This is a wonderful exercise that often generates rich personal insights; however, the insights it generates can be a bit confusing because of the three different meanings of the word “trust.” On the one hand, the trust-faller can be falling off the platform into the arms of three people who love her and have every good intention to look after her welfare. Unfortunately, they are the trust-fallers’ three young daughters who are not big enough or strong enough to catch her. The trust-faller would probably injure all three of them and herself if she fell backwards off the platform into their arms. The trust-faller trusts the intentions of her daughters, but not their competence.
Conversely, the trust-faller could be falling into the arms of three very strong and competent men. Unfortunately, these three catchers are all men who she rudely dropped during the courtship phase of her life. All three were emotionally wounded by her rejection and have vowed to take vengeance. They would love to see her fall backwards onto the ground, breaking her back (“that heartless #$&%@*#$@!!!!”). She trusts their competence but not their intentions.
There is a third alternative. The three gentlemen standing in front of the platform all come from a foreign country and are interested in studying the unusual behaviors of those who participate in “Ropes” programs. They look with great interest as the trust-faller plunges backwards onto the ground, with no one catching her. They help her up and wonder if she will attempt to perform this unusual, self-injuring ritual again. These foreign gentlemen are certainly capable of catching her and they wish her great success in her endeavor.
They simply have a different perspective and do not understand that they are supposed to catch her. Our trust-faller will appropriately refuse to fall backwards until these foreign gentlemen have been fully informed about the nature and purpose of the “trust fall.” Before she falls backwards, our trust-faller must trust the intentions, competencies and perspectives of anyone who is supposed to catch her. If she misses any of these three definitions or criteria of trust, she will end up with physical (and psychological) injury to herself and perhaps other participants in the trust-fall process.
We will turn to these three definitions of trust while describing the New Johari Window. One needs to know about the interpersonal intentions, competencies and perspectives of the person with which one is interacting when deciding whether or not, and how to expand or contract any of the panes of the Johari Window. We learn to trust another person and can, in this interpersonal context, find honesty. And in a setting of honesty, we find Ligato—the binding of two people to one another to form a productive, purposeful relationship that may be healing and filled with personal and interpersonal insights.
As already noted, the establishment of trust, honesty and Ligato is not easy. It involves something more that good intentions or something that is now often called “emotional intelligence” (Goleman, 1995). It involves the capacity to live with ambiguity and complexity in our own sense of self, and both complexity and ambivalence in our sense of another person and the best way in which to be of benefit to them. The New Johari Window addresses these challenges. We begin with the nature of what we know about ourself, based on how other people see us (quad two).
Opaque Rather Than Blind
The New Johari Window uses the word “opaque” rather than “blind” to label the second quadrant (Q2). While Joe Luft occasionally used the word “opaque” to describe Quad Two, we use this word instead of the word “blind” in most instances. The Q2 dynamics of opaque knowledge of self is an important theme and key concept in the new Johari Window. We are usually not “blind” to how other people see us; rather, this knowledge about other people’s perceptions of us is opaque—we can see the faint outline or shadow but not the clear detail. At some level we are very much aware of the potential—if not real—image that other people hold about us. That is why we get “defensive” when we are about to receive feedback. That’s why we brace ourselves. At some level, we believe that other people really do know us and know our secrets, our mistakes and our weaknesses.
