Question

2. How can you use the "Arc of Distortion" and "Johari Window" concepts to help you improve your, and other's, communication on the job or elsewhere? Can you use these concepts to gain yourself a political advantage at work?

Answer 1

Communication is the most essential and considered an organization's lifeblood. Patrick Bird discusses ‘Arc of Distortion’ as the intention of the message sent by the sender and the impact of the message received by the receiver. The gap in between the sender and the receiver is the communication gap referred to as ‘noise’ or ‘interference’. This noise can change the meaning of the message of the sent resulting in a wrong message received by the receiver. The ‘Arc of Distortion’ concept aims to reduce this gap and improve the results by providing accurate communication through feedback. Feedback reduces the gap between the impact and intention through listening, questioning, check-in at intervals, reflection and summary. As a result of the ‘Arc of Distortion’ concept, the individual or team performance improves and the performance of the organization as a whole increase.
Harry Ingham and Joseph Luft developed the ‘Johari window’ model to enhance communication and understanding among the team or group members. The model aims to build self-awareness among the team members and enhance the perception of individuals on others or among the team members through feedback and socialization. The ‘Johari window’ model has four viewpoints – open area, hidden area, blind spot and unknown. The open area reflects information about the behavior, attitudes, feelings, emotions, views and skills of an individual. This is known to self and others and communication mainly occurs in this area. The hidden area is one where an individual knows his personal secrets and does not reveal to others. The blind spot is the area that others know about an individual but will be kept hidden from the individual. The unknown area is the area that neither the individual nor others have information. The ‘Johari window’ model aims to enhance communication by opening all the above viewpoints and moving as much information to the open area from the other three areas for efficient and effective communication among the team members.
Both ‘Johari window’ and ‘Arc of Distortion’ concepts aim at developing and enhancing the communication among the team members and empowering the team members to develop self-awareness. These two models are applied in a team to develop it into a self-managed team that becomes a competitive advantage for the entire organization in the future.