Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

#TEAMS365 #1734 – Month End Reflection

9/30/2018

It’s hard to believe that another month has gone by. Here we are at the end of September and it’s time to do our monthly stock taking and reflection.
If you do track your monthly goals and metrics, today is the day to do this!
Take note of these questions:

As you reflect on September, what have been your successes and accomplishments?
As you reflect on the last quarter, what have been your successes and accomplishments?
What are you most proud of?
What successes this month do you want to duplicate?
What top 3 learning have you head that you want to carry forward?
What key relationships have helped you so far this year? Which ones need more attention?
What has helped your successes?
What has hindered or gotten in the way?
What does your team need to be acknowledged for?

As you look to October, consider these questions:
What are your key priorities for October?
What are the key goals?
What are the major priorities?
What will you need to place attention on?
What changes do you want to make in October or this quarter?
What habits do you want to leverage?
When will you check in to explore your progress, and make changes?
What resources do you want to tap into?
Who can help you be successful this month?

This month also is the start to a new quarter. Grab a few more minutes to think about, and NOTE (yes – write it down).

What are your top 5 priorities for this quarter?
What will “wild success” look like at the end of the quarter in each of these priority areas?
What, and who, do you need to complete these priority areas?
What do you need to say NO to, in order to focus on the priorities?
What else is important to note about this quarter?

If you have a copy of the Coaching Biz Builder Workbook and Planner it’s time to complete a new quarterly planning section. Join me for a quarterly planning hack!

Enjoy your reflection!

Coming up – October and a focus on Teamwork Skills.

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#TEAMS365 #1733 - Weekly Journaling prompt #17

9/29/2018

This week’s weekly journaling prompt is “The relationships which are important are…."

“Relationships are the currency of business” They are the vehicle through which we get things done. It can be valuable to consider :

Which relationships have you developed in the last 3-6 months?
What relationships would help you get the results you need?
What relationships need attention?
Who is missing in your network?
Who have you not connected with in a while, and might benefit from being in connection with?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#TEAMS365 #1732 - 20 Mentoring Questions

9/28/2018

Mentoring is one of the most important areas we can engage in, at all stages of our career. This week I wanted to take us back to a 2016 post entitled – 20 Mentoring Questions. You can read the original posts here.

Here’s what I wrote:
Whether we are mentoring virtually or in person, having a number of questions in your back pocket as conversation starters can be a great resource for mentors and proteges alike. Today's post includes 20 different questions you may want to use to get your next conversation going or deepen where you are going already:

1. Tell me about a time when you learned the most?
2. What was a challenging leadership situation you encountered? How did you approach it? What did you learn?
3. What advice do you have for me around the goals that I am working on?
4. What goals are important for you right now?
5. What do you do to maintain focus?
6. What do you do to find balance as a leader?
7. Who would you recommend I connect with?
8. Who provided you with the best advice as a leader?
9. What would you say is a "must do" for leaders?
10. What advice do you have for someone starting out on their career?
11. What resources help foster success in today's business context?
12. What resources would you recommend for someone in my position?
13. What was the most challenging move for you in your career? What was the easiest?
14. What's the biggest learning of your career?
15. What legacy do you want to leave?
16. What do you see the biggest challenges for our profession in the next 5-10 years? The biggest opportunities?
17. What is a business issue I should be looking at more closely right now?
18. What trends are important to take note of at the moment?
19. How do you stay current or ahead of the curve?
20. Knowing what you know of me now, what advice or recommendations do you have?

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#TEAMS365 #1731 – Team Building Tip #202

9/27/2018

It is Thursday and time for another Team Building Tip. Today we are at Team Building Tip #202. This week’s question gets you to consider the question “What are the different roles team members are playing?”.

In a team roles are critical in helping the team excel and get results. Different team members may also be better suited to fulfil different roles, based on their strengths and natural talents. Consider these issues:

What are the different roles needed for the team to excel? Consider project initiator, social coordinator, Devils Advocate, Get it Done Person.
One of the better know role frameworks as it relates to team development is Belbin’s Team Roles. Read more about their nine team roles here.

