​That’s it! Another month has passed and it’s time for our month end reflection and wrap up. This month here at the Teams365 blog we shifted our attention to month end and looked at:

• 5 things to get in your calendar for 2019, right now!
• Planning for Year End Activities for your Team
• Year end productivity reminders – 4 things to keep in mind
• 18 Questions for 2018 Year-end one on ones
• Bringing projects to a close

Given that it ‘s the last day of November, it’s time to grab a pen and take stock of the month that was, and do some planning for the month ahead:
 
As you think about the month of November, consider:

1. What key goals did you, and the team, achieve?
2. What helped you be successful?
3. What worked really well? What didn't?
4. What lessons learned do you want to capture and note?
5. What changes do you want to make?
6. What were key relationships helping you to be successful?
   
   Looking to December

1. What are your key goals and projects this month?
2. What projects need to get completed, no matter what?
3. What else needs to be wrapped up?
4. What do you want to focus on?
5. What do you want to say no to?
6. Where is it important to place attention this month?
7. What else?

Enjoy your reflections this month!
If you have been doing this every month this year, take a look back at your monthly stock-taking.  As you look across the year:
What do you notice as trends?
What has key learning been?
What still needs attention?
What issues or items have come up month after month? What’s significant about this?
What changes, if any, do you want to make?

Best,
​Jennifer

​This week’s Team Building tip is “What’s your best work?”. As you think about everything you have accomplished in the last few months (or the last year or two), what is your best work?

• What are the things that you are really proud of?
• In your work, what can you to do cultivate, or ask for, more work opportunities like this?
• How did this task use your skills?
• What did it do to accelerate your learning and growth?
• What made it so fulfilling?
• Are there elements of that project which can be isolated and magnified in future projects?
• Helping people and teams connect with their best work, boosts engagement and commitment to task. This helps foster a culture of growth and higher levels of trust.
• What can you do to facilitate experiences so that people can bring their best self to work?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

At this time of year, the clock is ticking and it may now be GO Time to get projects across the finish line. Where there was once time and leeway, now things need to get done and completed. What is it going to take to get the project completed before the end of the year?

To bring the project across the finish line consider:

• What is it going to take to bring this project to a successful close?
• What resources are needed? Do we need to pull new resources?
• Are there any lessons learned from other projects that we can incorporate?
• Are there any specialized, or talented, human resources we can bring in at this time to move the project quicker? Are there experts or seasoned team members who can complete tasks more quickly than others?
• What elements can be completed consecutively? We often think that tasks are sequential (i.e. this has to be done before that), when in fact, we might be able to complete some tasks consecutively.
• What does complete look like? Think about quality and scope. Are we still within the original scope of the project, or has there been scope creep?
• Do we want to reconfirm project requirements, checking for any assumptions which may not be correct?
• What can we do to minimize distractions and focus on what is really important? Are there some tasks which need to be devolved from those on the project team so they can focus 100 % on the task at hand?
• What does project close out look like?
• How can we capture the learning so we don’t repeat these cycles next time?
• What’s going to help your projects move to completion phase quickly?

Enjoy the conversation,
Jennifer

​It’s that time where we start rolling into year end conversations, holding one on ones (coaching conversations) individually and with the team.
As we move into the end of the year, it is invaluable to schedule some one on one time with each team member. Today’s post includes a selection of 18 questions you might include in those conversations (pick and choose as appropriate). Great year end conversations help to create a pause to reflect achievements, synthesize learning and look ahead to the future.
You may want to incorporate these questions into your conversation:

1. What are the key achievements you have been most proud of this year?
2. What projects worked well?
3. Which projects didn’t go so well?
4. What was your learning there?
5. What connections/relationships have been most valuable this year?
6. Which relationships need attention next year?
7. What’s been your biggest learning this year? What experiences provided that?
8. What has worked well with the team this year? What hasn’t?
9. What feedback do you have for me as the leader? (What’s worked and what hasn’t)
10. What’s one suggestion for how we could do things differently as a team next year?

