Post Background
This post documents material I prepared for a 1:1 chat with the HR Manager at my employer last week. This was effectively supporting notes for a conversation in which my objective was to get WOL Circles onto the agenda for consideration as a way of developing new employees into the company I work for.Business Context
The company I work for - Claritas Solutions - delivers internet-based/hosted solutions for highly secure systems used by well-known organisations across the UK in the public, private and third sectors.There are 30 of us in a variety of technical/network infrastructure, development, project management, consultancy, technical/application support/help desk, business development, account management and sales support. All staff are security-cleared by the UK police to a very high level.
It is our 20th anniversary at the end of this month.
Recently we have taken on 8 new starters across the technical teams in the company. They are all in their 20s in the early stage of their IT careers.
Why am I Pitching?
I was not planning to! WOL circles and my workplace were discussed in a recent weekly call of the Designing Your Life virtual book club I am facilitating. I stated where I was at with this effectively saying then that I was not up for it. After the call, I got this Slack message from Sonsoles (we were in our 1st WOL circle together and she (and Monette from that circle) are also part of the book club:-
I did some more thinking after yesterday's call. How about choosing 4 or 5 colleagues from Claritas with you have good contact and who are either up to date with tech or ready to get there and start a wol circle? You would have a pilot of what it is to collaborate differently within Claritas, and you would have 5 friends who could become change agents together with you. If you were to redesign your job and become 'x of (digital) collaboration’, you would have 5 people on board. Your inner role would be that of 'teacher' and your colleagues your supportive change agents. In that way you could build a nice case to present to your boss. …I gave a holding response saying I had seen her comment and would think about it before the next call.
Over the following week, I had an emerging realisation that this would be ideal for our new starters if they wanted to be involved.
Another success for Sonsoles’ lengthening “Nudging Simon” list!
Prep-ing
I had a quick chat with our HR guy to set a meeting up then rapidly prep-ed a doc to support our conversation.The Pitch
I produced a Word doc collating publicly-available information on WOL circles as well as my best shot to pitch this for my organisation.The following is the content of that document. This was basically a one-pass collation and personal brainstorm exercise.
1. Initial Question
- What are we doing re induction of new starters?
- Who counts as a new starter?
2. Proposal
Suggested opt-in Working Out Loud in a Circle programme
for any of them who want to do this:-
Overview (see Getting Started)
2.1: WOL Definition
Brief:-
In short, you can think of Working Out Loud as “Dale Carnegie meets the Internet.” It combines the conventional wisdom about relationships with the convenience and power of tools and practices we see every day on the Internet.
Longer:-
Working Out Loud is an approach to building relationships that can help you in some way. It’s a practice that combines conventional wisdom about relationships with modern ways to reach and engage people.
Instead of networking to get something, you lead with generosity, investing in relationships that give you access to other people, knowledge, and possibilities. Part of the process is learning ways to make your work visible and frame it as a contribution. Combined, these elements form a powerful approach to work and life.
When you Work Out Loud, you feel good and empowered at the same time because the practice taps into your intrinsic needs for autonomy, mastery, and purpose. As people across an organization Work Out Loud, work becomes more effective and fulfilling, and the culture becomes more open and collaborative.00
2.2: WOL Circle
1. 5 people meeting together physically or virtually or
hybrid
2. 12 x 1 hour group face-to-face meetings each week for
12 weeks as a group in office time
3. 2 hours solo “homework” each week in office time on
their own plus whatever else they want to do in their own
time
4. Helps put these ideas into
practice
5. Peer support
6. Builds relationships related to a circle member’s
personal goal
7. Practical exercises
that:-
a. help participants make
connections
b. unlock access to expertise and
ideas
c. create more opportunities.
8. By the end of the 12 weeks each participant will
have:-
a. developed a larger, more diverse network that’s related
to their goal - a set of relationships that
matter
b. developed habits and a mindset that they can apply
towards any goal.