Issues to consider with roles:

What are the roles different people are inhabiting?
How are the different roles helping the team?
What is needed by the team right now?
Is anyone getting entrenched in the roles they are filling?
Are roles creating more silos than connection?
As you look ahead to future work, what roles are going to be required?

Take a look at other posts related to Roles by exploring these posts here.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#TEAMS365 #1730 – Virtual Meeting Wrap Up Tool and Process

9/26/2018

Virtual meetings can be a drag! As I write in Effective Virtual Conversations, they don’t have to involve “Death by Conference Call”.

Four to five times a year I offer the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program, geared to provide leaders, trainers, facilitators and other professionals with tools to jazz up their virtual conversations – meetings, webinars and other virtual conversations.

It’s really important in virtual sessions to make things as visual, and visible, as possible. That’s why slides and photographs can be a great thing. While design and photography was probably not on your list of development activities as a leader, think about how photos and visuals shape:

The stories of the team
The memories of what you have achieved
The emotions created
Team identity
What photos, images and visuals are you using in your team communication? Is there an opportunity to do more, or incorporate more in these areas?

I wanted to share a quick framework you might consider using and adapting for your next team meeting.
One of the things which is important for leaders of all kinds, virtual leaders especially, is to check for understanding in terms of what people are “taking away” from a call. Team meetings are usually our only live touchpoint as virtual and remote teams. Leveraging these opportunities for feedback and learning are key.
As part of my work as a presenter, I often incorporate a slide that looks like this, at the end of the presentation:

The icons represent our focus and takeaways.
I always like to build in time to hear from each person around:

What are you next steps? (The feet icon)
What has your learning been? (The scissors)
What do you want to keep your eyes on (The magnifying glass)
What will you take forward (the briefcase)

It’s highly unlikely that we get to hear from everyone, however, I can share this on the screen and have everyone use “annotation” and include their name to indicate what their responses are. We can then take a screen grab and circulate it as key learning from the meeting.

Once people get into the practice of this, it only takes a few minutes, yet it serves as a very powerful reminder of what we covered, and also accountability tool that peers and leaders can follow up on.

How might you use something like this in your work and/or virtual conversations?

Enjoy,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#TEAMS365 #1729: Plan a Virtual Co-Working Session

9/25/2018

As we move into fall, it can be very useful for teams to continue to put attention around getting things done WHILE Connecting. A favorite activity I continue to facilitate is GET IT DONE afternoons, which really become Virtual Co-Working Sessions. They are a derivative of the virtual retreats I have been offering for teams, business owners and leaders since 2007.
Virtual co-working sessions may range from one-hour sprints, to four-hour blocks to full day sessions.
Three considerations to making a virtual co-working session work include the following:

A platform where you can all meet, see each other and converse for periods of time.

Streaming is often best, however, others may appreciate the ability to take their work on the road and call in at time.

Focus – collectively and individually. Consider these questions
What’s bringing you together today?
What’s the focus – is it to do something collectively or individually?
What outcomes do you want?
How do you want to break it down – meeting every hour for check ins? Meeting more frequently?
Scheduled Checkpoints - A way to share and keep the momentum going throughout the day. I have found that virtual group and team sessions have been the seeds for some amazing new ideas and cross-pollination. Be sure to build in blocks where people are not only checking in around what they are doing, but also consider the value of building in some time for sharing of learning or insights.

Looking for inspiration on what you might do in a virtual co-working session? Consider these ideas – they are all real programs I have facilitated over the years:

One-hour virtual sprints for planning on the team or individual level
30-minute brainstorming/innovation sessions geared to create new product and or service ideas
Four-hour Get it Done sessions where groups of solopreneurs connect virtually to take focused action once a month on things on their list. Check ins are once an hour.
Four to eight-hour Virtual Retreats, where each hour has a dedicated focus and theme to explore and/take action on. For example, an hour dedicated to creating a business plan, an hour to marketing approaches, an hour for project work).

