How Organizations Make WOL “Their Own”
When you buy a special suit or dress, do you wear it as is (“off the rack”) or do you have it tailored? Sometimes the first option is fine. But when you want it to really fit, you’ll have it tucked here and trimmed there — until it feels like it was made especially for you.
And so it is with our Working Out Loud methods.
Why We Customize
These days, almost every WOL program we deliver is customized in some way. That might mean a few small edits or a completely new design. It’s less “scalable” than offering everyone the exact same version, but it results in programs that feel like they were made for each organization’s culture and needs.
Mild, Medium, or Spicy?
We sometimes describe the changes with a food metaphor: mild, medium, or spicy.
🌶️ Mild: Simple adjustments like replacing examples, wording, links, or even the colors. This is akin to hemming a pair of pants — and most of our customers do this.
🌶️🌶️ Medium: Larger changes, like swapping entire exercises or even weeks while keeping the overall flow intact. For example, a hospital in Zurich recently reconfigured a leadership program this way, and the results will be presented at the Zukunft Personal conference in Cologne.
🌶️🌶️🌶️ Spicy: The most radical approach, where an organization co-creates something entirely new. One global media company, for instance, is piloting a bespoke method called The Human Advantage to help “strengthen relational skills in the age of AI.” It takes time and iteration, but the outcome is something uniquely their own.
What It Means
One size doesn’t fit all — and with WOL, it doesn’t have to. For us, the real measure of success is when organizations feel that WOL isn’t just another program, but their program, designed to fit and last and change when it needs to.
If you’ve worked with WOL before, what would you change to make it a better fit for your organization?
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👉 This post first appeared on [LinkedIn](link to profile post). If you’d like to learn more about Working Out Loud and how we adapt it for organizations, please [contact us](link to contact page).
Cover of a customized WOL Workbook for a hospital in Zurich