For many years, I have shared the research with teams that they excel when they focus on both relationships and results. The same holds true for remote teams as well.

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip gets you thinking about what you are doing to help remote teams explore both their results and relationships.

A focus on results can include:

• Their goals
• Their vision
• Clarity around communication, tasks and focus
• How we measure success
• Leadership
• Roles

 
Relationship focus may explore:

• How much we know and trust each other
• Understanding our connections
• Understanding what our styles, and preferences are
• How we work across differences, conflict and difficult issues

​What are the things you need to focus on as a team?

In the remote space, taking time to build out the relationship focus is essential. We want to make sure that we are exploring who we are, what our strengths are, how we prefer to work, what helps and what hinders our work. No person is an island in any work context today. What opportunities are you creating to ensure that there is a focus on relationships in the team?

Could there be a component that you build into your next team meeting that focuses on having people share what they are working on and/or a little about their work. You might even consider undertaking some work around strengths or other areas.

What are the things you want to focus in around as a team right now?

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.

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip brings us to #122 in the series. You can read others here.

This week’s tip also takes us into a Remote Team Tip. As someone who has spent the majority of my career working either leading remote teams, or supporting remote teams, I always know the importance of connecting people. As I often say in the remote space “Remote does not equal disconnected”. While it may seem that people are far away, business is still done via relationships and we need to take time to proactively build relationships. Trust and connection are still key in this work.

Remote team practices are at the heart of communication and relationships. Team practices might mean a consistent Monday morning huddle or a virtual working session every last Thursday afternoon of the month.

What are the practices you have evolved as a team?

What helps you be successful?
​
What else do you think is important to take note of?
 
Enjoy your 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.

It’s Monday which means that it’s time for another Effective Virtual Conversations tip. This week’s tip is a remote team tip. 

A 2018 survey carried out by Indeed.ca found that 65% of employers surveyed found that their employees were more productive when working remote. While many employees want to work remote for flexibility reasons (less commute time, more focused break, being able to navigate caretaking responsibilities), some remote workers may be concerned that they are less visible.

I’ve been enjoying working and writing more in this topic area of remote work and if you listen to podcasts, I would invite you to connect in to the new Remote Pathways Podcast I am co-hosting with Michelle Mullins.

In the remote space, consistency is key. When we see things through micro-windows (i.e. the short amount of time we are on the screen) and given the vast balance of time spent working individually and alone, CONSISTENCY can take on a new level of importance.

On a remote team level, consistency can include a focus on consistency as it relates to meetings, process, procedures, systems, and communication.

Consider:

• Meetings - How often are you meeting as a team? It can be beneficial to get in the habit of holding meetings consistently. For example, every Tuesday morning at 9 am ET. For those on the west coast it may mean an earlier start time, but people can start to plan their day and schedule around this. Booking in advance can help to anchor and protect those time windows.
• Process and systems - Consistency is key for a remote team, spread across multiple levels. Investing time in clear processes and systems ensure a consistent output and standardization across a team. We know that it’s important for team members to have shared goals and performance measures. What do you need to look at as it relates to creating consistency around process?
• Procedures - Related to process, there may be procedures which need tightening up, as the team grows and expands. Consider reporting and sharing of information. What are the things that need to be looked at?

Communication is most likely the one that can benefit from the enhanced focus. Consistently communicating messages that are important is key, especially when team members may have different preferences in terms of how they connect in. What do you notice about communication needs and preferences?

All the 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.

It's Sunday which means that it's time for another Week in Review. You'll find the posts listed below.

Before we get there, a couple of exciting announcements:

First, the Remote Pathways Podcast which I am co-hosting with Michelle Mullins is going live this week. The podcast will follow the people, places and pathways of remote work. We're exploring the landscape of 12 types of remote work - from professional coaches, to project managers, sales professionals, to those attached to larger offices working remote several days a month, to remotepreneurs.

My writing around Remote Pathways and the Digital Dozen started this past summer as part of a literacy fundraiser is was part of called the Muskoka Novel Marathon. It's exciting to see how that writing set the seeds for the podcast and also a guide for new remote workers which will be published in 2020. Stay tuned.

