​In my former world of work as a remote leader with teams across ten countries, and in the last fifteen years of working remote a majority of the time, remote work is second nature, and is the primary focus of our support. As more organizations are gravitating to a remote work approach, it can be important to become more explicit with some of the nuanced differences in leadership and teamwork between in-person work and remote work. Today’s post explores four areas to pay attention to as a remote team:

1. Building everyone’s skill set and leadership capacity – In a remote team, it can be critical to equip all team members with skills and leadership capabilities even if they do not hold the title of leader. Given that remote team members may be the “face of the team or organization” or represent the organization to those locally, ensuring our team members are equipped with the right skills can make or a break an organization that is remote, or is moving remote. What are you doing to invest in team member’s development on an individual level?
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2. Spending time on team development – 2016 research done by Culture Wizard found that only about 1 in 4 remote teams benefited from any team development. This is an area that is often overlooked in terms of what might be possible. At Potentials Realized, we specialize in remote team support and bring years of experience in supporting remote leadership development, virtual skill development and remote team support. Reach out to learn more about the Remote TEAM DAYS we facilitate. From half day to full day virtual sessions, to strategic planning conversations, team development in the remote space is just as important, or even more important than that in the in-person space. Team development is a blend of both focusing on results as well as building relationships.

At Potentials Realized, we offer a suite of support services specialized for remote teams – from strategic planning, to team development, to virtual training in key leadership topics (link to map of remote team topics) or our Teams365 modules. From one-hour lunch and learns to multi-day sessions we’ll meet up with you in the remote space, designing and facilitating your event, without your team having to travel (unless they want to!). Set up a call to discuss.

Questions to consider:

• What opportunities do we have this year to bring the team together (virtually or in person)?
• What opportunities could be benefit from?
• What needs attention – building our relationships, clarifying our results, or both?
• Making things explicit – All teams may falter if things are not made explicit. When assumptions go unchecked. This is particularly true in the remote space when all of us may have “different pieces of the puzzle – i.e. different contexts we operate within, different skill sets, and different vantage points on the work we are undertaking. Being proactive in sharing our context, priorities and preferences builds trust and connection, and also supports a wider understanding of priorities, practices and approaches.

More questions to consider:

• What are the things that need to be clarified?
• What needs to be shared more?
• What are the assumptions which are not being named or checked?
• What else is not being seen?

3. Proactively taking time to build relationships – In the remote space it’s hard to meet colleagues as you head into the lunchroom or head to the water cooler. We usually only come together for formal events. Given that socializing time looks different in the remote space it can be important to be more proactive in building relationships. As an organization or team, you may want to take some time to create more informal connection points. Whether this is a virtual co-working space which opens up for short windows each week, or whether it’s an informal but facilitated series of conversations at lunchtime by a colleague (think virtual lunch and learns or book club calls). Remote workers need a sense of connection and identity (stay tuned for more on this topic tomorrow).

4. Be aware of what’s below the “waterline” – In my 2019 workbook/planner PlanDoTrack, I provide the metaphor of an iceberg as a valuable tool for self-development and team development. Where teams of all kinds can benefit it by exploring what’s below the waterline of their work.

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 start 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.

Winter 2019 programs start this week including the Coaching Biz Growth Lab (an annual focus on coaching business development), GroupCoachingEssentials (8.75 CCEs), the Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (10 CCEs) and the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program (8.5 CCEs) - geared to support you in creating more exceptional virtual conversations. Finally the Mentor Coaching Group for Winter 2020 will begin - aimed at coaches who are working towards their ACC, PCC or renewing.

As I go to write this post it’s a bit bittersweet. I’m sure many of you are feeling the same. The 2010s were a great time – personally and professionally.

I’m excited to step into a new decade and leave a few things behind, as well as carry forward many of the lessons learned of the last decade. While my memories of moving from 2009 to 2010 aren’t as clear, I vividly remember the eve of Y2K. Twenty years ago, as a much younger professional I was based in South America. My original four months in a country had turned into almost seven years at that point. I remember wondering what the new decade would bring. As it turned out amazing things – 3 years as a Manager with the UN, and then transitioning into establishing Potentials Realized in 2004.

What are you hopeful for?

