My Top 10 “Moments of Truth” Working Out Loud processes

A “moment of truth” per Jan Carlzon (former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines) is each time a customer comes into contact with your organisation and how that interaction goes has a significant impact on that customer’s relationship with your organisation. These interactions may be human or digital.

I am currently in week 9 “Explore more original contributions” of my 5th Working Out Loud circle and for the “My Top 10” exercise, I decided to document my top 10 moments of truth for a WOL Circle facilitator and their circle members.

As part of my response to the exercise, I also decided to include references to virtual teams which is the subject of my circle goal given that each of the circles I have been in and facilitated to date have been virtual.

I have yet to facilitate a circle where all members have done a circle before. Therefore, I am always keen to stay pure to the WOL Circle ethos and circle guides so that people get a faithful experience of being part of a WOL circle.

I am also keen as a facilitator to make sure that the admin of running a circle for the members of a circle is painless so that they can concentrate on simply doing the work of being in a circle.

The overarching framework of my moments of truth is based on my view of the life cycle of a circle.

… and so on to my list of processes …

1. Decide to facilitate or do a WOL circle
1. If you have never done a circle before, discover what they are and the benefits that they bring then decide whether to do a circle or not.
2. Or, if you have done a circle before,  you get to the point where you decide to do another one.
3. Decide your preference for a physical or virtual circle and your preferred timing.
4. Decide what tools you will use for collaborating during the circle and, if virtual, what video calling service you will use.
2. Invite people to join your circle
1. Produce a blog post or other communication explaining WOL Circles and inviting people to join you including any thoughts you have on timing and tools. This is one of my examples: “Invitation to join a 12-week virtual Working Out Loud circle in September 2017”: http://srjf.blogspot.com/2017/08/invitation-to-join-12-week-virtual.html
2. Post that communication wherever you feel comfortable (e.g. link on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc) and also invite specific people directly.
3. More info on this process in my blog post "Considerations when Recruiting for a Working Out Loud Circle": http://srjf.blogspot.com/2017/11/considerations-when-recruiting-for.html
3. Review invitation responses
1. Collate responses from those who respond “yes”.
2. Address questions from people who are interested in joining you.
3. You may need to loop back to do more of 2 above to get your 4 other people.
4. Agree a day of week and time slot for the 12 weeks of the circle. This can be very problematic if you have multiple time zones involved and clock changes also. I recommend using a service such as https://www.timeanddate.com to understand the times in each part of the world for all your circle members.
5. Issue invitation to your circle for your Week 0 circle call after determining as far as you are able that the people are committed to the circle.
4. Hold your Week 0 circle call/meeting
1. Prior to the meeting issue a briefing note that contains instructions for your circle members e.g.
1. Pre the Call
1. read the Week 0 circle guide: https://goo.gl/BNvUW
2. read this blogpost on the emerging WOL circle best practice of having a week 0 call: https://goo.gl/6wfyG
3. list out anything you want to discuss/ask in the call
4. explain where the circle will take place physically or virtually (including any call joining instructions)
5. For an example of a Week 0 Briefing Note, see the one I issued to Circle M running on Workplace by Facebook in Q1 2019: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sKgegRBD5bA2LjXl5dxyiossDWskFFdPuP1hsxIansE/edit?usp=sharing
2.   Agenda for the circle meeting/call
1. get to know each other (free for all, no script, whatever you want to say about yourself) - 30 min
2. what would be a successful 12 weeks for you (including any questions/ concerns etc you may have) - the attached table may help in the call - 15 mins
3. suggested approach to the work and the circle calls including posting content in the spirit of WOL incl discussion about recording the calls, who wants to facilitate 1 or more of the calls - 10 mins
4. agreement on what we will do between this call and next week's Week 1 call - 5 mins
2. A key thing to agree in the Week 0 call is the pattern of your circle in terms of when will your circle do the exercises (e.g. during the call, prior to the call, a bit of both). The pattern that works for me is that Week 1 starts at the end of the Week 0 call. We do the Week 1 circle guide exercises that week and the Week 1 call ends Week 1 as we discuss our outputs and so on each week.
3. Facilitate the call using the agenda in the briefing note
5. For each circle call for weeks 1 to 12, issue a briefing note
1. As soon after the prior call as possible, issue a briefing note (including the circle guide) for the next call with any admin info for the call.
2. An example of a briefing note that I issued for my current circle (Circle M) is this Week 6 one: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NTJUtKgbZ905SXuDpt0UMXcmVJvlOpFTLIrJLgJPkDM/edit?usp=sharing
3. The circle does the exercises on their own and ideally posts their responses for the rest of the circle to review prior to the call
4. An example of one of my completed “What I did this week” documents is this Week 6 one in response to the briefing note above: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wvtXqc845ugDFceRWKpLh7nHQwPefU8exZoJuXm3JFc/edit?usp=sharing
6. For each circle call for weeks 1 to 12, facilitate the call using the agenda in the briefing note
1. A key challenge is time.
2. Try as far as possible to share the air time equally for each member but flex that appropriately for a particular meeting if one of the group has some challenges or needs support etc.
3. Where topics are raised that are not directly related to that week’s content, decide whether that is worth continuing.
4. Try to cover all the content as mandated in the circle guide.
5. Encourage discussion and questions from all in the circle and not just driving the call as a facilitator.
7. Encourage your circle to work out loud
1. It is really easy to be part of a working out loud circle and not work out loud to any extent. Ideally, part of doing a WOL circle is to learn and practice actually working out loud. The circle guide exercises encourage you to do that.
2. Leading by example and working out loud yourself is a great way to do this and showing examples during your circle.
8. Addressing problems or issues in the group
1. I have limited experience of this.
2. In one example, I sought guidance and counsel from others in the circle, from people in other related circles as well as John Stepper.
3. Some facilitators of circles do so in the context of an organisation with coaches and mentors and clearly consulting those specialists would be a helpful way of getting advice as and when issues arise.
9. Developing additional learning relationships with specific members of your circle
1. Working closely with 4 fellow professionals means that you have an amazing opportunity to do other learning-related things with people in your circle.
2. Someone may mention something that you want to explore with them. Ask if they could explain further with you in a specific call.
3. Someone may ask you to explain what you are doing as your circle goal or want to go into more detail and ask you to do so in a specific call.
10. Closing a 12-week circle
1. This is covered well in the Week 12 circle guide.
2. It would be great if your circle gave each other feedback on their circle experience compared to their expectation at the start of the circle. I use a questionnaire for getting feedback. This is an example I used when I facilitated a super-circle of 3 circles when we used Workplace by Facebook for the first time:
3. Other things to cover would include:-
1. What plans does each person have moving on from the circle?
2. What plans does each person have to do another circle or more circles after this one?

See below video of me thinking out loud on this subject prior to doing this blog post.

Happy to take any feedback, questions etc on this blog post.