Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

#Teams365 #669: Leadership Questions a Day - Employee Engagement

10/31/2015

Today's 6 Leadership Questions a day post explores the topic of Employee Engagement which was a focus in several of our posts this week (Teams 365 #665 - Leadership Myth E - Employee Engagement is Overrated).

Six questions to consider as you look at employee engagement:

1. How engaged is my team (How do we compare to what's been written - i.e. 54% disengaged)?
2. What will support people to bring their best to work every day?
3. What impacts engagement in our team? What can I (and others do about it)?
4. Trust is a key foundation of engagement. What's the state of trust in our team right now? What needs attention?
5. What gets in the way of engagement?
6. What will help all of us to do our best work over the next 60 days until year end?

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
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

#Teams365 #668: #Leadership Toolbox - Employee Engagement

10/30/2015

Earlier this week we explored Leadership Myth 5 - Employee Engagement is Overrated. It was a popular post and I thought it would be fitting to wrap up the week with it in the spotlight for our Toolbox and 6 Leadership Questions.

Here are some additional resources you may find useful around employee engagement

Partnering Resources Employee Engagement articles which you can access here.

Tom Rath on Leadership Strengths and Employee Engagement video (Tom is the well known author of How Full is My Bucket and StrengthsFinder 2.0). View the video here.

A Forbes article"The End of Employee Engagement" .

An interesting article from Christine Comaford on How Great Leaders Build Trust and increase Employee Engagement (for those that are interested in neuroscience - this is a goo read)

Fast Company article on 5 Secrets to Better Employee Engagement. Read it here.

What other resources do you find useful around employee engaement?

Best
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
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Join us the weekend of November 7-8 for a two day Team and roup Coaching training session - build your toolbox with coaching teams and groups. Register here.
(416)996-TEAM (8326)

#Teams365 #667: Team Building Tip #59

10/29/2015

Today's team building tip #59 encourages you and the team to pause and consider "What is each one of us on the team motivated by?" . Chances are, each one of you is motivated by something different.

Going back to classic studies, there are differences in external motivators (things outside of us such as social recognition, praise, awards, money) vs. our internal motivators and drives (a feeling of satisfaction or achievement).

For those that are interested in exploring this topic further recent books such as Daniel Pink's DRIVE, are great reads. Here's a link to his summary of concepts in the book. One of the central themes is that we are driven by autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Today take some time to think about your motivation. What gets you up and out of bed every day? What get's your fire going? What fuels you?

Enjoy the conversation,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Coaching Skills Training | Teamwork | Leadership
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching(Jossey-Bass, 2013)
(416)996-TEAM (8326)

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#Teams365 #666: #Leadership Myth #6 - We all need to Be Friends

10/28/2015

Our sixth leadership myth, (which interestingly enough is our 666th post!) is the myth that we all need to be best friends.

In fact, some of the most high performing teams are very diverse, and outside of work, people might not naturally find themselves in what I call "Each others orbits".

Performance success today requires that team members are able to communicate effectively and respectfully, and learn the skill of working across difference and diversity. This is not naturally something innate. A starting point is often helping people become aware of their own unique style and nature and how that impacts others. by enhancing our own understanding first, we are then able to expand our understanding of others.

Innovation requires that we expand our comfort and abilities in working acoss boundaries, and innovative teams requires that they are able to surface and work through differences in opinion and issues. The ability to hold difficult conversations is key.

What is the state of relationships within your team. How aware are team members of their impact on others?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Leadership, Teamwork and Coaching
Join us in a few weeks for the Group and Team Coaching Intensive program in downtown Toronto - weekend of November 7-8, 2015. This program supports coaches and leaders to enhance their coaching toolkit for working with teams and groups as a coach. Program approved for 19 CCEs with the ICF.
(416)996-8326

#Teams365 #665: #Leadership Myth E - Employee Engagement is overrrated

10/27/2015

In today's business context we hear a lot about how engaged employees are. Many organizations participate in semi-annual surveys around how engaged their employees are. Current research continues to find trends int hat approximately 54% of employees are not engaged in their work, and only about 28% really are. This is cited in numerous places including this article from Crim and Seijts.

Engagement is critical in today's business environment. The older style of leadership by command no longer applies in many contexts where things are changing rapidly and each team member has a different piece of the puzzle required for success. Autonomy is being requested by many professionals as well, where they are "captains of their own ship". Likewise, many employees are expecting to be an active participant in their work rather than being told what to do.

There has been so much written on the topic of engagement, I thought it would be best to point to a number of articles who dig more deeply into employee engagement, so that you can see if it's overrated.

Here's what Custom Insight found out with their research which explored the characteristics of the top 20% of engaged employees vs the top 10% of engaged employees. You can read their article here..

