Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

#teams365 #790: Month End Reflections

2/29/2016

Today's post focuses on month end questions. Take a moment to consider and note:
1. What have been your successes and accomplishment - in February? So far this year?
2 What are you most proud of?
3. What are your key priorities for March? The spring?
4. What key relationships have helped you so far this year? Which ones need more attention?
5 What has helped your successes? What has hindered?
6. What does your team need to be acknowledged for?

Have a great Monday and end of the month,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#TEams365 #789: Sunday Team Quote

2/28/2016

This week we've focused on two areas - coaching and remote teams.

Today's quote comes from Simon Sinek's newer book - Leaders Eat Last - and makes reference to the importance of a strong culture. He writes:
"In a weak culture, we veer away from doing "the right thing" in favor of doing "the thing that's right for me".

You'll notice the photo is of a buttress tree which gains its strength from the unique stance of each interconnecting limb. What's the strength of culture in your organization right now?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #788: Essential LEadership Reads: Remote Team Management

2/27/2016

And ManagiEntreMany leaders today are having to manage teams across distance. Whether we call this virtual team management or remote team management, the ability to build deep connection with team members and lead projects and teams across distance is increasingly becoming core competency for leaders in many industries today.
Virtual and remote team leadership is an area we specialize in given experience in this realm. I myself was a virtual team leader , with staff based across ten countries. When I started my role as a Program Manager years ago I asked about how the team got together. The response was that they hadn't in 30 years! Needless to say one of the first things I did was find budget to bring people together for a short 2 day meeting. Over the course of the next few years these meetings became foundational in strengthening the team and accelerating results due to the synergies, relationships and connections formed.

In past posts I've looked at virtual team management issues which you can explore here.

Today's post includes links to half a dozen resources you may want to check out to support you in your work with remote teams and remote team leadership:

Entrepreneur's Article on 4 Effective Ways to Manage a Remote Team - Click here to read

Stella Garber's Trello post on Tips for Managing a Remote Team - read here. You may also want to consider this innovative platform for things like program design. It's a tool i use in my own program work.

Biz 3.0's article on 21 Essential Strategies for Managing Virtual Teams:

Managing a Remote Workforce - Proven Practices fro Successful Leaders - The Future of Work's White Paper. Click here to read.

And for a change of style check out Davide Capelli's Pinterest Board on Telework - Telecommuting Infographics here.

What resources would you recommend to others around remote team management?

Here's a link to an article I wrote back in 2008: Virtual Teams: Creating the Foundation for Success.

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #787: Six Leadership Questions - Remote Teams

2/26/2016

One of our March themes is going to be tips around leading remote teams. We've done series in the past around global teams and virtual teams.I will be continuing the focus on remote teams in next week's series.

Today's Six #Leadership Questions gets you thinking about leading your virtual teams and support needs that they have:
1. When was the last time you held a 1-1 with each of your team members?
2. What are the current support needs you have for your remote team members?
3. When are your next face-to-face meetings scheduled?
4. What type of support does each team member value?
5. Does everyone have the tools they need in order to do their most effective work?
6. Shared vision is critical for success, especially in a remote team. On a scale of 1-10 how clear and shared would everyone say the vision is?

Have a great Friday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #786: Team Building Tip #75

2/25/2016

Some organizations are great at creating the space for pause and reflection to do project close outs, or debriefs, or post mortems. Others aren't.

As team leaders it can be important to get the team to pause at the end of projects, or after significant team events (successes, failures, new business brought in the door) to ask yourself the question "What have been two of our biggest lessons learned?"

It can be important to do dialogue around and come to consensus on lessons learned on a regular basis. When is your next opportunity?

To take a look at our previous 75 Team Building Tips - click here. Which have been your favorite?

Have a great rest of the week

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #785: Jo The NEw Team Leader Leads a Virtual Meeting Cartoon

2/24/2016

Several of you have been enjoying my newest cartoon series here at the Teams365 blog with Jo, a new team leader. The series is all about her adventures. Today's post foreshadows our focus for the next few weeks - managing a remote workforce. In today's post you can see Jo leading a virtual meeting with her team which is scattered across timezones.

Virtual team management is increasingly a core skill for many organizations. We provide support for virtual team leaders and also can provide training in remote team leadership. Contact us for more information.

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #784: Four Coaching Flags

2/23/2016

A key success factor to supporting any learning or talent development initiative is to make sure that the approaches we are using are the right fit. Whether we are coaching, training, mentoring, it is important to take stock regularly on what's working and what's not.

