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Working Out Loud and Community Management

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Note: This post was originally published here. 

Working out loud (WOL) is essentially any behavior where you share your work transparently with a network of people.

That network can be as small as a work team and as large as the Intranet. From my perspective, it is the act of sharing done with the intent of soliciting feedback, providing value to others, or building relationships with people beyond your current network.

My work out loud journey started in January of 2008 with my first work-related blog,The Social Organization. Initially, I wrote mostly for myself, to work through my thoughts. I soon found that it, combined with Twitter, was the best way to find people who cared about the same things I did, which allowed me to build a strategic network that made me smarter, supported my work, and enabled my success. I would never have started The Community Roundtable without first having that blog.

Like my experience working out loud, it can be done in many places and it doesn’t need to happen in within the boundaries of a community. However, I would argue that it is much more effective when it is done within a community.

Communities create a shared context and, when done well, increase the level of trust between members. That increases a few critical things:

  • Relevancy and resonance of what is shared
  • Likelihood and quality of validation and feedback
  • Percent of people who feel comfortable sharing
  • Complexity or ambiguity of what is shared

Because of this, great communities create spaces where deep conversation and innovation happen – or in business terms, it increases the value generated from working out loud.

So what is the role of the community manager in working out loud?

Simon Terry said it quite succinctly: community managers are the architects and agents of strategic value. They ensure working out loud is easy to do and is rewarded with peer recognition and response. That sounds easier than it is in practice but it is the role of community management in a nutshell.

Why is this so complex to actually do? Because it requires:

  • Developing a shared purpose and value that is compelling and attracts people aligned with that purpose
  • Ensuring people are welcomed and acclimated into the community
  • Developing both value-gained and value-added ways for members with different personality types to participate
  • Creating strategic triggers that ask people to engage in ways that are just a little more involved than they do already – moving them up the engagement and trust curve
  • Measuring the breadth and depth of behaviors across the community and adjusting or realigning the approach as behaviors change, the culture of the community matures, and the purpose of the community evolves
  • Developing peer leaders as advocates for different stakeholder perspectives
  • Moderating and modeling the language of engagement to ensure people feel supported, even when they are challenged
  • Ensuring the community sponsor or host understands and realizes the value of the community’s outputs
  • Managing platforms and channels to align with strategic goals and member needs, to make key behaviors as easy as possible to do

Community management is often seen as a tactical role with member engagement as the primary responsibility. Done well, however, it is far more strategic and responsible for creating the conditions of engagement; building trust in a scaled way, and developing a culture that is agile, engaged, and innovative. A big part of creating the conditions of engagement is supporting individuals on their work out loud journey and helping them understand what possibilities it unlocks for them personally.

It is why I believe that the future of all leadership and management is community management. It’s not about what we do ourselves – but what we support and enable others to do.

Throwback Thursday: Work Out Loud (WOL)

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work out loud

It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of the work out loud concept. We’re in the middle of International Working Out Loud Week and are really enjoying all the great content this week at the #WOLWEEK site. If you’re thinking of how the #WOL movement can be applied specifically to community management, look no further! Below we have a round-up of some of our favorite work-out-loud resources we’ve previously featured.

Case Study: Using The Work-Out-Loud Framework To Measure Adoption & Engagement – We were lucky enough to have Jim Martin of Shepley Bulfinch facilitate a Roundtable Call with members of TheCR Network on how his organization used the Work-Out-Loud framework to measure adoption and engagement in their community.

On the call, Jim shared how he has been using the Work Out Loud (WOL) framework within Shepley Bulfinch. Specifically, Jim shared:

  • How they are using Work-Out-Loud framework metrics to find validators, sharers, askers and answerers on their social intranet, and to better understand what they look like, and articulate the value their behavior has to the firm
  • How they are using the framework to evaluate the success of their process for asking and answering technical questions; #AskFinch
  • Why they chose this framework, what worked and what didn’t, and what they would do differently next time.

This case study specifically looks at an internal employee community use case, but was helpful for everyone facing engagement and adoption issues in their online communities.

TheCR Network Members can view the full case study here. Not a member? Join now. 

