Teams365 Blog - Potentials Realized

#Teams365 #1275: ONe on One Questions: Shared Performance Measures and Goals

6/28/2017

As we start winding down our June series on one-on-one questions you might want to bring into your next team meeting and/or individual conversation, we arrive at one of the final six factors for high performing teams - shared performance measures and goals. Yesterday's post looked at the concept of Mission, and last week we looked at shared team practices and shared commitment.

Teams which excel are clear on their goals and how those goals are measured - what we also refer to as shared performance measures.

As you consider your work right now, have some dialogue in these areas:

1. What are our top 3-5 goals this month?
2. Are the goals SMART-E? Specific? Measurable? Achievable? Realistic? Timely? and Exciting?
3. What does success look like for each major goal? Do we all share the same vision of success?
4. What does each one of us do to contribute to the achievement of that goal?
5. What are the things that could get in the way, or derail, the goal? What will help, or enable, the goal?
6. What are the measures we will use to know that we have reached the goal? (Time, money, other....)

What other questions are important to consider, and have dialogue around, as it relates to goals?

Have a great Wednesday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

Connect with us to be the first to know more about launch events around my newest book - Effective Virtual Conversations - coming out later this summer.

#Teams365 #1254: More one on One Questions - Acceleration

6/7/2017

Our June focus includes a series of different questions leaders may wish to be exploring with their team members in one-on-ones. Many new, and experienced, team leaders continue to indicate that the ability to have a variety of questions at their fingertips to facilitate better conversations is a must. From Monday through Wednesday this month you'll find a series of questions you can use in your one-on-ones, or team meetings.

Today's focus is on acceleration. In today's VUCA business world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) acceleration can be critical - critical for accelerating what's working, and what's not.

Here are six questions you might consider asking your team:

What is the pace at which you are currently working?
What could acceleration look like?
What would help you move faster?
Why do you want to accelerate?
In which areas could you accelerate?
What would be your first steps in the process?

What other questions would be useful to ask in light of acceleration of results?

Have a great Wednesday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

Connect with us to be the first to know more about launch events around my newest book - Effective Virtual Conversations - available later this summer.

#TeamS365 #1231: 10 Questions for Your Next Virtual Meeting

5/15/2017

Having a variety of questions in our back pocket is key for business success. As I explored last week, questions create a solid base for any virtual conversation. Today’s post includes 10 plus questions you might consider asking at different stages of the virtual conversation.

Questions to open up the conversation:
What’s most important for us to focus on today?
What end results do we want for this meeting?
What are you bringing to the call?
What’s the most important thing for you to get out of the call?
How engaged do you plan to be? (Note you may not ask for a reposnse on this but only pose it to get people thinking about their focus)

Wrap up
What are you committed to doing after this call?
What are you going to take action on?
What’s the one most important thing to recall from our conversation today?
What new ideas around process are you going to take?
What resources are needed to put your action steps into action.
What are you committed to doing in the next 24 hours, no matter what?

What are some of your favorite questions for virtual meetings? What helps to keep the focus and open up the space for conversation.

Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

Connect with us to be the first to know more about launch events around my newest book - Effective Virtual Conversations - coming out later this spring/early summer!

#Teams365 #1148: Boosting Your Questioning Skills As a leader

2/21/2017

Honing our communication skills as team leaders and members helps to strengthen relationships and results. Many of us have the tendency to listen to our colleagues with part of our brain thinking about what we are going to ask next, rather than deeply listening for what they are going to say.
Another common pitfall is to ask questions for which we think we know the answer, or ask questions that are only yes/no.
In navigating the changing waters of the workforce today, it is important to get more in the habit of asking questions which invite discovery, clarity, and connection.

A recent article I wrote for the Coaching Tools Company includes 33 questions you might consider bringing into some of your one on ones or even team meetings. You will note that some of the questions are more geared for conversations which are focused on prioritizing, while some are focused on goals or connecting across a team. Take a look at the article here.

Some general rules of thumb when we think about questioning:

Make the question as open ended as possible, avoiding ones that are yes/no
The shorter the better - 5-6 words provides a crisp focus
Notice what types of questions really connect with the person you are speaking with - some of us are more visually inclined and may connect more with a question such as "What would that look like?" rather than one which is "What would it feel like?"

Questions provide a valuable pause in today's workplace. What can you do to build this communication muscle?

Have a great Tuesday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time(TM)
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #1142: #WednesdayWisdom: Revisiting Six Leadership Questions a Day - W

2/15/2017

As we look back to some of our past posts here at the Teams365 blog, I'm revisiting some of our Six Leadership Questions series which I did back in 2015. Thoughout that series we covered more than 120 questions leaders might want to incorporate into their conversations. Here are the questions I posed as we got to W in the 6 Leadership Questions a Day series back in April 15, 2015:

We are at W in our 6 leadership questions of the day. W stands for wisdom, wealth, welcome, weight, WOW, and Wander.

Wisdom - What wisdom exists within the team?

Wealth – what is the wealth that exists within the team?

