Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

#Teams365 #608: Trust Builders and Destoryers In Teams

8/31/2015

Last summer I shared with you a cartoon on Trust Builders which I wanted to revisit, given the importance of trust, and lack of trust, in teams.
Consider the things which are building trust in your team right now. What actins and activities are helping to expand trust?

Today's cartoon looks at 9 areas which can build trust in our work as team leaders. As you read through these ask yourself, where are you on a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being low and 10 being high):

Walk the Talk
Fairness
Build on Strengths
Take Ownership (For What Works and What Doesn't)
Fairness
Transparency
Creating Connections
Clear Expectations and Communication
Regular one-on-ones/communication

What do you see as key behaviors which you undertake to build trust on your team? What do team members do to build trust?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching(Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Join me for a fall team leader group coaching program - More information at CoachingTeamLeaders.com
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential - (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #607: Sunday Audio Encore - Goals, Planning, Focus

8/30/2015

Today's post reconnects you with several audio posts on goals and planning:

#Teams365 #446 - Planning Questions for Spring (or Fall) - 12 min. Listen in here.

#Teams365 #369: Your Vision and Goals. Listen in here.

#Teams365 #455: Sunday Audio - Four Tips for Focus. Listen in here.

#Teams 365 #488: Three Problem Solving Tools. Listen in here.

#Teams365 #495: Two Tools for Decision Making. Listen in here.

Have a great Sunday!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching(Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Join me for a fall team leader group coaching program - More information at CoachingTeamLeaders.com
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential - (416)996-8326

#Teams365 606 - 6 Leadership Questions a Day - Goals

8/29/2015

Today's leadership questions look at goals. Consider these today as you pause to consider goals in your world:

1. What are your most important short term/medium term/long term goals?

2. What will success look like with each one?

3. What do you need in order to be successful - resources, people etc?

4, What's going to facilitate movement?

5. What's going to create momentum?

6. What's a quick win for you today?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Potentials Realized - Leadership and Team Development, Coaching, Retreats
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Email us to find out how we can support you and your team in enhancing your collaboration through coaching, training or a retreat program

#teams365 #605:Leadership Toolbox - Goals

8/28/2015

Today's Leadership Toolbox focuses on goals and several resources you may want to check out whether you are doing your own personal goal setting or team goal setting.

And first - a reminder of the old project management adage - ten minutes of planning can save 1 hour of unfocused effort.

Here are fourresources you may want to check out around goals

7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven Covey

Life Hack – Goal Setting Exercise - http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/one-the-best-goal-setting-exercises.html

Daniel Goleman - Focus

Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results – Robert Pozen

What resources do you recommend around goals?

Have a great weekend
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Potentials Realized - Leadership and Team Development, Coaching, Retreats
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Email us to find out how we can support you and your team in enhancing your collaboration through coaching, training or a retreat program

#Teams365 #604: Team Building Tip #51: Goals from Multiple Perspectives

8/27/2015

This week's Team Building Tip looks at Goals and Levels. There's something to be said about changing perspectives around the current goals you are working on. Looking at goals from multiple perspectives can provide some new energy and insights into our work.

Activity: As a team, think about one of your most important goals for the remainder of the year. Write it down on a whiteboard/flipchart.

1. Consider that you were looking at it from the 30,000 foot view - like you were sitting in an airplane a looking at it - What do you notice about it? Anything different? What do different team members notice?

2. Consider now you are down on the ground level. What do you notice now? Individually? Collectively?

3. If you now switch perspectives, how does this goal connect to the strategic goals of the organization?

4. Tactically, what is important about these goals? Any new information about the goal and action steps associated?

What else is important for you to note about this goal and related action steps?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Potentials Realized - Leadership and Team Development, Coaching, Retreats
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Email us to find out how we can support you and your team in enhancing your collaboration through coaching, training or a retreat program

#TEams365 #603: ENCORE Cartoon - Coaching Skills For LEaders

8/26/2015

Matrix leaders especially often lead from a coaching approach given the distance from their employees and the deeper knowledge of the terrain their employees bring. Here's an encore of the 7th Teams365 Team Leader Cartoon on Five Core Coaching Skills. How do you do in these five areas? What could use a tweak?

The five skills are:

1.      Builds trust and gets to know your team members

2.      Asking Questions to stimulate thinking, support action and awareness. Questions to build on what team members already know.

