explore · Personal Development, Knowledge Sharing · 60 min · 3-5 people · medium energy

Working Out Loud Circle

A peer group of three to five people meets for an hour a week for twelve weeks. Each person has a goal they care about. Following a short guide for each week, members build a list of people connected to their goal, make small contributions to them, share their work more visibly and reflect on progress. Members support each other; there is no expert or teacher.

When to use Working Out Loud Circle

Use for self-directed development in organisations, especially to build networks and habits across sites and teams that rarely meet.

What it solves

People take courses on networking and visibility and change nothing, because there is no peer group holding them to small weekly steps.

How to run Working Out Loud Circle, step by step

  1. Form a circle of 3-5 people from different teams and agree a weekly hour (once).
  2. Each person picks a personal goal they want to make progress on (week 1).
  3. Each week, open with a short check-in on what happened since last time (10 min).
  4. Work through that week's guide exercises, such as relationship lists, small contributions or a letter from your future self (35 min).
  5. Each person commits to one small step before the next meeting (10 min).
  6. In week 12, reflect on what changed and decide how to keep going (60 min).

Materials needed

  • The 12 weekly circle guides
  • Video call
  • A shared doc for lists and commitments

Facilitator tips

  • Keep circles cross-functional; mixed backgrounds create new connections.
  • Nobody leads. Rotate who keeps time each week.
  • Goals that are personally meaningful keep people coming back better than assigned work goals.

Common pitfalls

  • Meetings get cancelled under work pressure and the circle fades after week four.
  • Members treat it as networking for self-promotion rather than generosity first.

Running it online or hybrid

Most circles meet by video call. Each member needs the weekly guide; a shared doc can hold each person's relationship list and progress.

What it produces

A relationship list per person, a record of contributions made, and a set of habits each member keeps after week 12.

Origin

Created by John Stepper, author of Working Out Loud (2015). Circles follow a set of weekly circle guides and run in many companies, mostly online. — source

Build a session around Working Out Loud Circle

METODIC places Working Out Loud Circle inside a complete, timed session plan — agenda, worksheets, facilitator guide and slides — matched to your group and goal.

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