How skills built in grassroots can power your own career

GROW2GLOW impacts careers – significantly: GROW2GLOW is a coaching community with the purpose to unleash women’s potential and to support their professional development. It was founded in 2016 by nine Siemens employees. Since then, hundreds of women have made use of the coaching offering which provides them with significant strength. For any organization, this is to be considered a remarkable activity, as well as an outstanding result for the coachees. However, this commitment also comes with significant effects for those who get involved. Susan Bregenzer , Katja Günzkofer , and Gerda-Marie Adenau – these three women offer three narratives around one initiative. All of them aimed at making an impression on the company which goes beyond their everyday routines. For all three of them, getting engaged in the grassroots initiative GROW2GLOW has turned into a milestone in their professional lives.

In the context of their involvement, their careers have changed. Let’s take a look at positive effects.

Three women, then and now: here’s an overview

Susan Bregenzer is one of them. She was among the founders back in 2016. In the preceding year, she had started out on training to become a coach. She decided she would like to share the expertise and strengths she garnered from this training with others – with the aim to unleash the untapped power of people and the organization. Today, Susan develops organizations and leads transformation projects for Siemens in Switzerland.

Katja Günzkofer had her first point of contact with GROW2GLOW as a coachee. Katja felt so inspired and encouraged by her coaching experience that she decided to become a coach herself. After successfully completing her certified coaching training, she joined GROW2GLOW as a coach. She aimed at sparking inspiration and empowerment in others as well. Today, Katja facilitates workshops and co-creation sessions to foster cultural change in the finance department at Siemens and to drive innovation at the interface of finance and industry.

And here is Gerda-Marie Adenau, Global Communication Manager for EHS. She joined the initiative in 2017. A single mother working full time, she takes a particular interest in the topic of working moms. It is in particular these women that she aims to support on their challenging paths. In December 2020, she took over the lead of GROW2GLOW; since then, she learned a lot about leading without formal authority. Today, she is recognized as anchorwoman for #womenempowerment, #womenleadership and the special situation of women in the context of #agediversity.

The community sustains its members – like a family will

GROW2GLOW provides an attractive space to individuals who would like to change things actively, and who wish to learn a lot as they go along. This is the key approach: giving and taking within the network.

In lieu of a hierarchy, collaboration is the order of the day here. Everyone interacts with everybody else and feels in safe hands within the network. Katja explains: “Connecting and interacting is highly dynamic, and provides a unique source for competence and inspiration.”

Susan tells the anecdote about one piece of information missing for her talk on Ownership Culture at the Trendforum Führung, a high-level event organized by the German Federal Labor Agency. “In my distress, I called a GROW2GLOW colleague. She immediately provided me the contact of the right person within her network – and voilà, within a few minutes I got what I needed. Within our community, I asked my question – and I profited from the manifold connections of each of us. In contrast – in a hierarchical organization working the information paths up and down the hierarchy, I would never have been able to achieve my goal in this short time.” This anecdote goes to show how small cross-collaborative units such as grassroots initiatives can develop as models for large-scale trends in large corporations, and demonstrate their viability in every-day routine. “This way of working together was what I longed for, and it showed me a realistic path for the future of the whole organization.” Everyone can profit from the network and its diversity.

Our community brings together so many unique people and skills – agile methods, conflict management, holacracy, systemic, co-active, neuro- and many more approaches to coaching.

The entire methodology toolbox of new techniques for open, respectful and fast collaboration and interaction - all pooled in GROW2GLOW.?

What to learn within GROW2GLOW?

These are some good selected examples: integrating your own skills in self-organizing structures is one valuable aspect. And here’s more – building the willingness to take on responsibility, managing yourself regarding your energies and focuses. This is also about availing yourself of the opportunity to experiment with the potentials of your unused skills, and to test new things. In the case of Gerda-Marie, as an example, activities quickly went beyond coaching: “Writing and storytelling count among my further passions besides coaching.” therefore, she took on the editorial tasks for the LinkedIn channel. “I tested, I experimented, and I learned from setbacks. Today, our community encompasses more than 10.000 followers, and our engagement rate is way beyond average.” The editorial team has grown extensively in the meantime.

Gerda-Marie:

“Whoever gets engaged with us can count on a perspective for personal development, and on acquiring new skills in a safe space.”

GROW2GLOW paved the way for working in transformed business eco-systems

For women engaged in this #grassroots initiative, this commitment came with a significant impact on their careers.

For Katja, GROW2GLOW gave her the opportunity to introduce self-organization in her corporate finance world. She initiated a global change community with over 80 voluntary members worldwide where people with different personal and organizational backgrounds can connect, exchange, and create together changes for the organization.

She has made it her mission to create special places in her organization where people feel safe, inspired, and encouraged so that they can actively shape innovation across department boundaries. Katja explains, "I enjoy seeing people shine and being proud of their own accomplishments.”.

Based on her activities within GROW2GLOW, Susan built her development towards becoming a Transformation Manager and Organizational Developer.

“I finally found myself able to use my skills and my built-up competence to co-create an environment of respectful collaboration that positively impacts wellbeing and productivity in the organizations I work with. Thanks to my experiences within GROW2GLOW, I was able to grow and take on responsibility for such a role.”

According to Susan, this personal growth would never have been possible without the space for experimentation provided by the initiative. “GROW2GLOW is a kind of ‘safe space’ in which we live and work the way we aspire to. And this allows us to develop the strength based on which a new work climate for the entire organization can come into existence.”

It is not only the members and the coachees who profit; the entire corporation draws benefits from these effects. When, back in 2021, Chief People & Sustainability Officer Judith Wiese came up with the idea of a company-wide 1:1 peer coaching, the hour struck for our networkers. Gerda-Marie and Birgit Eckart created MyGrowth Coaching – a self-organized, purpose-driven company initiative to support people at Siemens, regardless of their gender, to take responsibility for their employability. They brought in the necessary expertise, and the necessary number of coaches to run the pilot project were quickly identified.

And here’s the key takeaway: when you get engaged in grassroots, you will profit personally and business-wise. So will everyone else, including the organization you work for in your daily job. It takes only a little energy and motivation to start!