Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

TEAMS365 #2182 – Weekly Journaling Prompt 81

12/21/2019

This weekend’s Weekly Journaling Prompt gets you to think about the question – “I’d put the following in my time capsule”. Just the other day my son was talking about how it’s only 4 more years until he can open the time capsule he created back in grade 2…. he’s excited to see what he put in there and can’t remember all the items.

What are artifacts of your year this year? What would you want to bottle up and save away? What DO you want to capture so that you can remember?

This weekend’s WJP is a great one as we go to wind down the year. If you haven’t taken a few minutes to review your year, be sure to now – you can follow along a 30-minute reflection 2020 planning session I hosted last month. View it here.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2181 – Flashback Friday:10 Questions to Take Stock of The Last Year

12/20/2019

While this may be the last day of work for several of you reading today’s post, we still have another 11 days to go in the year. I thought it would be appropriate to link back to a great post from 2016 which included 10 questions for you to take stock of the last year. I hope that you enjoy the reflection and if you are signing off work for a few weeks – Enjoy!

Here’s what I wrote:

Today's post gets you to start turning your attention to some stock taking of this past year. We've got a little less than a week left in the year, and between the parties and presents and eating and resting, it can be a great time to take stock of the year. Here at the Teams365 blog this year we've focused on a range of topic areas including Virtual Facilitation, Global Leadership, New Leadership tips, Exercises to Undertake With Your Team. I also did a couple of series including the Foundations of Feedback, the Foundations of Teamwork, and the Goals. I’m sure you've picked up our bias here at Potentials Realized that success in today's business context is so dependent on Results, Relationships as well as Learning.

I hope that you will grab 15 minutes today or this week to reflect on these 10 questions to help you take stock of the past year. I'll be following up in a few days with ten more questions to support you in creating your vision for the new year.

Here are ten questions to support you in taking a look back at the last year:
1. What's been your biggest success this year?
2. What are you most proud of accomplishing? OR What were your greatest results?
3 What habits have most supported you this year?
4. What three adjectives sum up the year for you?
5. What were key relationships instrumental to your success and experience this year?
6. What has been your biggest, and most important, learning this year?
7. If you were to give this year a book title, what would it be?
8. What do you want to make sure you keep doing in the new year? What do you want to stop doing?
9. What do you want to acknowledge yourself for?
10. What and how will you celebrate the successes of 2016? With whom?

Enjoy your reflection!

Have a great day,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

Coaches - I hope that you'll join us for the 60Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator which starts January 1st - it's a blended live and on-dmeand program. First live call Jan 6th.

TEAMS365 #2180 – Team Building Tip 267: Feedback

12/19/2019

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to consider the question “HOW do you want feedback?” As part of team days, I host for teams (virtually and in person) we usually wind up doing work around strengths or styles, helping team members understand the diverse needs and approaches on the team. From there, we usually start exploring what these differences mean in terms of communication, working style, approaches to conflict and also things that get under our skin, or triggers.

One of the areas where you may see significant differences is in the area of feedback – how we like to give it, and how we like to receive it. Feedback should be a two-way street.

This week’s Team Building Tip asks the question: “How do you want feedback?”
Options might include:

Regular in batches or as things happen
Focused on the big picture vs. Granular in detail
Verbal only vs writing which you can review and then connect verbally to speak about

What are the ways you want to focus on feedback?

Feedback should also be a two-way street, and while asking the question to those we are supporting through feedback, you’ll want to consider asking “What type of feedback do you want as the receiver?”

Note that in many teams, feedback is not just between the leader and team members. There may be peer feedback cycles as well. The question how “How do you want feedback?” may be an interesting one to explore with the entire team.

Enjoy the conversations!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2179 – Ten Areas We Covered This Year

12/18/2019

As we start to round out 2019, and get ready to step into a new decade, it’s time to start taking a look back at some of the top posts from this year. Each month of the year has had a different focus – from Virtual Team Tips, to managing disruption, to

Here are ten areas you definitely will want to check out:

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2178 - Digital Transformation

12/17/2019

As an author and consultant, I often work with organizations and teams around the topic of digital transformation. As someone who has usually worked as an early adopter with technology, sometimes out of geographic necessity, digital transformation is an extension of the work I’ve been doing for several decades now.

You can hear more about the various pathways that bring us into remote and digital work at the new podcast I am hosting with colleague Michelle Mullins. Together we are exploring the people, pathways and processes that make up the remote workspace.