As we step into 2020 as a business, we’ll be continuing our focus on providing teams and leaders with exceptional learning experiences grounded in coaching, mentoring and conversations. Our focus on remote work will also continue to expand with:

• The Annual Remote Pathways Lab meeting on Fridays during the 2nd and 4th week of the month.
• Team Days being custom designed for remote teams – focusing on strengths-based work, team effectiveness, clarifying result and boosting connections.
• In-person team days focusing on strengths-based work and team effectiveness.
• Our Teams365 series of programming – delivered as virtual modules.
• On-demand learning – short, video-based primer courses – Feedback and Team Effectiveness available.
• Support to coaches throught the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator which starts on January 1st 2020. Coaches - hope you'll join us!

Thank you for visiting and spending time here at the blog. Stay tuned for some exciting changes for 2020 writing.

Wishing you an amazing start to the new decade!
​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 - Don't forget we start the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator January 1st - I hope you'll join us for this blended -live and on-demand - program.

Conversations are at the heart of business success in any context or industry. Whether communication is happening face-to-face, by instant message, text or email, clarity in our communication is key. Checking assumptions and looping back to ensure that our message has been received as it was intended are also critical for success.

Two types of conversations which can be important for professionals of all kinds today – leaders, individual contributors and entrepreneurs – is having conversations with a coach and a mentor. Coaching and mentoring are in fact different modalities and each brings a different focus. Sometimes, the same person can wear the hat of coach and mentor, but often they are two different relationships we enter into.

Mentors play a critical role in helping us navigate the complexities and undercurrents of an industry, an organization or a role. Mentors help us understand the nuances of an industry/organization, often by sharing their experience. Typically, more seasoned that the person being mentored, they become a go-to for questions you may not be able to take to your boss. Research over the last decade and a half has shown that similar to team effectiveness, coaching and other relationships that trust and connection are key.

You might partner with a mentor to support your development in:

• Understanding what is needed to succeed in your role
• Understanding the undercurrents and politics of an organization or industry
• Getting a better sense of one person’s career transition
• Connecting in with important people, organizations and resources related to your work
• Expanding your network

Mentors typically will bring experience in your industry or with the role you are exploring. Their stories and experience serve as a springboard for your conversations.

Coaching is a separate modality and helps individuals gain clarity and awareness around their own capabilities. A coach in today’s business context is usually there to ask questions and prompt new insights via the questions and approaches they use. Coaching conversations are underpinned by the goals a person is working on, and usually focus on expanding awareness and action towards those key goals. While a coach may “once in a while” take off their coaching hat to slip on a “mentoring” or “training” hat in terms of suggesting a reading list, the role of the coach is a neutral one. The coach is invested in your own development and goals.

You might partner with a coach to help you:

• Gain further awareness of strengths, challenges and blind spots
• Create accountability around your most important goals
• Develop clarity around goals and next steps
• Understand the mindsets, belief systems, assumptions, and patterns you are embracing
• Have a regular pause point to stop, focus and strategize on what’s important in terms of your next steps

​As you consider your goals for the next year, what are the most important conversations to be undertaking? Is now the time to find a mentor, or a coach, or both?

Curious about either coaching or mentoring? We offer training and support in both areas. Reach out and set up a conversation today. 

Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
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.

Episode 2 of the Remote Pathways Podcast is now live! Join us as we exploer the pathways of those new to working remote, as well as the pathway of virtual team leaders. Listen in on your favorite podcast player or directly here.

​This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip takes us into the landscape of coaching. Coaching is one of the many varied conversations which are taking place in the virtual space today.
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Coaching has been leveraged by organizations and individuals for several decades now. Similar to sports coaching, business, executive and team coaching, supports individuals and systems to get their best work achieved. A coach is there to help a person/group/team tap into their knowledge, and create the conditions for success.

Whether it’s a business owner looking to accelerate their business, a leader to help their team be successful, or someone in career transition looking to land their next best role, coaching is a collaborative conversation, supporting the client to set goals, take action, expand their awareness and benefit from enhanced accountability. Together, these areas fuse to create the conditions to more focused and informed actions.
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Let’s look at each one in turn. Coaching is grounded in helping the person or group/team being coached, get clearer on the results they want. As philosophers have written for millennium, without a clear destination it’s hard to get there. Work around vision as well as goal setting, and resourcing is foundational to the coaching processes.
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Coaching is also about supporting informed action and also enhanced awareness. Many times, the things that help and hinder us are “below the waterline”. As I share in my recent workbook planner “PlanDoTrack”, it’s the habits, assumptions, values and beliefs which shape our behaviors and then results. Shein first published on this decades ago in his work from Harvard.
Think about it. As a team, if you have a belief that you will succeed with a task and have your leaders blessing to do what you need to do to make that happen, you are more likely to experiment, take risks, innovate, share information etc. If there is a belief that only one person will succeed, it’s likely that information won’t be shared, competition will ensue, and potentially you won’t be successful.

