Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

TEAMS365 #2256 - Boundaries In Remote Work

3/4/2020

A challenge when working in the global space remotely is that there can be blurring of boundaries across time zones, particularly if you work with clients, or customers around the world. While it may feel possible to operate 24/7 with only a few people, over time it can be important to incorporate some boundaries in your remote work. That might entail:

Setting core working hours where people are available to set meeting times, connect and work together
Identifying on your signature lines or website what your hours are

What are the time windows you want to be available around? What are the ways you can communicate that to others? What does it mean in terms of collaboration with others -i.e. getting materials out, and/or getting materials or resources on to others?

Another boundary which most remote workers become aware of quickly are the boundaries around workspace. When we work from home it can be a challenge to focus in on working from home. What are the boundaries you want to incorporate there? It might include:

A dedicated office space, possibly with a door that closes
Scheduling your work so that it occurs when others aren’t around
Dressing like you are going to the office
Communicating to others that even though you may be “home” you are working and aren’t available to undertake their tasks

What are the other boundaries which are important to create?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

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

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.
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

TEAMS365 #2247 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #133

2/24/2020

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip reminds you to “Catch people doing things right”. A challenge in remote work is that we don’t always see people in their natural work setting. Feedback, in general, may be missing when we work remote and sometimes it can feel like we are operating in a vacuum.

In order to help team members excel, feedback is needed. Both positive feedback and constructive feedback when things aren’t going well.

So how do we provide feedback when we don’t see others in action?

Build in review reflection touchpoints. This might include mid-project or end of project reviews. These can involve sharing works in progress (or completion) where there’s a specific focus on sharing and receiving feedback.

Build in co-working opportunities where it is live and virtual. This can provide a sense of everyone’s different working style. What might a co-working opportunity look like? It could be undertaking a 4-hour block of work together with the group coming together at the top of every hour. I facilitate these as part of the different remote coaching services I offer to group members who join me for an annual basis. With benefits of both ongoing accountability and getting things done quicker, it can be really interesting to have people share a snapshot of their work, real-time. It’s not only inspirational for us but can be a validating factor for those sharing the work. It also opens the door for informal feedback like – “Have you thought about….” OR “Have you considered looking at…..”. While we may operate in isolation, it can be important to benefit from peer wisdom and sharing.

Job shadow virtually, where feasible. Can more junior team members shadow another team member? Be an active observer so they can learn from others?

What else might you do to encourage job shadowing?

Finally, are you building in a culture with your remote team of having people share accomplishments and successes at team meetings? There might be a Star of the Week, or the Month. While this may not motivate everyone, it can build a great practice of building in a pause, so people note what they have done.

Enjoy your focus on thinking about feedback in the remote space and catching people doing it right.

Have a great week!
Jennifer

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

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.
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

TEAMS365 #2219 – Effective Virtual Conversation Tip 129: Reinforce Team Culture

1/27/2020

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip takes us into the domain of the matrix team. If you are working remote, it’s probable that you are part of a matrix team. In the matrix work environment where we may have two more or more leaders and sets of teams we are working with, it’s really important that we create strong team culture.

Our team culture (as I have written in other Teams365 posts), is WHO we are and HOW we do things. It consists of our norms (our Team Charter or agreements on how we do things. What’s acceptable and what’s not).

Our team culture is also shaped by our values. If we value quality, we will always make a point to review key pieces of communication before they go out the door. If we value experimentation, we may be very open as a team to things that don’t work as planned (note that I’m not even using the term failure).

Team culture also includes the visual and other elements which make us, us. This might be HOW we hold meetings, or the fact that we provide both positive and constructive feedback around new projects and initiatives. Visual elements might include a mascot or metaphors which help them team identify themselves. For example, a team may associate itself with a firecracker (being bold and making an impact) or a fire pit (bringing people together for collaboration and problem solving). What are the elements of your team culture which you want to make more pronounced or visible?

In a virtual or remote team, it can be key to focus in on being more explicit in taking time to articulate and share our team culture given that we may not be able to see it every day. It may be captured in our slides or stickers that are put on computers or notebooks. What structures do you want to use to make it visible?

For more on the topic of team culture check out these Teams365 blog posts.

Best,
Jennifer

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

Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

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.