3.      Listening - really listening

4.      Goal Setting – Supports SMART-E Goal Setting

5.      Focuses on Accountability and works with your staff member to check in around their progress regularly

Have a great Wednesday,
Jenn

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized - Leadership | Teamwork | Coaching Skills Training for Leaders
Supporting Team Leaders One Conversation at a Time(TM)

(416)996-8326

#teams365 #602: Matrix Management - Top Tips

8/25/2015

Over the past few weeks we have been exploring the idea of matrix management. In today's post I was curious to see what others on the web had been saying/writing in relation to similar topic areas. I searched for to five matrix leadership skills and came up with this wonderful article from European CEO on these Top 5 Matrix Skills (Read it here).

In their article they mention:
Learning from others
Communicating through technology
Engaging and Listening to others
Empowering others
Connectedness to the Broader Business

If you are a matrix leader, how do you compare in these areas? Are there other skills you would recommend?

Take a look at how these compare to some of the Key Competencies for Global Team Members I wrote about a few weeks ago in Teams365 #587.

I also came across a great article on 7 Tips for Leading Projects in a Matrix from the International Matrix Management Institute. They have a number of excellent resources available for those that lead in the matrix.

What other resources would you recommend for others around matrix management?

Have a great Tuesday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Potentials Realized - Leadership and Team Development, Coaching, Retreats
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Email us to find out how we can support you and your team in enhancing your collaboration through coaching, training or a retreat program

#Teams365 #601: Potential Sources of Conflict in Matrix Teams

8/24/2015

Matrix leadership and team arrangements are becoming much ore common place today. Once only relegated to project and global teams, matrix arrangements are much more common-place. It can be important to recognize acknowledge potential sources of conflict, so that you are aware of them and can mitigate.

Here's a list of potential sources of conflict in matrix teams include:
* Conflict between local level priorities and global or project priorities
* Conflict between direction and style of local leader and matrix leader
* Style conflict
* Potential conflict on multiple levels around communication styles - direct versus indirect communication - (refer to Geert Hofstede's Culture scales)
* Conflict created by working across multiple time zones which can impact meeting times, and perceived facoritism
* Conflict around resourcing (perceived and real)
* Conflict around team membership - my "local" team and my "project" team
* Conflict around team culture - how things are done on different teams and what's acceptable and not

These are just a small representation of potential conflicts created in the matrix environment. What is important is to equip team members with enhanced skills in working across differences and recognizing your impact with others.

What do you see as possible conflicts which could emerge in your matrix work?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Mentor RoadMap(TM)
Looking to spark more conversation with your team? Consider the Conversation Sparker(TM) Cards
Set up a conversation about how we can support you and your team best

#Teams365 #600 - Celebrating another Century Milestone

8/23/2015

Recent Learning and Leadership Development Projects Jennifer Britton and Potentials Realized

Today marks my 600th daily blog post and regular writing for the blog has become the norm. I continue to be inspired by communication from readers who are finding the posts applicable to their work. Whether it's posts on how to have better one-on-one conversations, or posts around matrix management, emotional intelligence, mentoring, or coaching we've covered a wide range of topics since Jan 1st 2014.

If you stop for a moment to pause and think about what you've been focusing on in the last 20 months, what has that been? Last week I had a new infograph made up for recent projects we've been involved with at Potentials Realized with clients. It's hard to believe that none of these had even been started 20 months ago, yet they have been such a key part of our focus. I hope that you will take a look at what we've been doing in terms of support for our partners and clients, and think about how we can support you. I'll be starting some holidays next week, AND let's connect in September for a conversation.

I'll be continuing many of our weekly columns for more months including the
Thursday Team Building Tips
Friday Leadership Toolbox
Saturday 6 Leadership 'Questions a Day
Sunday Audios

I will continue these going forward and would love to hear how you have been using this information in your work. Feel free to share using the comment below.

Have a great Sunday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Mentor RoadMap(TM)
Looking to spark more conversation with your team? Consider the Conversation Sparker(TM) Cards
Set up a conversation about how we can support you and your team best

A reminder that the next Teams365 Group Coaching Program will start for team leaders on September 17th and will run until January 2016. Looking to boost your awareness and tools as a team leader, while creating strong peer relationships with other team leaders globally? Join me for this fall program, as we explore topics such as leadership strengths, your style, your vision and emotional intelligence.
(416)996-8326

#TEams365 #599: 6 Leadership Questions - Matrix Management

8/22/2015

Today's 6 Leadership Questions a Day provides you with six leadership questions including:

1. What are your current priorities in each team?
2. What overlap is there for you?
3. What roles do you play in both teams?
4. What responsibilities, opportunities and constraints should we as team be aware of?
5. What could be made more clear for you?
6. I need the following support ----- from ------ to be successful

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Potentials Realized - Leadership and Team Development, Coaching, Retreats
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Email us to find out how we can support you and your team in enhancing your collaboration through coaching, training or a retreat program