Thursday 12 November 2015

Working out loud in a large organisation, and why it helps

A lot of people I know through work probably think I'm a little too open.

I am currently blogging every day. In fact, it was always my intention when I started Thought Of The Day four years ago to post something each morning, but like many things in my world, it ran out of steam.

My old boss used to say, 'Dominic the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. Bit harsh perhaps, but fair.

Anyway, back to working out loud.

In the last week I've had two work related conversations that have been informed and influenced by a colleague reading my blog.

Rather than undermining my credibility, or giving away too much of my inner feelings both conversations have helped open up the dialogue in a way that may not have happened naturally.

We're all extremely busy these days.

A colleague who recently rejoined Asda from another retailer having been away for seven years said although it felt like he'd never been away, he does remember actually having time to do things at the other place.

Busy fools we may be, but the pace and workload is unlikely to change significantly any time soon.

Hence making sharing what we are doing, describing what we are thinking and frankly articulating what is annoying us is no bad thing.

Ideally this would be done via an enterprise (internal) social network. But in lieu of that encouraging more people to share what they are up to and what they are doing should be encouraged.

Next week is International Working Out Loud Week, yes, there is such a thing.

I read how some advocates of this open way of working, have a webpage that they update each day which simply shares a version of their to do list.

My version is this thought of the day. I make no claim that it'll change the world, but if it keeps leading to interesting conversations then it is more than worth the effort.

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