How Working out Loud Brings the Porsche Family Closer Together
Working Out Loud is a method to build meaningful relationships aiming to benefit and learn from them. The term was first described by Bryce Williams in 2010 and consists of five pillars: Relationships, Generosity, Visible work, purposeful discovery, and a growth mindset. A small circle of employees is practising Working Out Loud at Porsche.
Porsche started out as a family-run business — and up until today, one of our core company values is to support each other. Even though there are more than 30,000 amazing people working for Porsche by now, we still consider ourselves one big family. This is probably the most important reason why the company has been able to master crises, for example when the traditional production facilities were hopelessly outdated and lean production was introduced with huge effort. Asking senior employees who have been with Porsche at that time, this is how they experienced the situation: “We stood side by side, helped and supported each other like you would in a family. If I needed something I knew who to call and things were done in a matter of minutes.”
How to stay a family after a growth spurt
With Porsche’s tremendous growth within the last decade, doubling the number of employees from 2011 to 2018, complexity increased within the organization. That made it harder to keep up the special sense of togetherness, of being a small family. However, with our continuous transformation into a more agile and collaborative company, this value is more important than ever.
It was more of a lucky coincidence that we, Katerina Kourti, Elena Klinkhammer, Tobias Große-Puppendahl and Johannes Immel, found ourselves brainstorming in a small team of change agents in the Porsche Electronics division almost a year ago to find a way to contribute to this transformation and actively shape the process instead of just waiting for the change to happen by itself.
Working out…what?
That’s exactly when Working out Loud (WoL) came into play. It was John Steppers’ description that triggered our interest:
“Working Out Loud is a way to build relationships that can help you in some way, like achieving a goal, developing a skill, or exploring a new topic. Instead of networking to get something, you invest in relationships by making contributions over time, including your work and experiences that you make visible.”
Basically Working Out Loud is a method which helps you to integrate five essential principles in your working (and living) routine:
- Relationships: They are at the heart of Working Out Loud. The method relies on the belief that opportunities and knowledge often come from other people.
- Generosity: This principle is supposed to remind us that real networking is not about greed but generosity — that you can make contributions in a way that feels good and genuine knowing that, over the entirety of your network, there will naturally be a benefit to you too as others reciprocate. This can include things as simple (and powerful) as recognition and appreciation.
- Visible work: As the name “working out loud” says, it means to make your work visible. Share it with others to extend your reach and the chance of contributions you can make — and get back.
- Purposeful discovery: In order to be effective, it’s important to have a goal in mind that helps orient your activities, including the kinds of relationships you’re trying to develop and contributions you should make.
- Growth mindset: This element isn’t about things to do but rather a mindset to have as you do them. The Growth Mindset is about an open, curious approach to work and life, about learning and encouraging.
On the basis of these five principles, a group of three to five motivated people — a so-called WOL circle — commits to a 12-week program working towards a goal they really care about.
Working Out Loud: Learning how
So we decided to build our very own Working out Loud circle, found topics that we personally cared about, and got started. For twelve weeks, we highly prioritized WoL and committed one hour per week to our circle — even if it meant being at the office or at an outdoor picnic place at 7 am. Going through the program, which is guided through free online resources, we did not only get to know each other but actually became really good friends. We quickly experienced the impact of WoL and learned a lot — about ourselves, our environment, our goals, and priorities. For example that change can start with writing an email in a friendly manner, that the most important appointments are the ones with ourselves and that generosity is the key to relationships that matter.
For us, WoL was a great way to work towards our individual goals. Although these are quite personal, we’d like to share them with you to give you a better understanding of the method. And maybe one or another finds inspiration in it.
Our circle was working on the following goals:
- a new platform for the exchange of internal information at the Porsche Electronics Division,
- a personal re-orientation towards a more deep tech area at work,
- the creation of an internal think tank,
- and the first-ever Qi Gong class at Porsche!
Desire to change and the rest WoL follow
As making your work visible is a core value of WoL, colleagues started noticing our progress and wanted to know more about the method. Probably, that is mainly because the method is rather simple and very effective. We believe that WoL is the perfect way to cultivate our Porsche family and strengthen relationships within the company. It’s so easy to start: The only requirement is the motivation for change — everything else can be read in the WoL guidelines.
What began as a small group of committed people, sparked many new WoL circles inside Porsche and made us to “WoL ambassadors” overnight. It’s awesome to see our colleagues joining in and experiencing the benefits of WoL for themselves — hopefully, there’s much more to come!
Katerina Kourti, Cybernetics Engineer, Tobias Große-Puppendahl and Johannes Immel, Architects Emerging Technologies, and Elena Klinkhammer,
Project Manager Special Projects and Tasks Electrical/Electronic Department at Porsche AG.
