is no easy task, you may come across a different side of you, better equipped to navigate the uncertainties that life throws up.

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The Johari window is a useful tool that allows us to step back and acknowledge that there’s a lot we don’t know.? It reminds us that others can help us unearth these insights, and that we can ask for help and views.

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It can be used within teams as well, or different groups within a company, for example, to get views of how your team or department is viewed by others.?

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Try it out and see what you find out - insights and perhaps some surprises.

References

[1] Johari window:? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window

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[2] Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

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