I wonder whether you have been in a situation where somebody has discounted your ability to get something done. You believe that you could and so you tell them you can do it. Or perhaps somebody is pushing you in a particular area of your life and you tell them – "You really don't want to push me on this!" Or maybe in another situation, you tell somebody, "There's a part of me you don't really know and I don't think you want to go there." All of this has to do with the fact that there are parts of us that we hold very private. This is a part we don't really share with people around us. It's a part of ourselves that we know, but others don't.
Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, way back in 1955, put together what psychologists call the Johari window, combining both their names (Joseph and Harrington) to coin the term. The Johari window really talks about the 4 panes or quadrants of a window.
1. Open Space: what is known about you by yourself as well as others.
2. Blind Spot: things you don't know about yourself but others know about you.
3. Private Arena: things you know about yourself but haven't revealed to others.
4. Unknown: things not known either to you or to others.
These are the 4 quadrants that Luft and Ingham put together. The way they would use this is to have 56 adjectives that describe people – able, cheerful, friendly, ingenious, introverted, nervous, extroverted, reflective, and so on. Then they would invite people to put these adjectives into the boxes – one window to be filled by the individual and another to be filled by someone else. This way they could see where they differ and better pinpoint the private areas undisclosed to others, the blind spots i.e. things others know about you but you don't and finally, whatever is out there and open.
It had me thinking – we often look at relationship-building, and one significant way relationships grow is by revealing more in the area of our private square i.e. things we know about ourselves but don't allow others to know. The way in which intimacy and friendships grow is through increasing revelation. Husbands and wives have come to realize that in marriage, such revelation evokes more trust in relationships.
If you were to look at yourself in office spaces and in the market place, you would probably note that in general, we are very careful in what we reveal about ourselves. We're careful because we don't want to risk being exploited; we don't want to be vulnerable. I wonder if there is a need for more revelation about ourselves to help in building relationships within the office, moving us towards a better office environment, productivity and all these things that matter in the market place.
I was surprised to find a recent article in Harvard Business Review written by Scott Berinato. He quotes research by Prof. Sreedhari Desai, the assistant professor of organizational behavior at the University of North Carolina. Prof. Desai ran a series of studies involving subjects who believed they were part of a virtual team playing a game. The subjects were told they could earn more money if they could get their teammates to spread a lie. But what they didn't know was that the other players were all researchers. And what these researchers did was alter their email signatures to fit a pattern: some would include a quote about integrity, some had a neutral quote and some had no quote at all. The quote on integrity was "Success without honor is worse than fraud," a clear ethical statement. The neutral quote was "Success and luck go hand in hand." Some didn't have any quote at all.
Here's what they found out: The subjects were least likely to ask the people who put the ethical or virtuous quote on their messages, to do their unethical bidding. So, what has come out of that research is, (and Scott Berinato, tongue in cheek, makes this his title) – 'To Stop Bad Behavior, Display A Virtuous Quote.' In other words, if you want to avoid being approached for unethical measures, put it out there that this is something that isn't part of who you are. What Desai had done was have them put an ethical statement in their email signatures.
This brought up an interesting point – to avoid those kinds of situations, self-disclosure is called for. This makes us a little more vulnerable. Letting people in the office know more about us makes us a little bit uncomfortable. On the other hand, when people know who you are and what you stand for, the likelihood of them inviting you to do things you may or will not do is less. I thought this would be a good area to focus on today. There is something in self-disclosure – it can work to our advantage if we are willing to be a little vulnerable.
I was thinking of our Scriptures and looking at Jesus when He was on earth. In one of the four gospel—John's—Jesus says "I AM" 45 times. 'I am' is a self-disclosure statement. He was letting people know who He is and what He stands for. I wonder whether there is a note for you and me today that maybe a little more self-disclosure, a little more letting people know exactly who we are and what we stand for, can be helpful in the interactions we have in our office space. Think about it!
Let me pray for you. Almighty God. You give us the wisdom to know what we need to share, how we need to share, so that we can let people know very clearly who we are and the values that we stand for and believe in. give us wisdom, Almighty God. We ask this in Your Holy name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
• Johari Window, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window
• Scott Berinato, "ToStop Bad Behavior, Display a Virtuous Quote," https://hbr.org/2016/01/to-stop-bad-behavior-display-a-virtuous-quote
• "I am" sayings of Jesus, http://catholic-resources.org/John/Themes-IAM.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment