Happy spring! Has the new season sprung where you are?

In my work as a coach I see a lot of seasonality – beginnings, ends and excitement for change. As we step into the new season today, I wanted to share some of the spring questions I had posted in Teams365 #811.

I hope that you will take a few minutes to reflect on these questions today:

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 spring (or fall)?

Looking backwards:
What successes did you have over the last quarter?
What helped you?
What got in the way?

What changes do you want to make this spring?
What and who will help you be successful?
 
What are the other questions which are important to consider right now?
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Enjoy your reflection,
Jennifer

​Welcome back to this week’s Video Montage for the PlanDoTrack series. If you are on Instagram, be sure to follow-along at the Coaching Biz Builder.

This series is geared for professionals of all kinds to grab a micro-pause each day. To note what’s important about their work and/or business, and then to take action on ONE Step A Day. As I write in both PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder – One Step a Day + Consistent Action = Momentum.
 
Momentum is key for generating new ideas, getting started on new projects, or sustaining old ones. Be sure to check out this week’s Video Montage and take a look at past ones here. 

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.
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It’s March 15th which historically has been known as the Ides of March. My father always has said we can usually expect one more snowfall in Toronto on, or around this date. I’m always happy when it gets to be this time of year as I start seeing that spring is (usually) just around the corner.
 
For today’s FlashbackFriday I wanted to reach back to a former blog post (in fact one from the precursor blog to Teams365 – the BizToolkit blog), on a topic which I think has major significance today – Meetings!
 
Meetings can be the “bane” of most employees existence, and aren’t always held effectively. It’s not uncommon for leaders I work with, scheduled into 30 or more hours of meeting a week, leaving them little time for work they need to accomplish, strategic thinking and other discussions.
 
Here’s what I posted in March of 2014 as Teams365 #86: 

Five Ways to Keep Your Meetings on Track 
Copyright Jennifer Britton, All Rights Reserved, 2013 : Originally published on the BizToolkit blog, 2013

Meetings are a huge time-consumer in today's workforce. What is the state of your meetings? How efficient are they? Today's blog post includes five ways to keep your meetings on track, so you can avoid what Patrick Lencioni describes as "Death by Meeting" syndrome.

Some key tips to keep in mind are:
1. Assign a meeting facilitator. Facilitation comes from the Latin word "facilis" or to make easy. The facilitators role is to keep an eye on the process. As the facilitator, the focus is on:

• starting and ending the meeting on time, 
• keeping the flow moving, 
• summarizing and capturing key discussion points,
• identifying issues which may need to be shifted to other events (use of a parking lot)
• summarizing key action steps

It can be very useful to have a rotational facilitator role if meetings are held regularly with the same group. This supports capacity and skill development, and also recognizes that the facilitator's power is related to that role, not the role people usually inhabit. Who will be the "facilitator" for your next meeting? How will this be rotated?

2.  Have an agenda, and assign timelines to it. Does each meeting have an agenda, which has been circulated before the meeting to ensure that nothing else needs to be added? Putting time-frames on each item, and sticking to them, helps to manage time, as well as identify issues which may need to be carried into other venues. What does the agenda for your next meeting look like? How much time will it take? 

3. Ensure who you need is at the table. A common challenge in effective meetings is not having who you need at the table. This may be someone who has specific information, background on  a topic, or authority to sign off/give approval. Who needs to be at your meeting, based on the agenda?

4. Confirm Action Steps and Responsibilities - A common pitfall is that action steps, and who is responsible for moving things forward, is lost in the dialogue. Key action steps, and those who will take responsibility for making sure they are done, should be summarized at the end of each meeting. What are the major next steps? Who will be responsible for them?

5. Circle Back to Make sure Actions are being Actioned. What is the status of the action steps? How are they being moved forward immediately, and in the longer term. Who needs to know? Who is accountable? Action Plans are only as good as they are tracked and followed. What will support the implementation of decisions, and the reporting out of these actions? 

As you consider your upcoming meetings, in which context might you be able to incorporate some of these ideas?
 
As much as the meeting content may have changed in the last six years, I think a lot of these pointers remain the same. What’s the one tweak you could make to your meetings which would help them become more productive and efficient?
 
Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.
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Here we are at post 1900 of the Teams365 blog. I had no idea more than 5 years ago that I would be continuing to blog this long at the Teams365 blog. What started out as an experiment, has become an important part of my writing process. The Teams365 blog has also become a valuable resource for teams and leaders of all kinds. If you have enjoyed and benefited from past posts, share in the comments which have been your favorites. Also be sure to let others know about the resource!
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If you have been following along my Thursday series, you’d know that today is a Team Building Tip day. I started these as a series of questions for team leaders to bring into their weekly team meetings. Since starting the series, the questions and images have become more sophisticated! Check out the first post here!
 

This week’s TBT gets you thinking ahead. In today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous context) world, we know that having a clear vision which can guide you through the choppy waters of more granular details can be useful. I hope that you will consider using this week’s question of “A year from now, at the start of 2020, we will have ________” as a valuable conversation sparker, and potentially a sign post to guide your efforts towards over the next 3 quarters!

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. Learn more and enroll here.

​Welcome to the 13th weekly video montage for the #90DaysPlanDoTrack. Since September I have posted a different quote or image at the CoachingBizBuilder Instagram feed. We’ve put them together to give you a different way to look at things. 

Last year around this time I started pulling together the materials that would ultimately become the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner for Remote and Virtual Professionals. 

Given years of leading corporate sessions and virtual retreats on productivity issues, it was quite easy to weave together materials clients and teams had said were very useful. Since 2017 I had also been sharing different planning tools via the Teams365 Productivity Newsletter, now renamed PlanDoTrack Newsletter (join us here for this monthly e-news blast). Expanding on these initial tools, the PlanDoTrack workbook and planner includes 28 different planning tools - from Monthly Trackers, to content tools, to quarterly planning tools. It's an analog, hard-copy, planner given that for remote and virtual professionals it can be useful to have one place where things are housed physically.  I hope that you'll check out the planner and consider picking up a copy for you and/or your team.
​
Enjoy!
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.
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This week’s journaling prompt gets you to consider the question “I’m really pleased with:” What are the things that are going well in your work and projects that you are happy about right now?

Make a list of the top 10 things or 20 things you are pleased with?
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This can be a great daily practice, aligned with the gratitude practice of noting the top 3 things you enjoyed every day. Over time this practice has been shown to increase happiness.

Source – UC Berkely = Center for Greater Good "Three Good Things"

 

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.
​

Welcome back to week 12 of the PlanDoTrack Video montage. Since September I have focused on posting a daily prompt or question related to business and/or team development over at the Coaching Biz Builder Instagram Feed.

Taken together, these can be focused on individually or over the course of a week.
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Enjoy!
Jennifer

​It’s the end of the month and time for another Team Building tip. Today’s question is Let’s Celebrate. What do you have to celebrate from this month? What were your major milestones?

I hope that you will take a few minutes today to take stock of the month. Each month I host a month end review and month ahead planning session for one hour.  These calls are beneficial in that they provide a pause for reflection, learning and capturing your ideas. Check out the schedule of upcoming month end planning hacks here.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Connect on Instagram for the 90DaysPlanDoTrack Posts
Phone: (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.
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We are back at week 11 of the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series of video posts. These weekly montage videos are a compilation of the different weeks of the Instagram series I have hosted over at the CoachingBizBuilder feed.

Daily posts are geared to get you thinking about, and taking action on, your business. As I write in PlanDoTrack – Daily Steps + Consistent Action = Momentum.

Take a look at this week’s compilation video and see what questions are important for you to note. What's important to take action on?

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

This week’s journaling prompt is:
My focus on ___ is going to help me because…
 
Each week I offer a different journaling prompt, geared to get you thinking about and reflecting on your work and/or business. I hope that you will carve out time regularly to give yourself the gift of journaling. Here are 3 resources you might also find interesting as you consider what you might want to journal about.

Best,
Jennifer