Digital transformation has been one part of this equation. From large banks, to healthcare, to education, the way we are connecting, conversing and doing our work is essential.

Many rural areas now have access to medical advisors that would not have been possible years ago. I remember vividly being part of some epiphany moments and paradigm shifters in 1998 (yes, that’s 1998) with a community deep in the interior of South America. A funding grant from the Canadian International Development Agency helped to fund solar panels, a satellite connection and special laptops to link that community with educational materials. When I arrived at the community to meet with my team who had been based there doing related work in primary health and infrastructure rehab, I was struck (as was often the case) with the very limited resources available for students. One notebook each, a small pencil and bare bookshelves. This pilot project was a bit of a game changer for that community, opening up the doorways to education for those children.

While not every project like this is a success, they radically change the paradigm of how we work, what’s available and then what’s possible.

This is also what’s happening in the era of digital transformation.

While we may not be comfortable in letting go of “how we’ve always done things” it’s important that we also look at the questions of:

What can we do now?
What’s now possible?
What new connections are there?

VUCA, digital transformation, and AI (all 3 separate things) are showing up in some workplaces at the same time. IT can be overwhelming for some and spark creativity for others.

Providing a space for people to connect and share their insights in a way where they can be heard.

As a team, over time, be sure to build in time to explore additional questions around:

What changes do we need?
What can be evolved? Repurposed?
What new things do we need to create?
What do we need to stop doing?
What conversations are important for you to have as a team? What space and time do you need to earmark so these conversations are taking place?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2177 – Monday December 16 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 124

12/16/2019

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip focuses on “Embracing Your Differences”. When we work in the remote space, it’s likely that our conversations are going to take us to a place that may be more diverse and varied than if we were working face-to-face. Time zone differences, role differences, industry differences, geographic and cultural differences, provide the opportunity to learn more about the wider world, and also ourselves.

As someone whose career over the last three decades has spanned countries, cultures and industries (along with the face-to-face and virtual worlds), one thing that is important in creating effective virtual conversations is to “embrace your differences”.

Part of a great virtual conversation is that there is sufficient trust and connection amongst group members. Without this it’s likely that we are all going to disengage. In a virtual conversation we want to provide opportunities for individuals to both celebrate and honor the differences that exist, while also finding the common ground. While some people might think that this is a dichotomy, it really is more of a creative tension.

Practically it will involve you providing a series of different types of focus:

A focus on self, and a focus on the group
A focus on who I am uniquely as a group member, and a focus on what’s common with other group members

When we help group members explore these various layers, they are able to lean into the conversation with each other, creating more trust and connection.

Chapter 7 of Effective Virtual Conversations provides a variety of instructions on different types of exercises you might incorporate across your virtual calls. Most can be adapted to have a focus on these areas for exploration.

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2176 – Week in Review

12/15/2019

It’s Sunday which means it’s time for another week in review. This year we’ve covered so many great topics here at the Teams365 blog from teams, to disruption, to the weekly series on Effective Virtual Conversations (Monday), Team Building Tips (Thursday) and Friday’s Flashback Friday.

If you missed some of the blog posts this week, take a look at:

Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversations Remote Team Tip. Read it here.
Tuesday’s 5 Ways to Jazz up your Conference Calls Next year. Read it here.
Wednesday’s How to Leverage Coaching and Mentoring During 2020. Read it here.
Thursday’s Team Building Tip – Pitfall Alert – Which also includes more than 20 pitfalls I found my team clients working around this year. Read i here.
Friday’s Flashback Friday – Key Trends: Navigating Disruption. Read it here.
Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt – Today I am grateful for…. Read it here.

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2175 – Weekly Journaling Prompt 80

12/14/2019

This week’s Weekly Journaling Prompt gets you to undertake one of the positive psychology exercises we see as a happiness and well-being booster asking you to reflect on what you are grateful for. Positive psychology has a very well know daily practice called "the 3 things you are grateful for" where people are encouraged to reflect on, and write out 3 things they are grateful for.

Whether you do this once a week or on a daily basis, studies have found that getting into the habit of reflecting on, and articulating, what you are grateful for has impact on self-esteem, health (physiological, psychological) and relationships.

Read Amy Morin's 2014 article on 7 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude here.

Check out this White Paper on Gratitude from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley - Download it here.

