Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

Teams365 #2646 - Month and Quarter End Planning

3/31/2021

Welcome back to the end of the month, and now the end of the quarter! Here are some questions to get you thinking about this important watershed process.

Consider how you had answered these questions, three months ago, and now:

What are your top 5 goals for 2021 – individually? Collectively? Organizationally?
What successes from 2020 can you build on?
What is going to help you create momentum?
Who can help you move your plans forward?
What activities are core to the success of you and/or your team this year?
What do you want the theme of the new year to be?
What systems will be important for you to put in place or refine?
What will help accelerate results?
What will be key relationships to foster or focus on this year?
What pauses do you want to build in for reflection and capturing lessons learned. Schedule these in your calendar now! `
When you look back on December 31, 2021 what do you hope the year will have brought to you?

Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2647 - State of Remote Work

3/30/2021

A year into the pandemic, where does remote work stand? What has shifted for you in your work?

Here are some of the 2021 remote work stats.

From Buffer’s State of Remote Work 2021 –
97.6 % of people surveyed wanted to continue to work remotely
97 % would also recommend remote work to others.

In this annual survey the challenges to remote work they have identified have shifted slightly.

In past years collaboration and loneliness were are the top of the list. These have dropped down slightly with a focus now on the inability to unplug.
Also of note are the following:

45 percent shared that they believe they are working more now
52% are spending more time in meetings

A significant amount of people were either caregivers or parents, and remote work allowed them more flexibility in managing their schedules

Take a look at the full survey at https://buffer.com/2021-state-of-remote-work

As you think about your work, what are the differences you see?

As you consider this, what other changes are possible?

I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring this in my new book – Reconnecting Workspaces: Pathways To Thrive in the Virtual, Remote and Hybrid Worlds. It will be available and out in the next few months but you can pre-order now.

Enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2646 - Stand Out Virtually Principle

3/29/2021

Since July 2020, I’ve been sharing a variety of Stand Out Virtually posts, geared to help leaders, coaches and facilitators have better conversations in the virtual space. I thought I would be useful to do a recap of some of the more popular Monday blog posts in this series.:

Teams365 #2583 – Connect People to their WJM www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-2583-stand-out-virtually-principle-connect-to-the-wiifm

Teams365 #2590 - Weaving Your Brand -www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-2590-stand-out-virtually-principle-weave-your-brand-through-everything-httpswwwstandoutvirtuallycomcoworkin

Teams365 #2599 - Virtual Connection Tip Connect to Context - https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-2599-virtual-connection-tip-connecting-to-context

Stay tuned for some new books and publications which are doing to support you in these areas, as well as our long standing programming including Virtual Facilitation Essentials – a Virtual Train-the-trainer (Approved by ICF for 8.75 CCEs). – link to https://www.groupcoachingessentials.ca/vfe.html

Enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2645 - Week in Review

3/28/2021

Welcome back to another Sunday weekly review. We covered some fun ground this week including:

Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt on 21 things to be happy about

Friday’s Remote Work Pitfalls

Thursday’s Team Building Tip 284

Wednesday’s 15 Leadership Quotes

Tuesday’s What captures your attention in these visuals?

Monday’s As we step into spring, what are you happy about?

Enjoy your reflections,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2644 - Weekly Journaling Prompt 144: 21 Things that Make Me Smile

3/27/2021

Today’s weekly journaling prompt is 21 Things that Make Me Smile

As a young camp counsellor I had a book that I loved sharing with my campers, and colleagues. IT was called “Things to Be Happy About”. I loved it, and years later, I was so pleased to have a daily calendar of the same name.

The book was all about the little things that made me happy. Things like:

Watching the sunset

Warm socks on cold feet

The smell as you get off the airplane when you are in the tropics

A good conversation with friends

Feeling the sun and warmth on my skin ears ago I had a book that I loved

A paddle in the canoe

Watching a blizzard from indoors

I’ve found that in the last year of the pandemic it’s been even more important to note, and savor, these items. I also have come across one of my Things to Be Happy about notebooks.

Given that spring is in the air, I enjoyed the sun and warm air on my skin last week and took an extra minute to savor it…

What are you savoring? What are the things you want to make sure you note and pause around regularly?

Enjoy today’s prompt of 21 Things that Make You Smile.
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2643 - Remote Work Pitfalls

3/26/2021

I’ve been supporting remote teams and organizations for a long time, way before the pandemic. In the last year so many got to experience the benefits and pitfalls of remote work. Here are four remote work pitfalls I shared back in Fall 2019 in Teams365 #2080.

Which ones have you fallen into the trap of?

As more people and organizations turn to remote work conditions, it’s important that we also are aware of some of the pitfalls. This month, I’m taking a look at things that will help and hinder your remote work experience.