TEAMS365 #2205 – 20 for 2020 – Day 13: Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 127 : Remote Team Culture

1/13/2020

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip explores the topic of building team culture. Creating a strong team culture as a remote team is of benefit in many ways. First, it helps boost a sense of identify and belonging. Many remote workers today feel isolated or disconnected. A strong team culture can be one element in helping people feel connected to others and to a bigger purpose.
Team culture consists of several elements including HOW we do things. Our team culture includes our agreements, our norms – what’s acceptable and what’s not, our values (which help with decision making, prioritizing, as well as the more visible elements of culture – the way we sign our emails, how we hold meetings, plus any other team differentiators.

In addition to boosting a sense of belonging, team culture is critical when remote team members may be part of multiple teams. For example, if I am part of a Central North America Team, as well as being part of the learning team. The learning team may have values around communication, expedience, learning and experimentation. This may translate to agreements around how fast we communicate, how we share alternative points of view, and how much autonomy we have in getting things done. A strong team culture will help us understand these elements as well.

Given that my learning team culture is distinct from the North American team culture, I can differentiate in the different relationships, meetings and tasks what’s important. In contrast, the NA team may value metrics, efficiency (different than expedience), business cases, and brevity. What is prioritized and what is expected will be different.

Culture in a remote space can be invisible unless we make a point of making it visible and tangible. It can be seen in our processes, our communication, our language and even branding. Making it as explicit as possible, and naming it is also an important part of remote team success.

What can you be doing to make your remote team or organizational culture more visible and intentional?

For more on culture, check out the past posts I have written on Team Culture.

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 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.

TEAMS365 #2159 – Thursday November 29: Team Building Tip 263: Remote Work Enabler: Expectations

11/28/2019

It’s Thursday and while some are celebrating Thanksgiving, many of us have a regular day of work. This week’s Team Building Tip is a “Remote Work Enabler”. Throughout the upcoming weeks I’ll be including a number of special items to keep in mind to help your remote team THRIVE, not just SURVIVE!

The first remote work enabler I wanted to point to was that of expectation. In a remote team, we may be part of multiple matrix relationships, which makes it even more important for us to be clear on our expectations about HOW THINGS ARE DONE.

Teams can benefit from taking time to create a WAYS OF WORKING, or Team Agreements about how they will operate together.

What are the team expectations around?:

Showing up for meetings
Focus at meetings
Being prepared
Being punctual
Quality of work
Surfacing issues
Addressing difficult conversations
How you interact with each other
Share information
Connect with others outside of the organization
Participate in ongoing learning

Each one of these could spark a conversation around multiple factors.

When expectations are not clear we run the risk of doing things differently, having varied output, and most importantly, creating assumptions that might not be founded. These can have the most detrimental impact in the long run.
As a team, what do expectations do you want to make clear?

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 #2133 Weekly Journaling Prompt #74

11/2/2019

This weekend’s Weekly Journaling Prompt gets to you answer the question “____Builds Trust.” Trust in today’s digital age is of prime concern. Trust is the factor that has the potential to bring people together. Without it, it’s likely that invisible barriers will get even more entrenched.

What are the things that are building trust in your world right now?

What are you doing to demonstrate trust or model trust?

What are the things that need addressing given that they are eroding trust?

For more on this topic you may want to read Steven Covey’s, The Speed of Trust. It’s an excellent book covering behaviors that build and erode trust.

If you haven’t had a chance to review the weekly journaling prompts, be sure to check them out here.

You may also want to take a look at Thursday’s post where I shared some questions for stock-taking of last month and prepping for the month ahead.

Have a great weekend!
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.
For those looking for tips, tools and ideas about remote work and support for your remote teams, be sure to check out these tags and resources.

#TEAMS365 #1969 – Teamwork in Uncertainty – Comfort With The Unknown

5/22/2019

Today’s blog post gets us thinking about values. Values serve as anchors or a compass, leading the way or anchoring us when we need to make decisions, prioritize and focus.

In an uncertain context, being clear about our behaviors as a team is critical. As we go to explore our values, we may first want to consider what our values are individually. To do this, we might explore the following questions:

What is important to me?
What are the things I will take a stand for?
What’s absolutely essential to have in my work/life?
What makes me angry/happy/at ease?

All of these questions will usually point to a value which is important.

Underneath the words of a value are the behaviors. What do the values look like in action? If I were to take my phone into the workplace and record behaviors, what would I see?

As a team, and especially a remote team, having a focus on values can help during periods of uncertainty. Even though the context may change, hopefully our values are not changing in the arena.