I hope that you will enjoy this week’s Weekly Journaling Prompt, and more importantly, find that it has longer term impact!

Enjoy your writing!
Jennifer'

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2174 – Flashback Friday – Navigating Disruption

12/13/2019

2019 has been a year of disruption on many fronts. Professionals of all kinds are no longer being buffeted by their leaders from the winds of change. Learning how to navigate disruption has become an imperative for all professionals.

I thought it would be fitting to reach back to a post from this past June on Navigating Disruption to help you think about the focus you want to take in continuing to cultivate these skills and mindsets in your work – here we go with a revisit of Teams365 #2003.

Here’s what I wrote in that blog post from June 2019 – Key Trends: Navigating Disruption

Disruption is part of the landscape of many industries and workplaces today. Whether things are changing dramatically due to technology or geopolitical impacts, change is pervasive for many.

While we can’t change the pace of change, we can adjust our approaches to it.

What do we do to continue to be effective and positive in times of change?

Three practical things we can do are:

Cultivate curiosity – While many leaders would assert “easier said than done”, cultivating curiosity is important for today’s business landscape. Cultivating curiosity can be an important skill to develop in team members AND embed in the culture of an organization.

For more on cultivating curiosity, check out this earlier Teams365 blog post I wrote on Cultivating Curiosity Teams365 #1955 and what the research says Teams365 1961 – Encouraging Curiosity.

Be clear on the big picture goals – Adopting a 30,000 foot view on work, life and context can also be a valuable strategy for buffeting against the shocks of change. While the meta-view (big picture view) is not one that everyone adopts easily, seeing the big picture helps with the micro-shocks we can feel on a regular basis when things change. This is why it’s really important to continue communicating and meeting during times of change. Helping share the big picture so people don’t find themselves in the “Weeds”, cut off from what’s happening in the bigger picture is critical.

Become comfortable with knowing when things are “good enough” to let go, and that learning may always be needed. The embracement of “growth mindset” on the part of organizations in support of their staff is encouraging. When we come from what Carol Dweck has coined “growth mindset” it gives permission for experimentation, learning, and not quite being ready “yet”.

Disruption may mean that reverse mentoring (junior to more senior professionals) is just as important as traditional mentoring (senior to more junior professionals). It also provides us with an opportunity to pause and see how we are adjusting to change. Are we as “good at change” as we thought we were?

A reminder that last month I focused on Teamwork in Uncertainty:

Teams365 #1955- Teamwork in Uncertainty: Cultivating Curiosity. View it here.

Teams365 #1954 – Managing Uncertainty – Building Trust and Connection on Your Team Virtually. All workplaces can benefit from this topic – it is one of the #1 questions we receive here at Potentials Realized. Check out the post here.

Teams365 #1962: Teamwork in Uncertainty: Empowering your Team with the Space to Experiment. Read it here.

Teams365 #1968: Teamwork in Uncertainty: Pivot . Read it here.

Teams365 #1969: Teamwork in Uncertainty: Comfort with the Unknown: Read it here.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2173 – Team Building Tip 266: Pitfall Alert

12/12/2019

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to think about different pitfalls which might exist in your work. Proactivity and thinking through what you might do to prevent them, or recover, if you don’t prevent them, can save a lot of time and energy.

Here’s a list of some of the common pitfalls I saw this year in the work that I did with leaders and teams:

Team Pitfalls - Disengagement, people disconnecting because they always feel that they are the ones who have to flex (i.e. being the only team member who has to call in early or late all the time), not sharing information, not collaborating because people don’t know who is who.
Communication Pitfalls - Messages not being understood as intended, overuse of different technologies, assuming everyone had read the email.
Leadership Pitfalls - Not being clear in terms of process, message, outcome, not co-creating expectations with the team, not investing in one-on-one time, not being consistent with messages and meetings, not providing direction/information on the big picture and strategic direction, not being clear on how people connect and not providing time for the team to meet.
Technology Pitfalls - Not keeping things simple in the virtual space, getting thrown off by tech challenges, not running through the technology before the conversation, not taking time to prepare, trying to fit too much in and not keeping it simple.
Meeting Pitfalls – Not having an agenda, not getting input around the agenda, not rotating facilitation of it, not following up on accountabilities, not being consistent with meeting, not being clear on purpose of meetings.

What other pitfalls have you experienced this year?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing
Phone (416)996-8326

As we step into the end of the year, get your planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon.