Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

#Teams365 #1510: [Video] Trust BUilders and Destroyers (Teams365)

2/18/2018

This week's Teams365 Video brings to life my post from 2015 #608: Trust Builders and Destroyers. It is often the small things that add up and either build, or erode, trust.

Take a look at some of the team behaviors and actions which help, or hinder, trust, and consider what the state of trust is in your team right now.

Interested in more on this topic? I'll be exploring how to build trust in the next Effective Virtual Conversations Community call which will be held on Monday February 26th at 11 am ET. More about my community calls here.

Enjoy your weekend,
Jennifer

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

New in 2018 - The Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. We'll be exploring topics like Emotional Intelligence, Team Management, Coaching Skills. Download the call schedule here

#Teams365 #1509: Weekend Quote - What are you watching?

2/17/2018

Today's weekend quote comes from GoDaddy Founder, Bob Parsons who said "Anything that is measured and watched improves".

Consider what you have been paying attention to, and how that has shifted the needle on that element? What is improving in your business or your team? What is not?

There are many schools of thought around this concept - from the Law of Attraction to simply paying more attention and putting more energy into something, focus and measurement creates a productivity environment where:
You are specific
You are making course corrections regularly
You are noticing what is working and what is not
You may be pulling in additional resources as needed

What are the things you are measuring right now? What isn't getting the attion it needs? What activities (beyond measuring) will support you in movning that forward?

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

New in 2018 - The Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. We'll be exploring topics like Emotional Intelligence, Team Management, Coaching Skills. Download the call schedule here

#Teams365 #1508: #FlashbackFriday: Teams365 #904: Teamwork Foundations - Collaboration

2/16/2018

Today's #FlashbackFriday post takes us back to Teams365 #904 when I explored Collaboration as one of several essential teamwork skills. In fact, collaboration, is one of the topics I continue to get a variety of speaking and training requests around. Whether it's project teams considering how to collaborate more effectively, team members figuring out how to leverage their styles and strengths more effectively, or organizations considering how to become more collaborative, collaboration is an essential skill.

Here's what I wrote back in Teams365 #904. Consider what questions are important for you right now:

"One of the core skills in today’s workplace is collaboration. Collaboration allows us to harness the best of two or more individuals together.
Collaboration allows us to

Leverage the best
Make sure we have the right people on board
Harness talent
Sometimes come to a better solution

In today’s business place there is often a mantra that we need to collaborate more. In fact, it can be very important to discern whether collaboration is in fact the best option. Sometimes collaboration is not necessary. It may be a good approach if:
Multiple skill-sets and perspectives are needed
Input from different sources can be valuable
Sustainability of the initiative rests on multiple players
It is high stakes – important to get it right
Many of these warrant the time and effort it takes to collaborate well

Questions to consider
What does collaboration currently look like?
What can collaboration look like?
What are the benefits of current collaboration? Future collaboration?
What do we each bring of value to this partnership?
When is collaboration not useful?"

Enjoy your Friday and reach out to me if you would like to set up a time to discuss how we could support your teamwork and training, virtually.

With best wishes,
Jennifer

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

New in 2018 - The Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. We'll be exploring topics like Emotional Intelligence, Team Management, Coaching Skills. Download the call schedule here

#Teams365 #1507: Team Building Tip #170: What relationships need attention?

2/15/2018

Teams365 #170 focuses on getting the team to discuss the question "What relationships are important for us to cultivate internally and externally?". throughout the month of February I have been focusing on the importance of relationships in today's business context. Earlier this week we saw the Team Tool of Relationship Mapping (Tuesday's Teams365 1505), and yesterday's post of 4 Essential Ingredients for Collaboration.

As a team, what do you need to, and want to, put attention around? What relationships need more attention this quarter?

Have a great Thursday,
Jennifer

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

New in 2018 - The Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. We'll be exploring topics like Emotional Intelligence, Team Management, Coaching Skills. Download the call schedule here

#TEams365 #1506: 4 Essential ingredients for Collaboration

2/14/2018

With relationships and collaboration being an essential skill set for leaders and team members of all types, I thought it fitting to make our Valentine’s Day post this year all about collaboration. Whether you are collaborating across your own team, or with others, collaboration allows us to tap into resources we do not have available, harnessing the talents of our network. Collaboration may be discrete for a fixed project, or longer for ongoing initiatives.

