The end of a journey is also the start of a new journey

This blog post is my last entry on my second circle. The second circle has brought me a long way in my personal development and has shown me once again the strength of the WoL elements “Relationship, generosity, visible work, purposeful discovery and a growth mindset”. Week 11 and Week 12 have been a wonderful summary of the entire second circle. Thanks to Anne and Nancy for making this wonderful, inspiring and bonding circle possible. You are truly amazing people and have become friends in a very short period of time, even though we have only met virtually.

#WOL Circles in Week 11a, 11b and 12

Week 11 of the WoL methodology is all about finding your tribes and considering the possibility to become a tribe leader yourself. I am, personally, not a big fan of the word leader of a tribe (maybe we can find a better word @John Stepper). But more on this later in the blog.

Back to Week 11. We met up and discussed the tribes we are following. In union, all of us realised how hard it was for us to find tribes we were following and / or participating in. This experience was a resemblance of my first circle. But rather then dwelling on the fact and trying to find more tribes I would suggest to you to focus on those tribes which you follow or participate in with your entire energy. For me it is more about the quality than the quantity.

In Week 11 were largely discussing our progress with our goals, how they were adjusted within the last 11 weeks and what we were planning for the post circle time. This discussion was very rewarding and everyone was sparked by the generosity one other showed for the progress of the other. As we were not able to consider all the tasks, we decided to split Week 11 into two sessions. 11a and 11b. I strongly belief that the flexibility of the group is one key success factor for completing a circle.

Yesterday we completed Week 12 by cooking together and celebrating our journey with wine and beer. I guess pictures tell more than a thousand words.

Misconception on WoL and why many circles fail

I participate in a meetup recently on the topic of "What does the new future need" with Kristian Gründling a speaker. One statement by Kristian perfectly illustrates the challenges and potential shortfalls of a WoL circle: “Methods are secondary. The attitude of the participants are key”. #Workingoutloud is a great methodology to create change within companies, organisations and people. However, as always in life, change is hard and takes time. So, in order for a WoL circle to be successful, one needs to conduct expectation management upfront. If you belief that you spent maybe 30 minutes a week on your goal and within two or three weeks success materialises, you should not waste your time with #workingoutloud.

For me the following ingredients (picking up on cooking yesterday) are key to make a circle successful:

• Start with the right level of expectation
• Inform yourself about what WoL is and what it is not. WoL is not a match for everyone.
•  Be persistent and do not quite if it gets tough. Rather communicate with your team and ask each other what the group needs.
• Be flexible: if you need to postpone a WoL Week, that is not critical. It is rather normal that you do not finish a circle within 12 weeks.
• Make sure you have a facilitator who steers you through rough sea. It is helpful to have a facilitator who has already completed a circle and knows which challenges to expect.
• Be agile: The guideline for the Week is just a guideline. Contemplate within the team what is good for you and where you want to focus on.
• Be open and follow the “Las Vegas principle”: for a circle to be successful all members need to trust each other 100%. If there is no trust in the circle the circle will be less successful or will fail.
• Ask for help as a team: If you have WoL mentors in your company and you face serious problems in your circle: Decide as a team if you want to make use of the WoL mentor. He/she might be able to bring you back on track. However, as stated above, this decision to incorporate a moderator, needs to be decided unanimously.

What is your take on my success factors? Anything you would love to add?

“My” tribe and how the WoL Cicrle sparked the idea for Boschler4Boschler

Within my last blog John contemplated what my tribe would be in Week 11. As stated above I found it hard to find the “one” tribe. Instead, I would say that #workingoutloud and becoming more aware about great initiatives in other companies, sparked the creation of “my” own tribe. After listening to a Podcast “The entire company in Home Office” with the HR lead of SAP in Germany Cawa Younosi, I started an exchange with Anja Sprecher, a fellow colleague at the Corporate IT at Bosch.

The idea of SAP: SAP colleagues volunteer to support colleagues at SAP by giving sessions to SAP Kids to help parents with the challenging task of juggling kids, jobs, household and home schooling. Based on the idea I thought: This is a way I could seriously make a difference and help colleagues and parents. Do we have something similar in place at Bosch?

Boschler4Boschler: The last three weeks

As no such initiative (at least in the intended form for was taking place) Anja and myself decided that the noble course of this initiative was worthwhile to invest our time. We created a pitch slide deck, spread the word within our networks (#strongertogether#workingoutloud#visiblework) and managed to secure the support of a leading management employee within two weeks. Florian was so kind to promote our initiative within Bosch as well as on LinkedIn and the amazing response enabled us to conduct a virtual meetup last weekend with more than 20 co-creators. And we did it: we conducted our first session on intrinsic motivation yesterday ?? I am very confident many more will follow. So yes, John I have become part of a tribe. However, as stated above, I do not see myself as a tribe leader. Following my personal values as well as the principles of the scrum methodology I rather see myself as a servant leader, a co-creator or a part of something bigger. The initiative is only working because we have managed to motivate and spark fellow co-creators. YOU ARE AWESOME. I am proud to be part of a group of highly dedicated and motivated people.

The sketch note by Fabian Sasse is just one example of what happens if people work together to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

#StrongerTogether#learningformeachother#outsideyourcomfortzonelearningbegins

So, I would suggest to change the term from tribe leader to tribe co-creator or tribe servant leader @John Stepper.

What to expect in the next blog post

In the next blog I will inform you about the progress of the initiative Boschler4Boschler and my journey towards the next WoL circle.

Stay healthy and keep up your spirits.

Best regards

Michael