johari window model posts

Twitter does wonders for business

October 27th, 2009

If you are:

• a CEO wanting to increase buy-in and commitment to the strategic objectives and the success of your company,
• a COO who wants to create momentum within teams to get better results,
• a VP of human resources wanting to increase employee engagement.

Twitter could be your solution.

Twitter offers every company the opportunity to open up its public self, increase external perception of your brand, announce successes and expand customer reach. It can also be used to create internal buy-in,  build team momentum and increase employee engagement.

(If you don’t see a video below, view it here.)

(Learn more about the Johari feedback matrix.)

Like ourselves, businesses have personalities. The Feedback Self Disclosure Matrix explores the four selves.

1. The Public Self: What you and others know about your company, e.g. your brand,
2. The Private Self: What you know about your company but others don’t, e.g. your financials,
3. The Blind Self: What you are not aware of but others see clearly, e.g. a leadership team may not realize in an effort to get results they are actually developing a burn-out culture,
4. The Unknown Self: The hidden potential of every company. For example, during a strategic planning meeting, a team considers a disruptive innovation. Another example: Identifying a new area for the business where the team is willing to take a risk on something new, e.g. using the power of Twitter!

Twitter gives you an opportunity to start to consider strategically how you might open the public self of your organization. Download the Johari Feedback-Self Disclosure Matrix (PDF)

As a Start:
Have a conversation with your employees about what they might tweet – good news about the company, interesting facts about what’s going on, what goals they are reaching, what successes they are having. Include a conversation about company privacy — the Private Self — e.g. no need to tweet the financial status of the company.

Embrace the idea that Twitter can get the message out there to a larger audience as well as increasing internal buy-in to strategic objectives, creating momentum, and improving employee engagement.

What strategies do you have around Twitter?

Emotional Intelligence and Our “Private Self”

August 14th, 2009

This weekend I went to see Julie & Julia. Loved it! It got me thinking about “The Feedback Self Disclosure Matrix,” a tool that can help all of us – particularly CEOs and senior managers – create deeper connections and better results in our businesses and with our teams.

This matrix is based on the foundations of the Johari Window model that was developed by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in the 1950s. The Matrix is comprised of four quadrants.

Each quadrant represents a part of our self, representing particular behaviours, feelings, motivations that are known by (self) and about the person (other).

At the bottom of the illustration you see how the four different quadrants of the ‘self’ can be altered in size reflecting the relevant proportions of each type of ‘knowledge’ of/about a particular person.

The four quadrants of our “Self” are Private, Public, Blind and Unknown.

The horizontal axis shows how much a person asks for & receives feedback.

The vertical axis measure the amount the person self-discloses & gives feedback.

This dynamic feedback model illustrates:

• People with high emotional intelligence (large ‘public self’ – orange box) ask for feedback, give feedback and self disclose often.  They have well-developed public personas.
• Those who are protected (large ‘private self’ – green box) keep ‘what they know about themselves’ private. These individuals rarely choose to self-disclose.  Their Private Selves are large, making it difficult for colleagues to comfortably collaborate and communicate with them. These individuals often control the flow of conversation by asking many questions. They rarely share their own experience. So, they don’t get much feedback so their Emotional Intelligence is suspect.
• Aggressive (large ‘blind self’ – yellow box) give plenty of feedback but don’t ask for it a lot – their Blind Selves dominate.  They aren’t as aware of themselves or environment. This hampers their ability to work collaboratively or take in feedback from others. They have a low level of Emotional Intelligence.
• The Well of Potential (large ‘unknown self’ – brown box) these folks neither ask for feedback, nor give much feedback – if they started to open up, they would experience a great deal of professional and personal growth because they would be developing their Emotional Intelligence.

After seeing Julie & Julia, my girlfriend left the theater inspired to do more cooking – I left with the realization that this blog is a perfect vehicle for me to self-disclose. I can decrease my ‘private self’ while increasing my ‘public self’. As I write this I realize that will take additional courage on my part – yikes. I’ll get feedback!

I’m rarely at a loss for words. I think nothing of standing in front of 500 people to lead a professional development seminar. But spilling my guts in front of a video camera to post a new blog is scary. I get the shakes even writing this!

Back to the movie …

Julie trembled in her boots as she blogged about her frustrations, joys and commitment to learn how to cook the Julia Child way. She opened her Private Self to make her experience more public. I connected with her more deeply because of it.

Executives with high emotional intelligence are better able to lead and motivate their people.

Sharing their Private Selves is an important behavior.  I realized that just standing up in front of a room and blogging are public activities, but it doesn’t automatically mean I’m revealing or connecting.

There is learning here for me, as there is for the CEO’s, sr. managers and executives that I work with.

Lets drop the hesitation. Pick-up a bit of courage. Boost our Emotional Intelligence. So, we’ll no longer miss an opportunity to gain more feedback and build deeper connections.

I’m committed to doing so – thanx Julie!

With time, courage, and your feedback, I’ll explore my Unknown Self, become more comfortable with my new Public Self, and get better results through improved Emotional Intelligence.

Are you comfortable sharing your Private Self in your business life? Think it might be important to develop your Emotional Intelligence? What do you think?
Download Feedback-Self Disclosure Matrix