In coaching, we may spend a bulk of time “Going below the waterline” to explore, and make explicit these assumptions, beliefs, values which are driving and shaping decisions, behaviors and results.
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Coaching is also beneficial due to the accountability between the coach and client. In today’s disrupted world, enhanced accountability can mean that we do keep our eyes on what’s important, rather than feeling whiplashed from bouncing from one marker to another. Peer accountability can play a key role when the coaching conversation is expanded to many, as in group and team coaching.

Where might coaching benefit your organization or your self? What results are you looking to achieve in the next 12 – 18 months?

Set up a call to discuss how we can support your organization with coaching services, or training of your leaders in coaching.  Reach out with an email to me at info@potentialsrealized.com.
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I look forward to hearing from you,
Jennifer

At all stages of our careers, mentoring can be an invaluable approach. Learning from the wisdom and experience of others is priceless.

Mentors play a key role including:

• Providing an alternative view of our industry/role/profession from what others might see, based on their own experience.
• Acting as a sounding board as we work through different ideas.
• Helping us understand and navigate the undercurrents of an organization and/or industry.

Formal mentors are usually different than our own bosses, which provides the advantage of an unbiased confidant.

What are the mentoring opportunities available to you?

When considering a mentor ask yourself:

• What is the role I want the mentor to play?
• What type of support am I looking for? (Sounding board, understanding undercurrents)
• What are my goals for the mentoring experience?
• What role(s) do I want the mentor to play?

Many formal mentoring programs will have application processes and sharing your responses around these areas can help not only with pairing you with a good fit, but also getting the most out of the limited time you have together. 

Wishing you the best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development.
Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

​It’s Sunday and time to borrow from the PlanDoTrack blog. Earlier this week I shared this week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip around honing listening. I recently shared this blog post over at the PlanDoTrack site. 

Here’s what I wrote about listening for Virtual and Remote Teams:
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Last week I focused on the first of three coaching skills which can be important to equip all virtual and remote team members with. While these are often considered “coaching skills for leaders” in the virtual and remote environment, building this capacity in our virtual team can enhance productivity, peer support and results.
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Last week I explored GOALS. This week let us look at listening.
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Communication occurs in many channels in the virtual space – from conversations by phone, to texts, to email and IM (Instant Messaging).

Each one has its advantages and disadvantages.

Research shows that a significant portion of our understanding comes from tone, which is lost when we lean into digital channels of communication – text, email and IM. This can lead to a lot of misunderstandings, misinterpretations and lack of clarity.

Our listening can be heavily influenced by a number of factors:

• Distractions (what we have on our plate, not reading things fully)
• Our relationship with the sender (what do we know about their context, their intent, their focus and priorities)
• Our understanding of the topic
• Thinking about what we want to say, rather than listening for what is really being said

When we are able to meet for voice conversations, we may hear the tone, if we are listening for it. Adding on visual cues – like streaming for a meeting instead of just using the phone – can add additional layers on to the conversation. Being able to share our screen and work together real-time can also help us understand the full context.

What are the things that are helping and hindering your virtual conversations?
Are distractions getting in the way? How are you using all the tools you have available?  What are you doing to increase your understanding of other’s context and priorities?

There are many more tools and ideas available for virtual teams in these various resources from me:

• Part 3 of my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations, focuses on virtual team development, meetings and communication. 
• Check out the posts related to Coaching Skills and Virtual and Remote Teams over at the Teams365 blog.

Let me know how I can support your virtual team development. From virtual retreat facilitation, to offering virtual team coaching services, we specialize in virtual team support.  

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development.
Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

​Mid-year also beckons for a mid-year systems check. Are things working the way you would like them to?

If you are an entrepreneur, consider exploring the following:

• Client data
• Financial info – accounts receivable, cash flow projections, invoicing, accounts payable
• Marketing
• Strategy
• Reporting

 
If you are a team member consider these things:

• Reporting
• Successes
• Technology
• 1-1's
• Budget requests
• Peer meetings
• Meetings with mentors
• Meetings with partners

 
If you are a team leader, consider these things:

• Feedback conversations
• 1-1 coaching conversations
  
• Reporting
• Team successes
• Meeting with you boss
• Meetings with your mentors

 
What are the activities you want to make sure you schedule?
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Enjoy the conversations,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 

Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store. It's a great mid-year activity!

Welcome to June! What’s exciting about this month for you? What are your new goals?