In today’s post I wanted to cover four essential ingredients for collaboration:
1.       Be clear on why you are collaborating
2.       Consciously design your partnership: What do you bring to the table? What is important for you both
3.       Regularly check in and adjust
4.       Consider what end result you are looking for

Let us look at each one of these in turn:
1.       Be clear on why you are collaborating
Collaborating for collaboration's sake does not equal success! Why is this collaboration occurring? What is possible due to the fusion of your skills and abilities? What outcomes are you looking for.

Partnerships and collaboration are not always a straight road. It's important to be clear on:

why you are collaborating,
what you hope to gain from the partnership,
what you want to gain ,
and what your expectations are.

Spend some time as a partnership exploring this and coming back to it throughout your work together

2. Consciously design your partnership
Take time to intentionally, or consciously, design your partnership. Building in time for focusing on the relationship can be as important as creating or doing the work together. In a recent newsletter article I shared several of the partnership planning questions I have written about over the years.
In my writing I talk about at least four stages where you will want to focus conversation - pre-program/partnership, at the start, during the work and at the end of major projects. Refer to chapters 12 of Effective Virtual Conversations or Chapter 11 of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching.

3. Regularly check in and adjust. Regular check ins will look different for each projet. Ask yourselves regular questions such as:
What’s working well?
What progress have we made with this project?
What are we learning and need to make sure we do? We stop doing?
What changes are important going forward?

4. Consider what end result you have in mind - As Steven Covey wrote years ago "Start with the end in mind". Our end result shapes our action. As you engage in every conversation think about the end result you are aiming for. How does this influence your partnership? What roles you play? What attention you have?

These four factors - clarity, conscious design, check in, and end in mind - support partnering and collaboration to be a flexible, fluid process. What is important for you to consider in your own work.

Have a great Valentine's Day!

Jennifer

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

Join us this month to explore the topic of Emotional Intelligence at the Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. Calls are held bi-weekly on Friday 845 am ET online. Download the call schedule here.

Don't forget to join us for the February 2018 Teams365 planning tool - this month's template is a monthly one-page planner

#TEams365 #1505: TEAM TOOL: Relationship Mapping

2/13/2018

In today’s interconnected world, many of us have to interface with a wide variety of both internal and external partners. From members of other teams, to our customers/clients, to other agencies and organizations. Given that teams, not just leaders, are responsible for relationship development, it can be useful to get the team attuned to what their key relationships are internally and externally.
This is an activity you might consider doing as part of your next team meeting. You’ll see one of my own relationship maps for my business here.
Instructions:
Using a whiteboard place a circle on the board first, with the name of your team. First make a list of all the potential people you partner with. Select one color marker for internal team partners and one for external team members. One at a time, map out how close you are to each of these internal and external relationships. IF it is a close relationship place them closer towards your circle, if they are further away place them further away.
Have people indicate what is important about that relationship – is it a relationship which enable you to do things, do you get important information from them, do they provide resources etc? Also note for each relationship what needs attention.
Seeing these interconnections visually can bring to life the relationships, helping people understand how much they are part of a web and dependent on others.

#TEams365 #1504: Effective Virtual Conversation Tip #31: Partnering

2/12/2018

Today’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #31 brings us to the topic of partnering. On page 384 of Effective Virtual Conversations I write:
“As virtual facilitators, we are partnering on a multitude of levels:
The first layer of partnering – collaboration and/or co-creation is with our clients
The next layer of partnering, which adds benefit, is with other professionals as a co-facilitator
The third layer is expanding the impact of collaboration through the development of the virtual leader, and creating a culture of virtual conversations.”

Masterful virtual events – webinars, conference calls and online learning rarely occur alone. They occur in partnership, and as my quote illustrates, most of us are working on multiple levels with partnering to make an exceptional conversation experience. Who are you partnering with regularly?

Most of us are partnering with our clients every day. The more you can collaborate and co-create with your clients to shape the agenda, the approaches and style of the call, the more “on the mark” it is likely to be.