As a team, this week consider what your top 3 operating values are this year. What are you committed to, no matter what? Behaviorally, what do these values look like in action?

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 an digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

#TEAMS365 #1961 – Teamwork in Uncertainty: Encouraging Curiosity – What The Research Says

5/14/2019

Last week I shared a post on cultivating curiosity. As a former team leader myself, working in highly volatile and changeable environments, cultivating curiosity was an important area to support my own team in. Given that many were responding to post-disaster contexts and needing to look at how to do their work in a highly changing environment, it was not business as usual. What many leaders don’t realize today is that “business as usual” may not longer be present in many industries.

As a leadership practitioner, author, coach and trainer, I’m regularly in conversation with leaders and teams around how important the skill of curiosity is. Yet, there are still many naysayers – from leaders and team members.

So, what does the research say?

I took a look at some of the more recent research in the area of curiosity and came across a great set of articles from Harvard Business Review - September 2018. In that edition, they cited the research and article written by Francesca Gino who has studied the area of curiosity. Read her article and study here.

Out of those surveyed, 70% of employees indicted that they faced barriers to employing more curiosity.

She cites in her article “The Business Case for Curiosity” five ways to encourage more curiosity:

Hire for it.
Model it yourself – inquisitiveness.
Emphasize learning goals. Many leaders today focus solely on performance goals. While not abandoning performance goals, what can you do cultivate and allow for more of a focus on learning goals?
“Let employees explore and broaden interests”. As someone who was schooled as multi-disciplinarian, I have seen throughout my career how a broad knowledge base becomes an asset, rather than a liability in times of change and complexity.
She also encourages days where people explore the questions: Why? What if? How might we do that?

Individually, each one of these suggestions could have a ripple effect on the way people work, without detracting from core functions.

What are the benefits to starting to integrate some of these approaches in your team meetings and ways of working?

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.

#TEAMS365 #1957 – #FLASHBACKFRIDAY: A - Z of Team Development Activities

5/10/2019

With our focus this month on teamwork in uncertainty, my guess is that many of you are thinking about the questions “Practically, what are some things that I can do to support my team through uncertainty?” OR “What can we do to address these topics?”

This week’s FlashbackFriday post takes us back to Teams365 #1657 when I hosted a series around the A- Z of Team Development Activities. As leaders (and team members) it is important to have a variety of ideas and tools available to facilitate the conversations needed for teams to excel.
You can read the original post here.

Here’s what I wrote:

“This month’s focus is on team development. The summer months may be one of the only times when people have an opportunity to focus in on what’s needed for their team. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing a quick A through Z of possibilities for team development activities, whether you are supporting a virtual team, intact team or project team. Over the last five years I’ve written about a lot of these different areas and I’ll include links to the original posts for you to check out:

A – Assumptions, Acknowledgements, Action and Accountability

Take a step back to one of the first A through Z series I did back in 2014 on Leadership. Read the Leadership A – Z around A for Action and Accountability here.

B – Barriers, Beliefs, Behaviors, Boundaries, Brevity, Bottom lining, Beauty, Better, and Best

Check out Teams365 #427 where I explore 6 Leadership Questions for B here.

Check out Teams365 #309 for additional focus areas around B – Check it out here.

C – Culture, Communication, Conversation, Change, Collaboration

Check out these six leadership questions around C here.

Virtual and Remote Leadership – C is for Communication. Read it here.

Check out the Leadership Myth – Change is Easy here.

D – Delegation, Decisions, Direct, Difficult Conversations

Check out Teams365 #315 on D is for Delegation. Read it here.

Check out Teams365 #431 - Six Leadership Questions a day - read it here.

And finally: Virtual and Remote Team Leadership - read it here.

As you consider the A-D of your team right now, what are focus areas the team could work around? Highlight 4-5 key areas you’d like to have conversation or a focus around in the coming weeks.”

Consider what type of conversations you want to have.

With 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 an digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

#TEAMS365 #1956 – Team Building Tip 235

5/9/2019

This week’s Team Building question gets you to consider the question “What relationship items need attention?”.

Even in a virtual space, relationships are key to business success.

As a team, it is important to spend some time focusing on:

Getting to know our team
Understanding who they are, what they value and what their priorities are
Understanding how we can support them better

I hope that you will bring this question into your next team meeting so that you can hear from the team about what is needed.

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 an digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.