Another interesting study is Aon's 2015 Trends on Global Engagement. You can view it here.

View a great article from Ivey Business School on the 10 Cs of Employee Engagement here.

Finally, links to Gallup's employee engagement articles can be accessed here.

What's important about employee engagement for you as a leader or team member? What conversations would be useful to have?

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
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in developing and running your year end retreats or planning sessions (416)996-TEAM (8326)

#Teams365 #664: #Leadership Myth #4 - D: I have to do it All

10/26/2015

Today we are at leadership myth #4 - I have to DO it all. In fact, savvy leaders know that delegation is key.

While I've covered questions to consider as you go about delegating (TEams365 #393), resources to support you around delegation (Teams 365 #392) today I wanted to focus on the question:

What is the cost if you try to do it all?

What is the cost to you? Your team members?

Being able to discern key priorities is essential to the team leader role, and if we get too caught up in the "doing" of the work, rather than support of the team, identification of strategic issues, or troubleshooting. Besides navigating conflict, I would put delegation up on the top three list of things most team leaders I work with want support around.

This week, do yourself and your team a favor by not only thinking about the cost of delegation, but also considering what you want to delegate and to who. For more tips around that, visit another one of my past posts (#Teams365 #90)

Have a great start to your week!

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
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

#Teams365 #663 - Collaboration Quote

10/25/2015

Today's Sunday quote comes from one of Ken Blanchard's latest books he has co-authored with Jane Ripley and Eunice Parisi-Carew entitled Collaboration Begins with You- Be a Silo Buster. It's a great read for anyone in today's business environment whether you hold a position of leadership or not.

in a few week's I will be speaking on Collaboration and its importance in the team environment. we often think that teams are the space of collaboration, when in fact teams in and of themselves can create their own silos. Inter-departmental groups, project groups, committees and special projects all create rich fertile ground for collaboration and building relationships with others across an organization.

What is important about collaboration for you in your work right now? What's going to help you get better results?

Have a great Sunday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Coaching Skills Training | Teamwork | Leadership
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching(Jossey-Bass, 2013)
(416)996-TEAM (8326)

#Teams365 #662: Leadership Toolbox - Procrastination

10/24/2015

Procrastination is a common leadership challenge today, either with ourselves as leader, or with the team members we support. Today's leadership toolbox includes five resources you may want to explore around procrastination - what it is, why is happens and what to do about it.

#1 - Martin Zhel over at ProductivityHacks.org sent me this resource link to overcoming Procrastination which they've written - http://productivityhacks.org/overcoming-procrastination/

#2 - Check out MindTool's video on Beating Procrastination (and while you are there, check out the other wonderful resources they offer)

#3 - Jessica Stillman's INC article on 5 Scientifically Proven Ways to Beat Procrastination

#4 - Robin Sharma's video on how he beat procrastination Robin is the author of The Monk who Sold His Ferrari and other great books. Check out his video here.

#5 - A fun infographic on 15 ways to beat procrastination. While it's written for a student audience, I think the tips are still very releant.

What resources have you found useful around beating procrastination?

Best
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Coaching Skills Training | Teamwork | Leadership
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching(Jossey-Bass, 2013)
(416)996-TEAM (8326)
Have a great week,
Jennifer

#TEams365 #662: #6 Leadership Questions a Day - Procrastination and Getting Things Done

10/23/2015

Putting things off and procrastination can not only be an irritant, but it can have profound business impacts. Tomorrow, I will be sharing five resources for getting things done as well as well as managing procrastination.

Today's post focuses on six questions to be asking yourself around Procrastination and Getting Things Done

1. What are you procrastinating around?
2. What's getting in the way from getting this done?
3. What's the impact?
4. What support will help you get moving on this, and completing it?
5. Who can you be accountable to OR who can help you be accountable around this?
6. What can you do to avoid falling into the procrastination trap going forward?

Best
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
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

#TEams365 #660: Team Building Tip #58: The Five Why's

10/22/2015

As team leaders it is always useful to have a robust toolkit of frameworks, tools and processes we can bring into our conversations with our team members.

The Five Why's is a wonderful, and simple, series of questions, to help our team members get to root cause around important. Asking the question "Wby" multiple times helps us unpeel the various layers which may be surrounding an issue.

Activity:
consider your most proessing business issue right now. Use the five Why's, by asking yourself Why five times,, to get more to root cause. What do you notice every time you go deeper?

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Leadership, Teamwork and Coaching
Join us in a few weeks for the Group and Team Coaching Intensive program in downtown Toronto - weekend of November 7-8, 2015. This program supports coaches and leaders to enhance their coaching toolkit for working with teams and groups as a coach. Program approved for 19 CCEs with the ICF.
(416)996-8326