For larger events, and for moving to a platform of virtual calls, it’s likely that you are partnering regularly with a variety of people including other virtual facilitators, internal and external producers or people who can support you technically. Consider those you work with at this second level. What’s important to them? What do they need from you to create a successful call? What do you need from them? What requests do you want to make?

The third level of partnering is in service to building a whole culture of virtual work. Not every organization goes this route, but many do realize that with effective virtual conversations, we can change the way we communicate, making it faster, more efficient and more tailored. What is the culture you are building around virtual conversations? Are you building a network of virtual leaders? Consider what is going to make the conversations more effective and richer?

Consider at which levels of partnering you are currently working at? What are the levels at which you will be partnering in six months? One year? Three years?

Enjoy the start to your week,
Jennifer

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

New in 2018 - The Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. We'll be exploring topics like Emotional Intelligence, Team Management, Coaching Skills. Download the call schedule here

#Teams365 #1503: Teams365 Video: 4 Keys to Building Stronger Relationships (Teams365 #771)

2/11/2018

No person is an island. In today's business context of ongoing change and complexity, solid business relationships are becoming even more important. Back in 2015 I published Teams365 #771 on Four Keys to Building Solid Business Relationships. Here's that post being brought to life through a short 2 minute video. Consider how you are cultivating these in your own relationships.

Enjoy your Sunday and be sure to take a look at some of the many posts focusing on relationships and collaboration this month here at the Teams365 blog.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

New in 2018 - The Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. We'll be exploring topics like Emotional Intelligence, Team Management, Coaching Skills. Download the call schedule here

#TEams365 #1502: Saturday Quote: Relationships and Listening

2/10/2018

This weekend's quote is all about communication and relationships.
Sumesh Nair writes "Many relationship problems are rooted in a communication breakdown. These can be as simple as not really hearing what the other person is saying, because we get caught up in our own fixed perspectives".

As you go to have conversations this week, notice how you are listening, and how open you are to hearing what the other person is.

In today's world where most professionals are rewarded for problem solving, finding a solution and/or advising, listening with an open ear to just listening is sometimes scarce. Many times those we love just want to be heard, not fixed.

Enjoy your conversations this weekend,
Jennifer

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

Join us this month to explore the topic of Emotional Intelligence at the Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. Calls are held bi-weekly on Friday 845 am ET online. Download the call schedule here.

Don't forget to join us for the February 2018 Teams365 planning tool - this month's template is a monthly one-page planner

#TEams365 #1501: The Duality of Trust: Teams365 Cartoon #14: #FlashbackFriday

2/9/2018

Our focus this month is on relationships and a key element of strengthening relationships involves having a strong degree of trust. A couple of years ago I had a series of cartoons designed for the blog. One of my favorites is the Duality of Trust cartoon from illustrator Steven Ro. This was the fourteenth in the series. View the others here.
I thought it would be fitting to spotlight this post – Teams365 #512 with this
Here’s what I wrote:
https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-512-relationship-destroyers-the-duality-of-trust-teams365-cartoon-14

Today's blog post is a "repeat" of the Teams365 Cartoon #14 called the duality of trust. Nothing erodes relationships faster than a lack of trust.
This cartoon highlights activities which can build trust such as:

Walk my talk
Regular, open communication
Recognition that is real
Follow-through
Trusts Others
Clear Expectations

On the flip side activities which erode trust include

No follow through
Little or no feedback
Team Favorites
Lack of transparency
Gossip
Doesn't listen

What activities are trust builders and trust destroyers on your team right now? What impact are they having?

This is a topic we explore in the Teams365 Conflict Management and Coaching Skills Training programs, as well as with our offering of the DiSC Predictive Conflict assessments. Contact us to learn about our upcoming virtual and on-demand offerings of these programs, as well as customized coaching skills training for your organization.

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

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

Join us this month to explore the topic of Emotional Intelligence at the Teams365 Leadership Lab - an annual group for leaders which meets every two weeks throughout 2018. Calls are held bi-weekly on Friday 845 am ET online. Download the call schedule here.

Don't forget to join us for the February 2018 Teams365 planning tool - this month's template is a monthly one-page planner