You can check out the first episode of Remote Pathways here. more info on how to subscribe coming soon. It's already available via Spotify

The second announcement is that my annual Black Friday sales have started and are on until December 3rd. This year I am offering discounts of several of the digital products including the Conversation Sparker Cards, and 20 AReas to support Remote and Virtual Teams (ebook), as well as a 35% discount on my two annual groups - Learning Lab and Design Studio (geared for coaches, trainers, facilitators and other program designers), and the Coaching Biz Growth Lab (for coaches growing their business). I hope you'll take advantage of these savings over the next week! Check out the savings at the Potentials Realized store!

So now, onto this past week's blog posts:

Saturday's Weekly Journaling Prompt #72 - What path are you on? Read it here

Friday's Flashback - Team Wrap-up Questions - earmark for year-end conversations! Read it here

Thursday's Team Building Tip #262 - What's Getting in the Way? Read it here.

Wednesday's Systems to Scale -  Read it here

Tuesday's The Last Mile. Read it here

Monday's Effective Virtual Conversation Tip #120 -  Creating More Memorable Virtual Calls. Read it here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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.

This week’s blog post focuses in on the important topic of retention, or memorability of calls.

It’s likely that the call you are hosting today is one of many virtual sessions people are dropping into. What are you going to do to make it memorable?

As I shared in Teams365 15  Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #37 – As Suzuki Writes:  “We make things memorable when things are novel, surprizing, emotional and attention grabbing”. What are the things you can be doing to create this?

A couple of things that we can do to make it memorable include:
Jazzing it up – including a video you have created or something a creator has shared on YouTube. (Always be sure to confirm usage rights, and when in doubt, reach out!).

Provide an opportunity for people to talk about their experiences in smaller groups. Check out if breakouts are an option in your platform. If so, could you build in a 5-10 minute section where people share how the topic connects to them and what they can do.

Prime people for the fact that the call is going to be different than usual. Let people know what you can expect. Start your call off differently – perhaps with something more personally involved than others. Note that as people are coming onto a call it may take them a few minutes to get grounded. We may be unfocused based on what we are experiencing.

IN addition to talking about the topic, are there some graphics which can be incorporated into the session? What additional follow up can people engage with? Note that you may want to consider both pre and post work.

As I shared earlier this year in my March 2019 Effective Virtual Conversations calls, Ebbinghaus did initial research on what we retain and what we remember. He created what is now known as the forgetting curve. In essence, as time progresses, as days progressed, we remember even less.

And so how can we boost that? There are several things that he found really made a difference. The meaningfulness of the information, the way it's represented, as well as some physiological factors, stress, sleep, et cetera.
Using some of the techniques I’ve outlined in the first part of the blog post may also help to boost retention. What do you want to incorporate to support enhanced retention?


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.

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip takes into Part 3 of Design. Over the past few weeks we’ve covered additional posts around Design in EVC Tip 117 and EVC Tip 116.
​
Virtual Facilitation and Virtual Learning have become the norm and “go to” in recent years. Whether we are expanding our skill base via a webinar, or whether we are attending a MOOC to learn the latest in a field of study, leveraging virtual learning opportunities is key.

As a provider of virtual learning services for the last fifteen years and having been involved with leading virtual learning as a leader, there are several things that we can do to enhance the learning involved. This is the focus of my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations, and is also the focus of a five week virtual train-the-trainer I lead called Virtual Facilitation Essentials.

You can also read through posts related to Effective Virtual Conversations in my regular Monday series.

To simplify (key in the remote space), five things that we can do consistently in our Design, include:

#1 - Consider and build in regular and frequent engagement touch points. We’ve all been on calls where the facilitator drones on and on in monotone. We know that creating frequent engagement touchpoints for people to engage with others in the virtual space can boost retention and interest. Different engagement touchpoints could involve inviting learners to:

• Comment via chat
• Annotate on the screen
• Reflect or comment on a question
• Input via a poll

While many of us (educators/facilitators/trainers) used to aim for engagement every 7-10 minutes in the in-person realm, in the virtual space this pace may be even more frequent.
 
# 2 – Create reflective pauses for people to write, and/or note what they are learning. Are you leaving a few minutes for people to note what actions are they going to take? How they are going to apply their learning?