Welcome – When you welcome new team members to the team, what are the key components you share about the team? What expectations are important to cover? What else is important when you welcome new team members?

Weight – What is the area which needs more weight?

WOW - What's going to create a WOW for your team?

Wander - Sometimes wandering gets us to a closer end point than does a straight line. These shifts provides new information. Where do you need to wander off the course?

Consider how you might incorporate some of these questions to prompt discussion and new wisdom in your team?

Have a great Wednesday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
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
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potenial - (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #1123: #FlashbackFriday: Twenty Questions for Your Next Coaching ConverSation

1/27/2017

On Friday's we are taking look back at some of our thousand plus posts here at the Teams365 blog. Given yesterday's focus in Team Building Tip #120 on questions and the art of the one on one with staff, I thought it might be useful to revisit a post from last year which included 20 of my favorite questions for a one-on-one conversation. While I wouldn't use these all in the same conversation, they are a great sparker for different contexts. You may want to have these on hand.

Let's take a look back at what I wrote in Teams365 #778:

For more than a decade now I’ve had the privilege of running coaching skills training - for leaders, professional coaches, HR professionals and trainers. Regardless of the context they have been within one of he core skills for coaches to develop is the art of the powerful question;

One activity which can be useful tis to develop a list of questions which you can use in upcoming conversations. While you would never use all these at one tie, here’s 20 of my favorite:

What’s the most important goal you are working on right now?
What’s really important about that
What could get in the way?
What additional supports would help you be successful?
What perspective are you in around x?
What’s another perspective around that?
What else?
3 adjectives that describe….
If you were to make one change that made the biggest difference, what would it b?
If you were to do something in the next 24 hours, what would that be?
What impact would it have?
What’s aligned?
What’s not aligned?
What would “wild Success” look like?
What will help you focus?
What’s our vision?
What’s at the core?
What is really important?
Who is an ally for you in this?
Imagine it is now 5 months down the road. How will be you know you have been successful?

What are some of your favorite questions. As always please feel free to comment below."

You can view the original post at: http://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-778-20-coaching-questions-for-your-next-conversation

Have a great Friday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #1100: Team Develompent A- Z: Q is for Questions

1/4/2017

Today we are at Q in our A-Z journey of different team development activities. I've chosen Questions as the focus in q. View this short video where I talk about using questons to spark dialogue within your team. The video is approximately 3 minutes.

What are your favorite questions? Take a look back at some our posts on other Coaching Skills for Leaders here.

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326
Check out our Foundations of Teamwork on-demand course here

#Teams365 #857: Six Coaching Questions for Accountability

5/6/2016

The word accountability can evoke so many different things in workplaces today. For some organizations, accountability is king, whereas in others it may be someone else's responsibility. Regardless of culture, team leaders play a key role in fostering a culture of accountability. Whether it's clarifying who is going to do what after a meeting, or circling back to check in on how things are going, accountability is an important focus for any leader and their team today.

Picking up with our former 6 Coaching Questions series here at the Teams365 blog, today's post explores six questions you may want to ask in your upcoming conversations:

1. What will success look like around this task/activity?
2. Who is going to be responsible for completion?
3. What do you need in order to make it happen?
4. What other support would you like?
5. How will you check in and keep me updated on how it is going?
6.How will we know it's been completed? When will this happen?

We know from research that shared team practices like daily huddles or meetings can boost communication across an entire team. Creating a quick practice of sharing progress verbally or in other forms (like status reports) helps to make action, goal achievement and accountability part of the way you operate as a team.

What are some of your favorite accountability questions? Feel free to share them here as a comment!

Have a great end of the week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
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
(416)996-8326

#Teams365 #843: Some of My FAvorite Six LEadership Questions a Day

4/22/2016

When I kicked off the Teams365 blog in January of 2014 I had no idea how long I'd keep the blog running for. Now more than 840 posts later I realize just how much great writing has been created over time. For a while Friday's always marked a series called "Six Leadership Questions a Day". I've taken a break from that for a month or so now, and wanted to share with you some of my favorites in the series hat take us back to last year.

The intent with the Six leadership Questions a Day series was to give you an opportunity to build your own databank of questions, an essential skill for any team leader (remote or other):

Here are five of my favorite past Teams365 Six Leadership a Day posts:
Teams365 #794: Six Leadership a Day - Remote Workforce. Click here to read

Teams365 #710 - Six Questions on Goal Setting. Click here to read.

Teams365 #774: Six Leadership Questions on Trust. Click here to read.

TEams365 #738: SIx Leadership Questions on Delegation. Click here to read.

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #794: Six Leadership questions - Remote Workforce

3/4/2016

This week we've been focusing on remote work arrangements. Today's Six Leadership Questions a day provides you with six questions to be asking your team members who work remote:

1. What's going to help you be most productive
2. What support do you need to do your best work?
3. How do you want to stay connected with the team?
4. What support do you need from me?
5. What information/accessibility do you need to get your work done?
6. What feedback loops should we set up?

You may also want to check out last Friday's post (Teams365 787) which got you thinking about your support to remote teams as a leader. You can read it here.

Have a great Friday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326