The repertory grid in action: How to use it as a self‐insight exercise

Whenever you want to give someone feedback about how you perceive them or, get feedback about how they perceive you you can use the Repertory Grid Technique (Repgrid). This article will show you how to use the Repgrid to generate feedback amongst the members of a group. This could be useful on many occasions. For example I have used it to surface interpersonal issues amongst project teams of various kinds and with groups where differences of opinion were impairing their performance. In this article I shall concentrate on describing the way I use the Repgrid as a self‐insight exercise halfway through an interactive skills course. The aims of the exercise are • To give each course member feedback about how others perceive them so that they can build on strengths and overcome weaknesses during the second half of the course. • To give each course member some insight into what they notice about other people and how it fits in with the conclusions they reach about them. The idea is to jolt them into being both more observant and careful in reaching conclusions about people. The whole exercise takes about half a day, but that includes some group work as you will see, and could be adapted for use on any programme where issues to do with behaviour, feelings, attitudes and perceptions are high on the agenda.