Assumptions and the Johari Window: I

Since they were now officially stuck, Suzanne suggested they take a ten-minute break, and everyone agreed. Lynn left the conference room immediately, and the others went to the back kitchen area to get coffee. That left Matt and Suzanne.

Suzanne had an idea. "I'm wondering," she began, "if maybe the problem isn't someplace else."

Matt, puzzled, tilted his head and said, "By that you mean…"

"I mean, maybe we disagree because we're making different assumptions about something we don't know we're making different assumptions about."

Matt smiled. "I'm sorry, but tortured grammar is my specialty." They both chuckled. "But OK, tell me what you mean."

Suzanne obliged. "I remember something called the Johari window." She went on to show him how they could use the Johari window to expose differing assumptions, and it went something like this.

The Johari window is a four-pane window in which each pane represents a category of our joint knowledge. The panes are Open, Blind, Hidden, and Unknown. Open: I'm aware of this knowledge, and so are you. Blind: You're aware of this knowledge, but I'm not. Hidden: I'm aware of this knowledge, but you're not. And Unknown: Both of us are clueless about this.

When we disagree, the sources of our disagreement can often be outside our mutual awareness. Using the Johari window to classify our assumptions, we can surface them using techniques that are best for each of the Johari window's four categories.

Open assumptions

Open assumptions are those I know I'm making, and you do too. If we agree about them, then these assumptions are unlikely to spark destructive conflict. But even if we disagree about an open assumption, it's relatively less likely to create trouble, because we can discuss it, and we might even resolve or suspend our differences.

When you inventory assumptions to explore the sources of disagreements, start with open assumptions — they're relatively safe, even when there's disagreement about them.

My blind assumptions

Blind assumptions are those that I make, but which I'm unaware of, while they're evident to you. Typical are the assumptions about who's responsible for what in a marital relationship, or assumptions based on professional, factional, demographic, or ethnic stereotypes.

Blind assumptions are hard to find, because the assumer doesn't know they're there [Brenner 2006]. To search for them, propose candidates of your own — assumptions you think someone like you might make without being aware of them. This approach is relatively safe, because identifying the assumptions someone else might be making can seem like blaming — when we uncover a blind assumption, the assumer is more likely to have difficulty than is the assumer's partner.

These two kinds of assumptions are the easiest to find and discuss. In the issue after next, we'll look at two more that are somewhat more problematic.  Next in this series  Top    Next Issue

Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!

The Johari Window was developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (Joe and Harry) in the 1960s. There's no better work on the topic than their own: Luft, Joseph. Of Human Interaction: The Johari Model. Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1969. It's out of print, so check the library.

Footnotes

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Coping and Hard Lessons

Ever have the feeling of "Uh-oh, I've made this mistake before"? Some of these oft-repeated mistakes happen not because of obstinacy, or stupidity, or foolishness, but because the learning required to avoid them is just plain difficult. Here are some examples of hard lessons.

Decisions: How Looping Back Helps

Group decision making often proceeds through a series of steps including forming a list of options, researching them, ranking them, reducing them, and finally selecting one. Often, this linear approach yields disappointing results. Why?

How to Find Lessons to Learn

When we conduct Lessons Learned sessions, how can we ensure that we find all the important lessons to be learned? Here's one method.

Should We Do This?

Answering the question, "Should we do this?" is among the more difficult decisions organizational leaders must make. Weinberger's Six Tests provide a framework for making these decisions. Careful application of the framework can prevent disasters.

The McNamara Fallacy

The McNamara Fallacy is the idea that measuring properly chosen attributes of inputs and outputs provides all we need for decisions about organizational and human performance. And we can safely ignore anything that can't be measured. It doesn't work.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming January 22: Storming: Obstacle or Pathway?

The Storming stage of Tuckman's model of small group development is widely misunderstood. Fighting the storms, denying they exist, or bypassing them doesn't work. Letting them blow themselves out in a somewhat-controlled manner is the path to Norming and Performing. Available here and by RSS on January 22.

And on January 29: A Framework for Safe Storming

The Storming stage of Tuckman's development sequence for small groups is when the group explores its frustrations and degrees of disagreement about both structure and task. Only by understanding these misalignments is reaching alignment possible. Here is a framework for this exploration. Available here and by RSS on January 29.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenjTnUayrCbSnnEcYfner@ChacdcYpBKAaMJgMalFXoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info