Looking for a facilitator to host your next virtual co-working session? Contact me to learn more about this service I offer.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#TEAMS365 #1728 Effective Virtual Conversations tip #63

9/24/2018

Welcome back to Monday’s EVC Tip - #63 in the series.

This week’s tip is all about getting you to think about matrix management. In the virtual space it is likely that your team members are part of multiple teams and may be reporting to several different leaders.

Remote team members may have a local leader or supervisor they see on a regular basis, and also a more remote team leader who actually works more closely with them on the macro level.

For example, maybe a person is part of a continent wide marketing team. This team is continent wide in focus, and because they are based in a more remote location, they report into a local office regularly. They are expected to work with both the local and regional leaders. Each team has different ways of working and different cultures. The regional marketing team is more laid back and creative, while the local team is detail oriented and fast paced. It can be a challenge for the employee to navigate both sets of working relationships, work cultures and leadership styles.

Key to this process is being intentional, and proactive, in discussing many of the issues that may emerge. If three-way meetings are possible – between the employee, the local leader and the regional subject leader, it can be useful to talk through how as a partnership you can be most effective in supporting the employee in getting the results needed for the organization.

Some key issues you will want to clarify early on in your communications within matrix relationships include:

Clarifying roles, responsibilities and reporting structures
Identifying overlaps and gaps
Clarifying goals and priorities (especially if there are different priorities)
Identifying resources available

You can read more about this on page 334 of Effective Virtual Conversations.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#Teams365 #1727: 12 More Questions for Stepping Into Fall (Video)

9/23/2018

Many of you would have noticed Friday's video returning to the 2017 Fall Video where I share a number of questions geared to get you thinking about what you want to create in this season.

Earlier this week, I updated the list and shared it on another blog I write at. These questions are slightly different so I thought that it would be good to post them here in a new 2018 Fall Questions video.

As we step into fall 2018 this weekend, I hope that you will grab a pen and your journal and take stock for a few minutes.

If you have enjoyed this, and are on Instagram, do follow my 90 Days Plan.Do.Track series at my @CoachingBizBuilder Instagram feed. For the 90 days of fall I will be posing a new question related to business every day. You can follow here at @CoachingBizBuilder Instagram.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#TEAMS365 #1726 - Weekly Journaling prompt #16

9/22/2018

It’s Saturday and time for another journaling prompt. In this week’s prompt I thought it would be important to get you to think about themes. The prompt is “This month’s theme is….”.

As you think about what has played out for you in the month of September, what do you notice about the theme that’s emerged?

Here are some additional questions for you to consider as you go to think about September an the fall:
As I take a 30,000 foot view of the month, what are the common issues which have emerged?
What’s connecting with my experiences from earlier this year?
What are the threads that are showing up?
What is the theme I want to hold for the fall?

Be well!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#TEAMS365 #1725 – #FLASHBACKFRIDAY -Moving Into Fall!

9/21/2018

It’s the start of fall today and time to stop and pause and take stock on what is important for you. As part of our Flashback Friday series, I have two posts for you to consider.

First, let’s go back to last year’s video on questions to consider: Click above or here.

Second, here’s what I wrote in Teams365 #267 back in 2014:
As a new leaf turns (another color) and we move into a new season, what is it that you want to put a focus on this fall? (Or spring for those in the Southern hemisphere)
What are your goals this season?
What new habits and practices do you want to put into place?
What relationships do you want to put attention around?
What else is significant for you this fall?

Adding on some of the questions I am commonly asking in 2018:
WHO can support you in achieving your goals?
What contingency plans do you want to put into place?
What’s the one thing you need to let go of, so you can focus more quickly?
How will you simplify this fall?

Looking forward to continuing to journey together for the next few months as we move through fall.

Warm regards,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326