Читать книгу The Communication Playbook - Teri Kwal Gamble - Страница 140

People become known for their interpersonal style—a consistent and preferred way of behaving. Figure 3.6 illustrates four representative interpersonal styles. Style A is characteristic of those of us who adopt a fairly impersonal approach to interpersonal relationships. Dominated by their unknown areas, these individuals usually withdraw from contacts, avoid personal disclosures or involvements, and thus project an image that is rigid, aloof, and uncommunicative. In Style B, the hidden area is the dominant pane. Here we find people who desire relationships but also greatly fear exposure and generally mistrust others. Once others become aware of the façade such people erect, they are likely to lose trust in them. Style C is dominated by the blind area. People with this style are overly confident of their own opinions and painfully unaware of how they affect or are perceived by others. Those who communicate with them often feel that their own ideas or beliefs are of little concern. In Style D, the open area is dominant. Relationships involve candor, openness, and sensitivity to the needs and insights of others.

Communication of any depth or significance is difficult if those involved have little open area in common. In any relationship you hope to sustain, your goal should be to increase the size of the open area while decreasing the size of the hidden, blind, and unknown areas. As human beings, we think about others and what they think about us. The question is whether we are able and willing to share what we are thinking.

Figure 3.6

Skill Builder

Symbolizing the Self

This exercise requires the selection of four objects. The first object you choose should reveal something about the way you see yourself, something you believe everyone recognizes about you. In other words, this object should represent an aspect of your open area. The second object you select should reveal something about you that up until now has resided in your hidden area. It could represent an attitude, feeling, desire, or fear that you were keeping from others but are now ready to move into the open area. Your third object choice should represent how you believe another person sees you. The last object is one you need to ask that other person to choose. This object should represent the person’s actual perception of you.

Assess the extent to which your perceptions of yourself and the other person’s perceptions either conflicted or coincided. How has each phase of this experience altered the appearance of your Johari window? Was any information moved from your blind area into the open area?