Remark at the
beginning: The original post in "Almuts Anekdoten" is in German and I did my best to make it
understandable to non-Germans here 😊.
In this episode I share personal experiences with the
self-learning method which shares its knowledge with others in circles. To
those who want to know hard facts and details about the new
„Working-out-loud“/WOL method may refer to the link below. This link is
especially for those who like it rather short and simple. All undecided people
should feel free to continue reading 😊..
Last week on Friday afternoon. Towards the end of our fifth global Skype telephone conference with 30 international participants of the WOL Mentorclass who are trained to be a WOL mentor:
It was deadly silent. Nobody was
writing something in the chat. Nobody says anything. It seems as if the world stands
still for a moment. John Stepper, who refined the WOL method which appeared by
Bryce Williams in 2010 with the explanation
Working Out Loud = Observable Work + Narrating Your
Work
and who is our trainer for this
period gives us an assignment which nobody expected in our group. Everybody has
to post something about the experience with WOL or the own goal he/she defined
during the sessions, ideally the text should cover about 500 words.
Immediately I remembered a scene
during an art lesson during my school time. Our teacher gave us the task to
draw a group of people sitting on their bicycles. We had no template or photo
for that (mobiles didn´t exist yet). First the whole class reacted with a
mixture of astonishment and silence. It seemed as if in their heads hundreds of
pinions were clattering: „I can´t do that…I´ve never drawn something like
that…will I succeed?...How does my bike looks like?“ The mixed feelings passed
fear of failure, resignation, desperation until one of the most courageous of
us outraged that this task would be too much. Most of the pupils won´t succeed
quite apart from the fact that the task to draw people is truly horrible.
I realize that maybe some of our Mentorclass seem to
have also these kind of filters in mind: „Did I ever do this in the past? Was
it well received by others? And proved very popular? Regarding my professional
context is it if at all reasonable to post such a theme? What will the people
say if I posted something like that? Am I good enough to phrase? Am I really
good enough? I am not an author and not an expert concerning that subject.
This
issue is adressed to John as a question
by one of our class. John repeats as in the sessions before that perfection isn´t
the aim for that assignment. At the same time we all know about the brilliant
posts of our management in our intranet and the perfect phrasings of our
communication department. It seems so easily written. Many see this as standard
yardstick.
Some of our group share their doubts what their direct
manager would think about them if they posted their personal view of this
training. In comparison to America the “show up yourself” isn´t common in
Germany, especially for the elder generation.
John liberates us from our
thinking carousel: “Your post may contain your comment which you would give to
a good friend of yours if you talk about WOL, absolutely personal.” Some of us
discuss if it makes sense to write only positive aspects. I think we are part
of a test program, a concept and role model for further WOL Mentorclass
Trainings. Let´s imagine a prototype: if you design something new, you
experience a lot of aspects in practice. Good ones and issues which might be/have
to be changed and aligned for future trainings.
There is no “wrong” but there are always possibilities
for improvement and need for honest feedback and trust. We have got a common
goal to spread WOL-circles. Everybody of our group already experienced this
process tool as a milestone in approaching problems, personal development and
thinking “out-of-the-box”, in creating new valuable relationships who will
probably last for the rest of our life.
Everybody of our group may spread the idea in his/her
own individual personal manner. John lives this values: use your means,
connections and tools you know and perhaps a way more you didn´t use before.
Even if you think that this means or tool doesn´t correspond to your talent. To
try something, collecting “WOW-effects” and to build trust for the next step.
In principle I experienced the reactions of our
Mentorclass as multi-facetted as during school time. The following filters
might accompany like shadows in our expectations and influence the perceived
scope of experience:
- Is it a challenge which I know from the past and which I already met?
- Did I succeed and what said/thought others about me? Were my efforts appreciated or did other laugh or criticize?
- Does I think deep in my intuition/heart that I can trust in my talent to face the task?
- If I never faced such a task how I should perform to fulfill it as perfect as possible?
- Even if I did it, xy would do it surely better than I would do.
- Don´t I have more
important things to do? These thoughts often lead to the all-known
procrastination. Any other issue and task suddenly seems to be better than to
cope with the challenge. Even polishing pots seems to be more comfortable.
· How
is my motivation to approach the task as a challenge. May I confirm:”It will be
done in some way,” or with my self-confidence:” I am confident that somebody
will like it.” ??
To be continued in part II “Out of your comfortzone”