The Link Between Communities and Culture Change – Most organizations do not understand how powerful communities can be in support of goals like creating collaborative and innovative cultures or executing on digital transformation.

When you take a community management approach to behavior change, it triggers a series of ‘aha’ moments for individuals that lead them to change their beliefs about what is possible – and leads to even more behavior change.  Operationally, that means instead of investing in getting agreement on a new belief first, the belief becomes a natural result of engaging in new methods. The makes the community approach to culture change more cost-effective and agile.


Community Engagement FrameworkCommunity Engagement Framework – TheCR Community Engagement Framework gives structure to the process, and provides community managers with the goals and metrics they should focus on as their communities evolve.

In each step, there are community management techniques to trigger, establish and reward the behaviors. For example, Sharing Out Loud can be triggered by having a regular thread where people share their priorities for the week, like we do in TheCR Network. That helps community members understand the social environment, get comfortable with how people respond to each other and engage without fear of demonstrating a lack of knowledge – making the community a more comfortable place for members to share.

Want even more #throwbackthursday action? Check out all our throwback posts!

Community Engagement Framework

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The Work Out Loud framework is now the Community Engagement framework. Same great ideas, new community-focused title 

By Rachel Happe, Co-Founder & Principal, The Community Roundtable

This week is ‘International Working Out Loud Week‘ or #wolweek – a week to highlight the growing practice of creating better organizations by sharing not just our work products, but our work processes. It’s fitting that this year #wolweek coincides with the release of John Stepper’s new book – Working Out Loud: For a better career and life, as John has been instrumental in applying the concept and documenting both how to do it well and its value.

At The Community Roundtable, where we focus on how to create healthy and productive communities, we see working out loud as a key behavior community managers can encourage and reward to establish connections and build trusting relationships. Depending on the context, working out loud can either be relatively easy to establish or it can be incredibly complex.

So what kinds of things make working out loud challenging?

  • No appreciation of why working out loud is valuable
  • Critical cultures
  • Cultures where knowledge is protected because it is the primary currency of power
  • Individuals’ perspectives and agency
  • Poor online communication skills
  • Lack of understanding of how to work out loud

Taken together, those barriers can be significant, especially inside organizations, and simply modeling behavior often isn’t enough. Because of that, we have deconstructed working out loud into four categories:

  1. Validate Out Loud
  2. Share Out loud
  3. Ask & Answer Out Loud
  4. Explore Out Loud

We believe that each of these pieces of working out loud is important to focus on independently because they incrementally create a more collaborative environment. Too often, community managers and their stakeholders try to jump straight to robust exchanges before a new or immature community might be ready for it. The Community Roundtable’s Community Engagement Framework gives structure to the process and provides community managers with the goals and metrics they should focus on as their communities evolve.

Community Engagement Framework

In each step, there are community management techniques to trigger, establish and reward the behaviors. For example, Sharing Out Loud can be triggered by having a regular thread where people share their priories for the week, like we do in TheCR Network. That helps community members understand the social environment, get comfortable with how people respond to each other and engage without fear of demonstrating a lack of knowledge – making the community a comfortable place for members to share.

Once created, the sense of comfort in the community makes it easier for members to ask other questions without fear of criticism or judgment, and those questions are typically effective social triggers for getting responses – and with them, hopefully, solutions. By measuring how the community is behaving in each of these areas, community managers can get a good sense of how programming should be prioritized and how much value is being generated.

Download the Community Engagement Framework here. 

Looking for more ideas about how to generate community value? Join TheCR Network or contact us.

5 Things Kickboxing Class Has Taught Me About Community Management

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By Georgina Cannie, The Community Roundtable

I never told my fourth grade teacher that I wanted to manage an online network of professionals when I grew up. I stumbled into the community space quite accidentally. Academically, my background is in traditional face-to-face communities and I had always envisioned myself building sustainable neighborhoods for a living. But the thing is, physical and online communities are both just groups of people collaborating to improve the way they accomplish goals. It doesn’t matter if a group is working to establish a local dog park, share enterprise knowledge, or organize a potluck block party – online and physical communities are governed by the same principles of human behavior.

Today I find myself seeing insights into community management everywhere I look – even my weekly kickboxing class.

