Toolkit series · episode 03
Johari Window
The classic Johari model as a product: the coachee selects adjectives, colleagues submit through a seven-day invitation link, and the window maps known, hidden, blind and unknown — without asking peers to join the platform.
For: Executive coaches and L&D leads who want 360-lite without a 360 project
Worked example: David Osei, newly promoted COO at Calder Logistics. Harbourlight Coaching.
Fictional composite for illustration. No real client data.
Walkthrough
David selects adjectives that describe him. From the result, the coach generates a single-use peer invitation. Colleagues submit on a page that shows only the task. After seven days the link dies. The window updates. Unknown is allowed to stay empty.
1 · Self selection
David works through the adjective set on his own. This is not a group icebreaker. It is a private pass.
- Doing this in a room of peers is theatre. Doing it alone is data.
- The hidden quadrant starts full. That is expected.
2 · Peer invitation
One link, seven days, no account. The recipient sees the adjective task and nothing else from the practice.
- Line managers will not create a login for ten minutes of work.
- Expiry is a feature. Stale perception is worse than none.
3 · The four panes
Open (both chose), hidden (he chose, they did not), blind (they chose, he did not), unknown (neither). Blind is the session. Unknown is not a failure.
- Blind items are hypotheses, not facts. Sample size is small on purpose.
- Do not fill unknown with guesses to make the 2×2 look complete.
Three insights
1
The hidden quadrant is a link
If colleagues have to speak in the room, you will get the polite version. A seven-day link gets the version they will type.
2
Unknown may stay unknown
A completed-looking window is often a coached one. Empty unknown is honest. It is also a reason to run a real 360 later, not to invent adjectives now.
3
This is not a 360
Johari is a self-awareness sitting. Full 360 with named rater groups lives on the engagement via Portraits. Do not stretch one into the other.
50-minute session
- 0′+10m
Purpose and consent
Who will be invited, what they will see, that comments are adjectives not prose.
- 10′+15m
Read the window
Start with open. Then one blind item he is willing to touch. Leave the rest.
- 25′+15m
One behaviour
Translate one blind item into a behaviour a peer would notice in 30 days.
- 40′+10m
Close the round
Decide whether to wait out the seven days or close early. Do not keep the link alive ‘just in case’.
Run Johari with a peer link
Professional includes the toolkit. 14-day trial, no card theatre.