Looking ahead to next year:

1. What are you excited about?
2. What habits do you want to cultivate or lean into?
3. What do you want to do to keep growing your skills?
4. By December 31, 2019 what do you hope you will have achieved? OR by January 1, 2020, what do you hope you will have achieved? (Notice the impact of the difference one day makes!  Yes, we are wrapping up a decade next year)
5. What are your top 3 priorities next year?
6. What feedback and support are you looking for?
7. What would be useful in terms of our 1-1 time?
8. What else is going to help you do your best work?

What else do you like to ask at this time of the year? Please let us know by sharing in the comments below.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

In our Effective Virtual Conversations tip this week we return to the focus area of High Performing Teams and the six factors that make them excel. Where team alignment often begins is with factor #1 – Share vision, mission or purpose. This is also the one that may take more time to achieve and get clear on through multiple series of dialogue.
As a virtual team, having a shared vision is critical for alignment, especially when people are widely geographically dispersed.
Some questions team members may want to ask themselves to gain clarity and alignment are:

• Where does the team see itself at the end of the year?
• Three years from now?
• Does everyone have the same vision?
• To get clearer on purpose and  mission you will also want to explore:
• Why do we exist? What’s important in our work?
• What is the one thing we always want to do?

As a reminder, and focus for everyone, how do you want to capture your vision? Is there a plaque or photo you can create to “enshrine” these items?

Enjoy the conversations,
​Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
Join Jennifer for a year-end virtual planning retreat in the PlanDoTrack Series!
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
YouTube – Teams365 Leadership Channel
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

This week’s Sunday post takes us back to some of the varied Sunday audios I recorded for the Teams365 blog. Many of these posts are “Evergreen” and haven’t dated too much. I’ve selected a few to spotlight as I think they are a good reminder for us at this time of year. Let’s take a listen back into them again:

Four Tips to Overcoming Procrastination 
Three Key Facilitation Skills 
Gratitude, Recognition and Month-End Reflection
Your Vision and Goals – while this post was for 2015, it still works for 2019. Listen into this if you are now turning attention to your vision for 2019…You might also want to join me for a year end PlanDoTrack Virtual Retreat. Here’s the link to the Vision and Goals session.
Ten Questions Team Leaders Should Be Asking 

As we move into the end of the fifth year of the Teams365 blog, I wanted to thank you for joining us. Whether you’ve only read a few posts, or followed along with many, it’s been a pleasure to join you on a daily basis for 2014 -2018. I look forward to continuing to provide regular sparks here at the Teams365 blog.

Best,
Jennifer

​This week’s Weekly Journaling prompt gets you to think about the question “What will wild success look like?”
As you think about the next month, or the next year, what do you want to create? What will wild success look like?
If you had no barriers, what could you achieve?
Writing in an aspirational way about what we envision can be a powerful process. Don’t self-censure. Allow yourself the ability to dream big, and then let it go.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago in a speaking engagement, part of vision work is about letting things go. It’s about dreaming big, letting it go and trusting that what needs to happen will.
What WILL (not can) wild success look like for you?

Enjoy!
Jennifer

​Given our quickly shifting focus to the holidays and year end, I thought it would be appropriate to shift our attention back to a Linked In article I wrote and post I shared this time last year – Teams365 #1389.

This "It’s that time of year for parties, year-end team retreats and other events. Are you maximizing the amount of time and impact of these team events?

Having supported year-end programming for teams and organizations for many years I thought it would be useful to share four focus areas you may want to consider as you start preparing, planning and perhaps facilitating your year-end processes.

Number One — What’s the purpose? If you had to distill down the top two or three takeaways from the retreat process or that off site, what is it? The purpose of our year-end function can impact the structure and activities undertaken in the program.

Is the purpose of your year-end event:

• to build connection?
• to share important information?
• do some goal planning?
• to build understanding across the silos, that may exist within your organization?

I’d encourage you to think about the top two or three purposes of the upcoming program and link to consideration #2.