Sometimes there are flags which signal that things are not going as they should. In the coaching approach you may see:

Lack of follow through on the part of the person being coached
Circling of the client
Person not showing up for their coaching sessions
Jumping from one topic to another
Client not seeing value of coaching

Questions to ask:
Is this person coachable? Do they really want to engage in the coaching process? Without their active participation it is not possible to coach a person. While people can sit passively through a workshop, in coaching they need to be an active participant?

Is it time to revisit the coaching goals they have set for themselves? Are these goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound)? Are the goals stretch goals?

When the client "circles" it may be for several reasons. This often signals a place where the person is fearful or feeling dis-empowered It may signal an "inner critic" or "gremlin". For more information on this topic i'd highly recommend Rick Carson's book Taming the Gremlin.

Finally when a client is saying they are not seeing value in the coaching process it may be time to have them take stock of their accomplishments and learning since the start of the coaching process. Sometimes we are so in he phase of learning that we have not stopped to reflect and note what is different and what changes have happened.

There are several more flags you may see around coaching, however, thse are four very common ones experienced by coaches as leaders, as well as internal and external coaches. What other coaching flags have you experienced?

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #783: Four Ways to Maximize the impact of Coaching in organizations

2/22/2016

Accelerating the Impact of Coaching
Our recent focus here at the Teams365 has been coaching. In recent posts I’ve explored Four Foundations of Coaching.
As coaching is a widely utilized modality in people development, it is important to consider what are the things we can do to accelerate the impact of coaching – for the individual(s) involved as well as in the organization.

1. Make sure coaching is the right modality. Coaching is not training and a coach is not there as an “advisor”. If a person needs to develop skills a blend of coaching and training may be the better solution.

2. Consider how coaching can build onto other initiatives in the organization. If there is a current training program round leadership development or change management, how can you follow up the training with several coaching touchpoints to sustain the conversation, and support those involved in integrating their learning, creating new habits and sustaining these changes in behavior and learning.

3. Encourage three-way conversations between the employee and their supervisor throughout the coaching process. Coaching engagements should be supported by the supervisor, can can benefit from their input and support. While the coach cannot report the details of coaching (according to the Ethical code of professional coaching), the coach can facilitate a conversation between the person being coached and their supervisor.

4. Set those being coached up for success. It is important to co-design the coaching relationship, have the person being coached set goals for the work which are revisited throughout the coaching engagement.

What other things do you see as critical success factors in maximizing the impact of coaching?

Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #782: Coaching Quote

2/21/2016

The word coaching gets thrown around in a lot of ways, in many different contexts. Whether we are a coach as leader, an internal or external coach, I continue to return to a short definition of Coaching being a "conversation with intent". This was a definition a former colleague Doug and I used for many years as we trained leaders in a technical field.

In today's workforce we may only have 10 - 15 minutes for a coaching conversation. Our ability to deeply listen, focus and ask great questions. These "micro-moments" of presence and focus are key to success in today's ever changing environment.

What I like about this short definition is that it applies whether we are having a conversation with one person or with many - with groups and teams.

What coaching opportunities do you have this week?

Check out my other posts on coaching from this last week, including Four Foundations of Any Coaching Conversation.

Enjoy your weekend.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326
Contact us by email to set up a time to discuss your coaching needs

#Teams365 #781: Essential LEadership Reads - Coaching

2/20/2016

This week's focus has been on coaching, with Monday's cartoon showing the new team leader Jo holding a one-on-one coaching conversation with Sujit one of her team members. You can read it here

On Tuesday I focused on the Four Foundations of Any Coaching Conversation and on Wednesday on 20 Coaching Questions you might want to use in your own conversations.

As someone who has trained thousands of coaches and leaders in coaching skills in the last decade plus, finding good books and resources on the topic are key. This is a mainstay of our work at Potentials Realized, and over the years I've not only written two books on coaching, but a number of our products like the Conversation Sparker cards, are geared to support people in having better coaching conversations.

Here are five books on coaching I often recommend to those looking to add coaching skills to their mix:

Coactive Coaching - Kimsey House and Kimsey House

Coaching For Performance - John Whitmore

Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart - Mary Beth O'Neill

Coaching For Leadership - Goldsmith/Lyons

A new one coming out in a few weeks which looks like it will be a great one is Michael Bungay Stanier's The Coaching Habit. It will be released in early March.

What are some of your favorite resources around coaching? As always, please feel free to comment below.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326