The Delicate Link
By Adam Chan

Reliability

In summary, there are only two states to any interpersonal relationship, i.e.
good or bad. Clearly the feeling of good and bad can be felt by the involved parties easily even people
don’t verbalize them. What make it bad then? What are some unwanted
behaviors that will drive the project managers to the wall? Since the
frequent contacts between facilitators and project managers create tensions, it would be worthwhile to identify the trivial yet highly repetitive contacts that offer opportunities for such behaviors to breed. What can the project managers do about it? They can decide to address the unwanted behaviors or avoid the predicament all together.

When we need to make decisions, we can choose the right way or the easy way. Commitment will drive us to the right way but compliance will likely lead to the easy way. Confidence gives right whereas fear makes wrong. At the fundamental level, the facilitator tagging practice is about making decision. Once decided, the outcome will be shifted into the open quadrant of the Johari Windows. However, what goes into the decision is only known to the decision makers and sometimes the decision makers can even be oblivious because our sub conscious mind can profoundly influence the eventual outcome.

Regardless of pre-program preparation, program delivery or post program activities, all these work processes are fundamentally contact points between the facilitators and project managers, this delicate link is valuable as well as vulnerable. With a blink, the credibility of any facilitator can be easily lost. In reality, project managers don’t usually verbalize their preferences when tagging facilitators because it may be too complicated to elaborate to any facilitator without causing misunderstanding. Moreover, with the pace of things in FOCUS Adventure it is never conducive for such conversations to take place during the peak hours. At the end of the day, project managers will instinctively prefer to tag facilitators whom they deem reliable.

What goes into reliability? It is as simple as doing what was promised. Small well-meaning and consistent gestures go a long way in building reliability into the relationship. Exercising sensitivity to each other feelings during the contacts requires no monumental effort. Exhibiting respectful behaviors towards each other is as common as common sense to everyone. Although these are small behavioral efforts but it will give great mileage to the facilitators’ reliability. Most project managers may not demand top notched quality for every
program from the facilitators but they sure don’t expect to be left hanging to dry, all alone. By simply keeping to what was committed, the facilitators will certainly make good deposits into the emotional bank accounts of the project managers. In a nutshell, don’t “fly-aeroplane” the project managers.

Will facilitators develop PM-Phobia too? It is suffice to say that reliability is what facilitators look for in the project managers as well. Assuredly, facilitators will suffer from such phobia too.

Annex A

Johari Window

Johari Windows is a communication model that can be used to improve understanding between individuals within a team or in a group setting. Based on disclosure, selfdisclosure and feedback, the Johari Window can also be used to improve a group's relationship with other groups.

Developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (the word “Johari” comes from Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham), there are two key ideas behind the tool:

1. That individuals can build trust between themselves by disclosing information about themselves; and
2. That they can learn about themselves and come to terms with personal issues with the help of feedback from others.

By explaining the idea of the Johari Window to your team, you can help team members understand the value of self-disclosure, and gently encourage people to give and accept feedback. Done sensitively, this can help people build more-trusting relationships with one another, solve issues and work more effectively as a team.

Concept of Johari Windows

The Johari Window model consists of a foursquare grid. This is shown in the diagram below,



Using the Johari model, each person is represented by their own four-quadrant, or four-pane, window. Each of these contains and represents personal information - feelings, motivation, etc. - about the person, and shows whether the information is known or not known by themselves or other people.

The 1st quadrant - The open/free area is where information to known to everyone. It is useful to share information especially from the learning and developmental point of view.

The 2nd quadrant – The blind area is like any driver’s blind spot. The subject will not know about it until there is feedback bringing this blinded information into the open area.

The 3rd quadrant – The hidden area is only known to the subject but not others. Commonly when people rise to occasions, making remarkable achievements by exhibiting latent talents only known to the subject himself.

The 4th quadrant – The unknown area is any information that is still undiscovered. It can be viewed as potential.