Number Two — What is the connection to the business? Think about what is the connection to the business. It’s still very common in today’s world for people to just go through the motions of a traditional annual year end party and /or event. 
Are you really maximizing that investment of bringing people together?
Could you build into that luncheon a half-day session before or after, to do some work with your staff teams to support their development, to help them look at their skills and strengths and styles and also to share with them, you know, and help them connect to the link with your business.
What opportunities do you have already formalized for bringing people together at year-end? What changes or additions do you want to make?

Number Three — Do you want to do it all alone? Many organizations today have a committee and amongst that committee membership, there may be some members who would be very comfortable in facilitating your year-end team or organizational process.
So, think about who might be best equipped to do the work? Is it you, members of that committee or maybe you are interested in bringing in an external facilitator?
One of the things we do, is either we come in and facilitate or develop activities which you can facilitate yourself.
Think about how you might be able to leverage the resources you have and or bring in some special guest speakers or external resources to contribute to the environment that you want to create.

Number Four — How are you going to take this forward? One of the biggest challenges that we see in learning and development today is this continued lack of transferability to the work place.
This was what drew me to focus more on the area of Coaching which places an ongoing emphasis on accountability and transferability to the workplace.
One the things I like to encourage organizations that I partner with to always thinking about is – How will you sustain the conversation? How will you take this forward into your work?
Hopefully any year-end retreat process or year-end meeting will have an action step and a very formalized action planning stage. Remember to build in time in the new year to revisit your commitments and accountabilities.

Here’s a quick recap:
Number One - Think about the purpose. What are the top three or four reasons or things that you want people to take away?
Number Two - What’s the link of the year-end program to the business? Is it just to have fun or something else?
Number Three - As your approaching your year-end processes, is this something you want to do or do you want to bring in a facilitator? A third option perhaps is to have something designed for you, so you can facilitate it yourself.
And finally, Number Four. What are the takeaways? How will people sustain the conversation? When will you check in on your actions and commitments?
I hope that you’re finding these ideas valuable, practical, and of course, implementable."
What are you looking forward to creating for your team in terms of year end planning and reflection?

Take a look at some of the other year end posts here. 

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
Join Jennifer for a year-end virtual planning retreat in the PlanDoTrack Series!
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
YouTube – Teams365 Leadership Channel
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

What can you do to play to your strengths?

This week’s Team building Tip asks you to reflect on the question “What can you do to play to your strengths?”.

A few weeks ago I delivered a keynote on mentoring and talked about how important it is to leverage our strengths regularly. As I asked the people I was speaking to about how well they knew their strengths, not many hands went up. It was interesting, because one of the areas I see teams get so much traction around is in the area of strengths. Learning about your own, and then thinking about how that helps (and hinders!) team effort.

Gallup has done an immense amount of research in this area, and strengths resources abound. From Gallup’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 to the Positive Psychology VIA Strengths survey, there is lots to explore and be in dialogue around.
As you think about your work – what is easy for you? Where are you able to lean into your natural capacity? Is it in building relationships? Thinking? Getting things done?

• How can your team leverage your natural talents more?
• What can you offer to your team?
  

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

As we continue along our journey of year end wind-down activities, it is time to take a check on productivity. What's working? What's not?

Productivity is not just about getting things done. It's also about getting things done consistently in a way that is renewing.

At this time of year, as part of your year end planning it can be useful to explore at an individual or collective team level the following questions:
1. What's helping me/us get results? (Get specific around this - what key activities or practices are helping?)
2. What's not helping me/us to get results?
3. Where is the bulk of your time being spent? If you are not yet tracking some of your key metrics and schedule, now is a great time to do so. It can be as simple as noting it in your calendar, or picking up a resource like my upcoming Plan.Do.Track workbook and planner.
4. What are noticing about key periods that are unproductive?
5. Where might you be spending too much time in meetings? What influence can you have on tightening up meeting results and focus OR exploring who needs to be at meetings?
6. What are you doing to renew?
7. From a scheduling perspective, are you building in enough blocks to get tasks completed right away before you have to switch your focus?
8. What other changes would you like to make to your schedule, to do more of what's working, and to do less of what's not?

I hope that these questions are useful as you go to focus on making the small changes in your schedule and work, which we know makes the big changes over time.

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