As executives, it is your duty to steer the company safely through ever-changing market conditions. As leaders, it is your responsibility to stimulate growth in your employees and help them develop their potential. The following article depicts a model to create effective, sustainable change in both individuals and organizational groups.

The Johari Window on team collaboration

In 1955, American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham introduced the Johari Window as result of their research on group dynamics. The four-quadrant model gives us orientation on how to collaborate better. Whilst known for its usage in teamwork, in this article, we want to take it a step further and apply the theory to an organizational level.

The Johari Window (adapted), tostep GmbH, 2023

The Quadrants

The quadrants vary in size and the aim is to increase quadrant 2 “the Arena” for a higher productivity, so that in your collaboration the common ground is wider, and trust is higher. When Q2 grows, one or more of the other quadrants shrinks in size. When we work together in a specific set up, over time we get to know each other better and Q2 increases naturally. You can speed up the trust building by sharing items from quadrant 4, “the Hidden Area” with your team. That happens when talking about your hobbies, family, dreams, ambitions.

Quadrant 3 “The unknown” contains things that are still to be discovered- either by yourself through reflection and deep insight, or through observation. In this area you benefit most from working with a coach.

Quadrant 1, the “blind spot”, contains elements that you are unaware of yourself, but others realized when interacting with you. You need feedback from others to make you aware of these blind spots and enable you to grow out of hindering patterns.

Effective change on organizational level

Now, let us move up one flight level from the team layer, and look at the collaboration between the different teams, units, or sites within an organization. We all know from experience that depending on where you are inside a company, the culture can feel very different. A prominent example is the cultural difference between the mother firm and the affiliates, but it also shows between departments- just think of Sales and Finance. People have other routines (e.g. when they break for lunch), the tone in their discussions differs (are they teasing or rather formal?), and they are living into other values (being pragmatic vs. being correct with each detail).

These subcultures are normal and aiming for one harmonized company culture results in business theater only (think back to the trending initiatives called 1-GM or 1-<fill-in-your-company-name-here> that were popular about 10 years ago).

On this higher flight level, what adds complexity is the fact that teams are not independent units, but that they operate within one company. Hence, identifying blind spots is impossible from any point inside the organization.

Addressing The Blind Spot

From time to time an organization is confronted with a problem that seems to be so stubborn and relentless, that all initiatives and ideas addressing it have failed so far. With high probability, there are hindering patterns in the company culture that the organization is not aware of, because they are in Q2- the Blind Spot.

An example for such a pattern are conflicting interests between departments, that result in heated arguments between the department heads. They do not dislike each other personally, it is the work design that creates tension and conflicts and needs to be fixed- a so called “deputy conflict”.

At this point, the company needs to rely on outside help: An external intervention is required to identify and point out the blockers for change. At tostep, we do this with a cultural analysis. When done properly, the result of the analysis is highly irritating, because we are bringing things into the open that have never been part of the official discussion, we are effectively breaking taboos. But once outspoken, the ghost cannot be put back into the bottle. This intervention is so powerful, that it sustainably changes the company’s culture and has the potential to break hindering patterns.

Irritation is helpful, because it wakes the brain from the autopilot that it normally is in and helps us see with fresh eyes what we considered normal. This may not feel comfortable, but to quote the brilliant Dr. Brené Brown: “If we are going to work to empower people and change systems, we must have uncomfortable conversations.”