The experiential learning model is grounded in exploring the WHAT? SO WHAT? NOW WHAT? Of a topic. In a virtual session, how are you helping your learners explore all three of these layers?

WHAT – What is this topic all about?

SO WHAT – What is important about this for you? What is the connection for you with this topic?

NOW WHAT – Now what are you going to do?

We’ve all been on calls where there was no time to note what application opportunities there are, and what next steps can be taken. Consider building in reflective pauses to deepen the learning.

#3 – Invite people to share/articulate their thoughts. Many of us create learning via speaking and/or sharing. What opportunities can you build in to create a sharing of information and learning? This might include using a breakout and having people connect with one or two other peers, going around and hearing from each person, and/or using chat or annotation to share their thoughts.

What can you build into your call, or after your call?

#4 – Consider virtual learning in its entirety. While in the “in person realm” it’s often possible to do everything in the room, virtually we may want to consider how to break up the learning process with structured activities coming before and after the learning. I commonly call these “pre-work” and “field work”. Check out an earlier blog post I did on different examples of these at my Group Coaching Ins and Outs blog: Six Ideas for Field work in your next coaching engagement.

Questions to consider:

• What are the different touchpoints people engage in as part of your virtual learning?
• What should they do, read or listen to, before the experience?
• What time should they build in afterwards to focus on application?
• What else is important to note with your programming?

All the best,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Recent books include: 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.
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. ​

There is a fallacy in today’s remote team context that everything can be done remote. Remote does not mean out of touch. Remote does not mean we don’t see each other or need to.

Where possible, it can be very useful to come together as a team for events – team meetings, team connection and/or team retreats.  While this may not occur every week, month or quarter, aiming to bring people together for face-to-face activities can deepen the connections, and extend the conversation, which can be more challenging when we try to it virtually.

Here are some possible ways to incorporate more face-to-face time:

#1 – Be sure to stream where you can. Many teams today are opting to move to platforms like Zoom or Facetime where it’s literally like you are seeing each other. Have people share something from “outside the screen” to help build a greater sense of “Who is Who”, and the context in which they operate within.

#2 – Block in time and budget to focus on face-to-face meetings. Some teams will bring people together each month or quarter, whereas for some teams it may only be once a year or every two years. With the sub-regional team I lead years ago, we got together every year for a FULL 1.5 days. The amount of time we spent formally, and informally, had a positive residue all year long. Consider what is going to be the best balance of work, sharing, formal and informal time for longer retreat meetings.

#3 – Make a point to rotate meeting time. Inevitably it is often one or two people who are asked to meet at a different time. Frequency and consistency around meetings are important for everyone. What is the best rhythm for your team?           
 
For more on this topic, consider reading these posts:
Teams365 1224 - Visuals in Remote Meetings
Teams365 #1911 - Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 87 
Teams365 #1773 - Five things to get on the calendar right now 

Not sure what to do when you get there?  Check out the 20 Focus Areas for Remote Team Development Ebook. It includes facilitated instructions to 20 different things you can do with your remote/virtual team. Purchase and download a copy here.

Have a great week,
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. ​

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip takes us further into the landscape of the art of Design in Virtual and Remote Work (meetings, conversations, training etc). This week I wanted to zoom into the landscape of graphics which become such a powerful window and door opener for your conversations.

While I am not an expert with graphical design, and I rely on the trusted services of others to help me round out in this area, I am very cognizant in my own virtual presentations how much my own preferences and styles have changed in recent years.

For many years I used to teach a Presentation Skills training program and one of the things that always stuck with me was the importance t of not cramming too much content onto a slide. We used to call it the Six by Six rule. This rule stated that a slide really shouldn’t have any more than six words across and six lines of text. Today, the Six by Six rule leads to very bulky slides, and we’ve moved in many industries to a focus on minimalism.

Photography has become even more common place and we can create much more of our own imagery through our phones and cameras. If you do need to use someone else’s photos, be aware of licensing use and be sure to purchase commercial rights if you are a business. Unsplash has a great portal of stock photography as do other places.

For each of us, our market may be different and what is visually appealing to one group may not be attractive to another.

With this in mind, here are some questions to consider as you go about designing your slides for your next presentation:

• What is the message you want to communicate through your images?
• What are the main colors which represent your brand (or your messaging)?
• What are your clients inspired, touched, or moved by?
• What is the emotional message you want to communicate?
• What images would communicate these messages?
• What icons describe the story you want to communicate?
• What else is important to check out around color?