Today’s post covers 4 remote work pitfalls:

#1 I can do it all by myself - Remote work does not mean operating in a vacuum. In fact, collaboration skills are needed at a higher level by remote workers. Take time to consider WHO you need to collaborate with regularly and make a point of setting up meetings and/or work sessions.

#2 Unclear expectations - Creating shared expectations are the key to remote work success. This needs to be co-created or created together. Expectations may revolve around large and small issues including:
Hours of work
Level of connection with the office, the team, etc.
Device use – personal and work
Security and confidentiality around files, and materials
Boundaries

What are the expectations you need to clarity more fully?

#3 Thinking it can all be remote - When I was a remote team leader, one of the best investments for my team was an annual face to face meeting. I supported professionals across multiple countries, and while there was an expense involved, brining people together once a year or every 18 months for a multi-day working set of meetings was invaluable. The team appreciated the investment and we made use of every moment from dusk to dawn in formal and informal team activities. The investment paid off immensely and was not difficult to organize given the high level of engagement of the team.

#4 Micro-managing, not micro-monitoring - One of the greatest pitfalls is trying to “control” or micro-manage a remote team. High levels of trust are required in the remote work space. As a former colleague of mine, Doug, used to say “always micro-monitor, not micro-manage”.

Micro-monitoring means that you keep an eye on the end result, but you let people do their work in the best way they can.

What does micro-monitoring mean in your context? How can that help you as a team have the space and means to excel?

Enjoy your conversation,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2642 - Team Building Tip 284: Where Do You Need to Plan?

3/25/2021

This week’s Team Building tip invites you to plan. Whether you are planning for the new season, OR you are looking to plan for the next quarter, as a team where do you need to plan?

As a team you may want to consider these questions:

What habits and practices have we created around planning?
Where has our planning process helped us achieve our goals?
What are we not planning for?
What’s important about planning for us right now?
What do we need to create some contingency plans around?
What type of planning is going to support us the most – consider daily, weekly, monthly or short sprints and long blocks of time

Enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2641 - Leadership Quotes to consider

3/24/2021

Whether I am incorporating a quote into a workshop or coaching session I am leading with teams, leaders and organizations, or a book that I am writing, it’s always great to have a quote to share to get people thinking. Here are 15 of my favorite leadership quotes

"The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things." --Ronald Reagan

"Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work." --Seth Godin

“You manage things, you lead people” – Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality” – Warren Bennis

“A leader is best when people barely know s/he exists, when their work is done, their aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves” – Lao Tzu

“Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm” – Publilius Syrus

“Leadership is influence” – John C. Maxwell

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand” – Colin Powell

“Earn your leadership every day” – Michael Jordan

“A good plan violently executive now is a better than a perfect plan executed next week” - George Patton

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality “ –

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Harold R. McAlindon

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

“Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you." --Margaret Thatcher
What are your favorite leadership quotes? Share them with us!

Enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2640- What captures your attention in these visuals?

3/23/2021

Back in April 2014, I shared this post as Teams365

Given our focus with visuals consider what jumps out at you:

Visuals capture so much in one picture. Today I wanted to share with you a quick drawing that was made for our business, which integrates most of the focus areas I've been writing on these last four months and which the bulk of our work with teams involves.

Questions to Consider:

As you look at the drawing below, what are the areas you excel in?
Which ones need some shoring up?
What support do you need to move the needle on these?
How can we help?

These are all topic areas which I have covered in depth and will be covering in my upcoming book – Reconnecting Workspaces (LINK TO AMAZON).

This past year we have spent a lot of time considering what they can look like in the virtual and remote space. What about the hybrid space, where some people may be working together face to face and others may be offsite?

Enjoy your reflections!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Teams365 #2639 - As we step into Spring, What are you wanting to create?

3/22/2021

Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil – Bishop Reginald Heber
As we step into a new season, it’s always an opportunity to stop, pause and take stock of how things are going. What are you wanting to create in your world of work right now? What are the goals you have for the spring season on a personal basis.

I hope that you will enjoy some spring (or fall) planning today by enjoying these questions

Now, as you look to the spring:
What are your top priorities?
What are the things you want to continue to doing?
What are the things that must be a focus, no matter what?
What do you need to continue saying no to?
What are the things that are helping you learn and grow as a professional?
What can you do to magnify your results?
By December 201, what do you hope to have achieved?

As you reflect back on the winter, take note of these question:
What were your main successes this season?
What helped you? Hindered you?
What key relationships supported you?
What was your biggest lesson learned?
What can you duplicate or do again?

As you think about the spring:
What are your top 3-5 priorities?
What needs to get completed, no matter what?
What will help you? What could get in the way?
What will you do this month to renew?
What will you do this month to pass on your skills?

Enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326