9. Structured content available off the shelf for free for
the 12 circle meetings:-
· Get to know the others in circle
· Choose goal (can evolve over 1st few weeks)
· Who can help with your goal
· Simple contributions to people on your
list
· Review diary to add times for this
· Add to relationship list
· Practice empathy in making a contribution - not just a
standard response, make it personal
· List things about you that you may think are
unimportant to others
· How do these help you make
connections
· You cannot be discovered if you are invisible - review
your online presence
· Letter from your future self
· Articulating a future vision helps it become a
reality
· Identifying contributions
· Manage your relationship list
· Make more of your work and thinking
visible
· Things to make this habitual
· Think more broadly about your network and your role in
it
· End of one process, beginning of the next
possibly
· Contributions to yourself
· What has changed for you
10. As well as doing that content which includes exercises,
participants will work on a personal or a work-related goal (Claritas do not set
or agree this):-
a. Something you are passionate
about
b. Something you can make progress on in 12
weeks
c. Something that cannot be done on your own (e.g. losing
weight, doing a course)
d. Something that is a developmental goal
11. Circles can run in any of the following
ways:-
a. Within one
organisation
b. Across organisations
c. In real life
d. Virtually
e. With people you kno
f. With complete strangers
12. Organisations have started using Circles to onboard new starters (source)
2.3: Benefits to the New Starters and to Claritas
- Work together as a group developing their relationships across the teams
- (Further) develop digital working skills
- Make progress on a personal goal
- Understand the possibilities of what digital can do to a greater extent than today
- Develops staff skills cheaply
- Staff not just left to it as individuals in their teams
- Introduces up-to-the-minute social learning best practice
- Makes them more flexible in their thinking and outlook
- May be staging point to us getting an Enterprise Social Network
- Tools us up in area that our clients are already using (eg prospect’s use of Jive)
2.4: Why Me?
- Did a 5 country/timezone virtual circle in Q1 using
Zoom/Slack with complete strangers
- Involved in review of the latest set of circle guides
- Passionate advocate for WOL circles
- Co-hosted a recent ESNchat on Twitter based in the
States but global
- Organised a 24 hour Twitter chat marking International Working Out Loud Week in June
- Known by John Stepper (who wrote the WOL book) and had a
con call with him at his request re our respective
careers/passions
- Active member/ contributor of WOL Facebook Group
- Active contributor/ responder to #WOL tweets
- Done 21 MOOCs (online courses) in past 4 years so intimately familiar with learning online
- Extensive body of WOL-related content published on the web with loads produced when I did my 1st circle, including templates.
- Actively coaching people who are in circles or are thinking about doing circles.
- Now using Zoom/Slack skills to run a virtual book
club which includes 2 ladies from the circle we did together earlier this
year.
2.5: Digital Working
Working out loud.
Of all the digital skills that workers should be developing now, perhaps the one that most naturally is an onramp to most of the others and leads to both positive outcomes and compelling emergent results is the act of working out loud (WOL) in digital channels. John Stepper’s Working Out Loud book and his push for organizations to create WOL circles to build skills around the technique is probably the best place to start. My industry colleague Michelle Ockers recently posted some fascinating insights into how WOL can work with actual results from a large organization. In short, working out loud will develop vital network leadership skills, cultivate social capital, and produce higher level of knowledge sharing, collaboration, and institutional knowledge, to name just a few of the benefits by virtue of simple and straightforward daily activities in the ESN.
(Source: Dion Hinchcliffe)
2.6: Working Out Loud /
Show Your Work
- This is increasingly common as people show their work internally on physical walls or on social networks within an organisation or publicly on global social networks
- Examples:-
- #wol on Twitter
- Helen Blunden (Snapchat stories uploaded to YouTube)
- Michelle Ockers (Snapchat stories) - Michelle got me into all this just over a year ago
2.7: Who does Working Out Loud in Circles?
2.7.1 Countries
2.7.2 Age
2.7.3 Numbers having done a Circle
There’s one more thing I’d like to know but can’t: How many people have experienced a WOL Circle?The reason I can't figure this out is that, as I alluded to earlier, most Circles are inside companies, and most companies put the free guides on their intranet or work with me to create custom versions. So while I can track downloads from workingoutloud.com, it’s a fraction of the total. My guess is that approximately 10,000 people have joined a Circle.My takeaway from all this data is that Working Out Loud is gradually spreading, reaching more people in more places. It’s a good start, and yet there’s a lot to do to make the kind of difference we want to make.
(from a John Stepper blog post)
2.8: Other resources
Next Steps
What do you think?
How
many would classify as “new starters”?
Assuming
this is a good/ great idea,
Next Steps:-
- To pitch to Directors?
- How?
- When?
- To pitch to Line Managers?
- How?
- When?
- Relationship with other L&D activities the guys are doing?
- Reporting from me and the new starters to anyone while we do this?
- Have they all got laptops?
- Need to think about Summer Holidays (I am out for 2 weeks)
- Timings
- Lunch in week 12?
After the Pitch
The above content in a printed Word doc was left with the other person and I await a response.
More than happy to take any feedback or questions on this content especially if there are ways you think this pitch could be improved for any next time.
Also happy for anyone to use any of this content for their own use.
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