Sunday, May 24, 2015

Communication : Application of 'the Johari Window Concept" in Sales & Marketing - 1.


   Dear Reader,

In an earlier post ( Why a " Business Administration" Diploma is Important in a Sales Career), I had discussed about the Engineering Degree of 4 years and compared it to the MBA diploma of two years, and then tried to find the reason why a BE degree with a MBA diploma is starting to carry more weight with bosses and employers. This is because a vast majority of us engineers lack the ability to apply the skills learned as needed in a business, which is what all situations in life are. Some weaknesses of engineering courses is nothing is taught about planning, budgeting, managerial accounting, finance, leadership and motivation and many other things which helps us to view the world like Superman with his X-ray vision. Hence, the difference and I have to admit its justification. However, if you have some experience, you can study them and master them on your own. This will enable you to apply your business-targeted concepts as and when a situation arises for that. Of course, you won't have a diploma to frame, but then it is the knowledge which matters not the diploma. We will try to tackle a few business management concepts in this blog every now and then starting today with the Johari Window.

The Johari Window is a management tool which greatly helps in maximizing productivity in teamworking. It helps in showing to what extent is communication synchronized among the team members. Remember, very often team members may not have worked with each other before and a synchronization has to be built before performance starts. JW makes this evident to the members and specially to the team leader who has the responsibility to faciliate this within the shortest possible time. The name sounds exotic 'JOHARI window' but the word is merely the coalescing of the first names of its two inventors, JOseph Luft and HARIngton Ingham in 1955. Not very exotic in reality, ladies & gentlemen.



Let's devote a few lines on a very 'apparently' drab word which is 'communication'. Communication may be drab to you friends, but it is one of those unbreakable chains which have given us handholds along the road to civilization.Without communication, maybe we would have been alive today but not at the zenith of life forms where we are. Men have overcome the weakness of their puny bodies and the constraints of our inability for speed, lack of weapons like claws and talons, and inherent clumsiness by using our brains and forming groups, armies,cities. There is no point in using a pointed rock as a hunting tool if you can't show the advantage to others. As the cavemen found out and we have been communicating ever since, from cave drawings to satellite pictures of the universe. We have got rid of myths and superstition which would have pulled us backwards, only because of communication. Communication can be verbal or nonverbal, mime or playacting,even grunts and shrieks, but the world just cannot function without it.

The Johari Window as designed for checking team interpersonal relationships is shown below.





Picture Courtesy: Buttersworth-Heinemann



I feel that this blogpost has become too long to conclude in one post. Bear with me friends, and we will take up the concluding part in our next post.
Till then, its Ciao from 
Bilbo
Your freindly neighborhood blogging hobitt. 

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