For more on color use check out:

• Canva’s Color Wheel
• Color Theory for Designers -From Smashing Magazine 
  

Enjoy the focus on color this week,
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. ​

Put a bunch of people together and think that they will become a team immediately? Think again! Teams don’t just become exceptional overnight, especially if they are in the remote space.

With remote work becoming more common place today, it’s key that we start spending more time exploring what it means to be an exceptional team in the virtual space.

As I shared in Effective Virtual Conversations, “High-performing teams – in both the virtual and in-person realm – don’t just happen. They require work, focus and support. Whether it’s training, coaching, or mentoring, virtual team leaders and virtual team members benefit from focus.”  (Britton, 2017, pg 348).
Today’s and tomorrow’s posts are going to explore what can set a virtual or remote team up for success. Just as I do in Effective Virtual Conversations, let’s return back to the basics with what helps teams excel. If you have followed along here at the Teams365 blog for a while, you will know that I often refer to the foundational elements of team development as the Six Factors. Here’s a reminder of what those are again:

#TEAMS365 #1920: Team Development: Revisiting the Six Factors

This month's theme here at the Teams365 blog is Team Springboards. Where do you start the conversation about how the team is doing?

​​One of the frameworks I continue to share with teams is what I call the Six Factors of High Performing Teams. These are six things that teams need in order to excel. The ingredients come from the research of professionals including: Katzenbach and Smith (The Wisdom of Teams), Hackman and Wageman (A Theory of Team Coaching) and others.

As you step into the new month, as a team you’ll take the pulse of where you are on a scale of 1- 10 in each of these six areas:

1. Shared purpose or mission (Your WHY)
What is your purpose? Your mission? Why do you exist? Does everyone hold the same understanding? What does this mean practically for your work? What priorities does your purpose or mission naturally create?

2. Shared behavioral norms
How do you do things? What is acceptable and unacceptable on the team? What behaviors and habits exist? Which ones are supportive of exceptional performance? Which ones aren't?

3. Shared commitment
What are team members committed to? What will you get done, no matter what? Is there anything that needs to be dropped off the list?

4. Shared performance goals
What are key goals for the team this year? What are key individual goals? How do your goals align? Overlap? What does success look like for each member? For the entire team? Does everyone have an understanding of the key goals of others on the team and how they feed into them?

5. Shared team practices
Teams that work together effectively share common practices such as a Monday morning huddle, a Thursday night out or some other regular event. What practices support your relationships?

6. Clear Roles
How do our roles overlap, align and connect? What changes, if any, are needed this year around your roles giving your priorities?
 
Prefer to listen to an audio – check out this 2014 Team Leader Breakfast call I hosted or view it as a video here.

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.
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. ​

This week’s Weekly Effective Virtual Conversations Tip takes us into the landscape of designing a memorable virtual experience. In my book, Effective Virtual Conversations, I share the PEBBLLES ETC model of virtual program design, in order to create a more memorable virtual learning experience.
​
For more on this model, check out the EVC community call I hosted on the same topic.

To paraphrase Suzuki - We remember things that are novel, memorable and attention grabbing. This is particularly important when we are leading a virtual call, given that it is likely that people will be moving quickly from topic to topic, and virtual meeting to virtual meeting.

When creating memorable programs for the virtual space it can be really useful to explore the following strategies to create more memorability:

• Stories – you own or harnessing the stories of the group you are working with. This is a quick way to help people tap into the WIIFM principle – What’s In It For Me? - quickly in a virtual call.
• Video
• Cartoon
• Poll about the topic
• Breakouts where people get to connect and share their personal stories around the topic

Consider 3-5 things you might incorporate to tap into people’s emotion, or capture their attention for your next call.

Curious about what PEBBLLES stands for? Check out the launch call I held back in the summer of 2017 for the kickoff of Effective Virtual Conversations. You can view it here along with some of my other virtual book club calls.
 
I’ll be doing a number of weekly focus areas around design with EVC Monday Tips, so do stay tuned to learn more about what design elements are included in PEBBLLES ETC.

Have a great week,
Jennifer