It is the same with feedback and the double paned Johari Window. Feedback we receive from other people regarding those aspects of ourselves about which we are truly ignorant (Quad 2-E) encourages our own self-insights regarding information about ourselves that we know at some level but block off from self-awareness (Quad 2-I). A man with whom one of us [WB] works (we will call him Harold), for instance, did not realize that he tends to patronize and act in a condescending manner toward younger women with whom he works. One of his colleagues provided him with feedback about shifts in his tone of voice and rate of speech when working with younger women (Quad 2-E to Quad 1-E). Harold’s voice goes up and he begins to speak slower, which can easily be interpreted as Harold being condescending to and irritated with his younger female colleague.
When Harold received this feedback, he not only took it to heart, but also to consciousness (Quad 1-E). He became fully aware of his own lingering sense that he appeared to be irritated with virtually all the women with whom he works. With the help of his coach, Harold explored the reasons for this irritation and discovered that the real issue concerned a lingering sense that he was somehow “responsible” for the success of these women. He wanted them to succeed because he thought that women had every right to be in the workplace. He laid too much responsibility on his own shoulders for making this happen and, as a result, was resentful and, frankly, patronizing. Harold’s support for women’s rights had backfired and he only began to relate his inadvertent self (Quad 1-E) with his ignorant self (Quad 2-E) after receiving the feedback.
Control and Destiny
In general, we don’t like to link together our internal and external panes. On the one hand, we don’t want to acknowledge that some things are out of our control. We want to believe that we oversee our own self—if not the world around us. It is not just (as Joe Luft noted) that we don’t want to believe other people know things about ourselves that we don’t know (Quad Two). It is also that we don’t want to believe that there are aspects of our public (Quad One) and private self (Quad Three), as well as our potential self (Quad Four), that resides outside our control and even our awareness. We are always tempted to move from external to internal locus so that we can perpetuate a personal myth that we are captains of our psychic ship.
We don’t want to believe that there are powerful external forces operating in our lives – that we might even have a destiny. We run away from that which we are “called” to do by events in the world and by settings in which we find ourselves (or in which we have placed ourselves). Abraham Maslow’s (1968) Jonah Complex vividly and metaphorically describes this condition. Johan runs away from his destiny (external locus), but ends up vomited out on a beach, gasping for air, having resided in the belly of a whale. In many ways this “belly of the whale” relates to the transitional process (called the “neutral zone”) that William Bridges (1980, 2001) describes in vivid detail in his books about managing personal and organizational transitions. The whale has brought Jonah back home to face his destiny. It is in the belly of the whale that Jonah’s transition occurs. And it is in the whale’s belly that a “teachable” (and “coachable”) moment has arrived for Jonah. This is his “moment of truth”. These moments can be teachable and coachable for each of us.