As we step into a new month, I’m excited to be focusing on undertaking a mid-year review with you this month. We’ll be reconnecting with some of the core activities that help teams and organizations excel:

• Team Tune Up
• Systems Check
• Feedback and Performance Check
• Coaching and Mentoring
• Streamlining Meetings
• Presentations
• Knowledge Management – Capturing Successes and Strategic Issues

It’s also an opportunity to take stock of the past month and look ahead to what you want to create in June. Before we go further, I hope that you will take a few minutes to explore these questions. Grab a pen and journal and let’s go. Given that we are stepping into the middle part of the year, what do you want to note about what you want to create by the end of the month? By the end of Q2?

Here are some questions to consider:

1. As you reflect on May, what have been your successes and accomplishments?
2. What are you most proud of?
3. What successes this month do you want to duplicate? What has been some of your key learning?
4. What key relationships have helped you so far this year? Which ones need more attention?
5. What has helped your successes? What has hindered?
6. What does your team need to be acknowledged for?

As you look to June, consider these questions:

1. What are your key priorities for June?
2. What are the key goals?
3. What are the major priorities?
4. What will you need to place attention on?
5. What changes do you want to make in June?
6. What resources do you want to tap into?
7. By the end of the month, which will be the middle of the year, what do you want to make sure you have completed?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

It’s hard to believe but here we are at the end of another month. I hope that you will take some time to build in a reflective pause to consider:

1. What have your major accomplishments been this month?
2. What goals have you achieved – for the month? The quarter? The year?
3. What habits and practices have helped you? what got in the way?
4. What projects have started? Ended? Will continue?
5. What resourcing has been useful? What else do you need to be successful?
6. What relationships are important to focus on going forward?

Looking ahead to May:

1. What are you top 3 priorities?
2. What are your top 5 goals for the month? (Be sure to note these on your Month in Focus, and Your Monthly To-Dos in the PlanDoTrack)
3. By the end of May, what do you want to make sure you have achieved?
4. What are the daily steps or consistent actions you want to undertake?
5. What relationships are important to foster?
6. What are key tasks that need to get done? (Write these in the Monthly To Do List is you have a copy of the PlanDoTrack)

If you prefer to have a reflective pause, join me and adapt the questions in the recent quarterly review I hosted earlier this month, as part of the PlanDoTrack series. If you are looking to a guide to take your insights deeper around your virtual business and teamwork, be sure to check pick up a copy of either the Coaching Business Builder (for Coaches) or PlanDoTrack (for virtual and remote teams, leaders and entrepreneurs).

​Enjoy the pause!
Jennifer

Today’s Effective Virtual Conversations prompt is “Who is driving the bus?”. Some of the most common questions I receive from virtual leaders are “Am I coaching? Am I training? Am I facilitating?”.
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While the focus on this question for the people we are hosting the call for is usually “it doesn't matter as long as I am learning”, it can be important for the person who is leading the call to be aware of what they are doing - training, coaching or facilitating. A key question the “facilitator” can be asking to dig a little deeper is  - “Who is driving the bus?” Who is the one that is shaping the direction, and content of the call?"
 
While this may be overly simplistic, a great starting point for understanding the “director” of the call is to consider who is “driving” and shaping the conversation.
 
In coaching, a fundamental premise is that the person being coached should create with the coach (and others) the direction of the call, and their content knowledge should form the foundation of the conversation. The coach is not there to share a lot of content, but rather use any content to “Spark” the conversation. Coaches focus deeply on Goal Setting, and supporting the deepened awareness around “things below the waterline”, things like values, beliefs, assumptions, perspectives. Coaching is rarely a one-off conversation, and usually has multiple touch points.
 
In training, or a webinar in the virtual space, we lean into the content we bring. We are measured on this, and while we want to poll our group members for what they want to learn, the content may also be shaped by the organization. Training is typically content-rich, and in that respect the trainer may be driving the bus a majority of the time, handing off the “wheel” as new skills are acquired, so that bus members get practice.
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Facilitation comes from the Latin word “facilis”. It means “to become easy”. Part of the facilitator’s role virtually is to help people clarify the focus of the conversation, and how they want to move from a to b. A facilitation may be more apt to be a one-off conversation, and usually uses process to help engage the conversation, especially with bigger groups.
 
Who is driving the bus in your virtual conversations? Are there any changes you want to make to this?
 
For more on these distinctions between coaching, training and facilitating, check out any of my first three books – Effective Group Coaching (2010), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) or From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). 
 
Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer