Cornelia Heinke likes to be called Conny and has been facilitating John Stepper’s working out loud circles in her organisation. Conny is responsible for agility and community management for the Division Automotive Aftermarket at Bosch. Conny shares her story of how working out loud enabled her to start a conversation to manage her workload.

What benefits do you see from your practices of working out loud?

Working Out Loud helps us to reach our targets faster and with better results. In huge organisations, it stops silo thinking.

It shows us that we needn’t spend that much money on training courses, but instead we can experience the power of peer feedback.  As a side effect, it helps us to learn how to use our ESN.

What challenges do you have to manage in working out loud?

As a facilitator of several circles, I sometimes forget to work on my own target. I’m that much focused on the circle members that I forget that I’m also a circle member.

After 5-6 weeks some of my circles tend to get away from the circle guides. Still the weekly meetings are great, they are really good sessions, Motivation for all of us. So I’m not really sure if I should force the circle to focus more on the circle guides or not.

What’s the most unusual thing you have worked out loud on?

The most unusual thing for me was to confess that I’m not able to fulfill my job anymore because the workload was too much. Being a communication manager for trade marketing as well as being responsible for agility and community management for a worldwide division is not healthy for me. But I was afraid I could be considered to be not competent and maybe not the right person for the job. And then I remembered the book Winning with Accountability, where I once read that companies tend to overload good associates. So I thought I have to work out loud on this issue before I get sick seriously.

Working out loud as a facilitator gives back so much energy, that I won’t miss it anymore. I already met so many interesting people worldwide within our company and also outside due to my external circles. That’s more than great. You should really experience it yourself ☺