Every Tuesday I go to class and try to follow along with the instructor’s kick-punch-jab combinations. I noticed that within a few short weeks, the class had established its own community of attendees. Participants who didn’t know each other at the beginning of the class are sharing goals, offering tips and giving each other reviews of other fitness classes.  I can’t say I am surprised, the conditions for this are ripe: A regular program at the same time each week, members with a common interest, and the opportunity to support personal health goals. But along with uppercuts and grapevines, this small community is teaching me valuable lessons in community management. Here are a few of my top takeaways:

Members find value in sync. 

There is something intrinsically pleasing about doing jumping jacks in perfect synchronization with a dozen other humans. Every foot hits the ground at the exact same moment, every hand slaps a thigh in unison. It feels good to be perfectly in time with the group. Online community members don’t do jumping jacks, but they do benefit from the chance to be part of the group routine. As a community manager, creating public Rules of Engagement is one way of offering that opportunity. By defining guidelines and boundaries, a good community manager builds an action-positive roadmap to guide those who want to engage – and opens up the opportunity for members to get in sync.  It is the member’s job to participate, but it is the community manager’s job to give them specific ways in which to do so. 

Working publicly improves work quality. 

When I try to exercise alone in my living room, I will often skip a few squats and let my form fall to pieces. However, when I am in a class full of people who will know if I give up on myself, I am far more motivated to push through and accomplish more than I thought I could. Working publicly encourages me to raise the bar on my own performance. Maybe it’s pride, maybe it’s competition – regardless of motivation, the quality of my work improves. The same is undoubtably true in online communities. Working Out Loud in your social network extends your commitment to yourself, to a commitment to the group. Working publicly allows you to take greater responsibility for your projects and creates a space for others to help you accomplish them.

Acknowledging success creates a second wind.

Last week in class the group was doing a series of high-kicks. It was towards the end of class and I was seriously concerned that I was about to fall over with exhaustion. Right as I was about to quit, the instructor pointed to me and said “Oh yeah! Look how high she is kicking! Way to go!” Immediately I found a whole new wave of energy. I thought, “You think that was high?! Check this one out!” and found myself giving a whole new level of effort when moments earlier I was about to give up. The compliment had power because I knew I had earned it. Championing your advocates and super-users in an online community serves the same purpose. Recognizing and encouraging ideal behaviors – by acknowledging excellent questions, establishing “honor rolls,” or otherwise highlighting model behavior both rewards your top performers and supports the kinds of activity you want to encourage in your community.

Model behaviors, but don’t create sheep. 

I am no fight-master ninja. I need to watch the kickboxing instructor’s body movements to stay on track and follow along. The teacher knows this and makes sure to model proper technique for her students. However, while chatting with my teacher after class one day, she told me that often times her students will follow her example so strictly, that they forget to listen to their own body’s needs. She told me that a majority of her students will only get a drink of water when she drinks water, rather than when they are thirsty. As I manage a community of community managers, I am constantly modeling behavior – but while a network that blindly follows the community manager might be easy to manage, it has limited potential. The best community managers model not only their direct behaviors, but also how they adapt what they learn to their individual needs, by modeling an openness to alternative interpretations and applications of the same knowledge.

Member cliques look like superusers, but function like Mean Girls. 

There is a group of three “kickboxing queens” in my class. They are fitness junkies and give more effort than the rest of the class combined. Upon first glance, they look like ideal participants – they always work hard, they do every move perfectly and they seem to really enjoy themselves. The problem is, they won’t share their secrets to success with anyone outside their clique. In fact, they won’t even talk to anyone outside their clique. When I first joined the group (in all my inexperienced and unskilled glory), I was so intimidated by them that I was terrified to engage in the learning process, for fear of making a mistake in front of them. Community managers need to be carful about handling member cliques in their networks. A core group of seasoned members is great – but those members can actually hurt the community if they are unwilling or unable to accommodate beginners. The best community managers take time to recognize and challenge these cliques, establish a comfortable learning environment and coach key community members on how to welcome newbies into the community culture. 

Georgina Cannie is TheCR Network’s Community Management Fellow. Want to connect with hundreds of the best community professionals every day? Join TheCR Network!