From open office spaces to a focus on collaboration, there can also be a pendulum swing in organizations where sometimes things go too far.
​
As I mentioned over the weekend, there are a number of studies exploring this topic of distraction including Udemy In Depth’s 2018 Workplace Distraction Survey. You can read it here. 
 
The report asserts that distractions have an impact on productivity. Some of the distractions noted in that study are talkative co-workers, email and others.
Many of the distractions I hear of in the work of my clients are:

• Unscheduled meetings
• Co-workers dropping by to chat
• Email
• Social media which takes you “down the rabbit hole”
• Materials and information which are not readily accessible and have not been stored in the locations you thought they would be in

What are you doing to minimize the distractions? What do you find distracting?

What conversations are important to have?

​Here are some other articles of interest:

Check out this article from Financial Times – “Digital Distractions are Making Us Dumb and Twitchy” which also includes some great tips from Professor Cal Newport.

Suresh Subamdam’s article on Is Your Work's Communication Channel Turning Your Team Into a Bunch of 'Slack'-ers?

Take a look at Digital Responsibility’s website and ideas on Digital Distraction.

Wishing you all the best,
​Jennifer

As a coach and author I love to read books to pass on to my readers and clients. In the last few months as I have been starting to write my new book on virtual and remote team leadership and teamwork, I’ve been reading A LOT of the more recent business titles. Today's post includes seven that I found myself enjoying and recommending regularly to leaders, teams and fellow facilitators. While not all were published this year, they did have relevance to the current leadership, and teamwork, context. Here they are:
 
Extreme Teaming – Amy Edmondson and Jean-Francois Harvey -  A wonderful follow up to Edmondson’s 2012 Teaming, this book explores teaming in its extreme forms. Think teams which have to form and disband regularly (i.e. shift teams, ER teams, some project teams). This book takes a look at core foundations and the theory behind teaming. A great read even if you are not a theorist. As a practitioner I would hazard a guess that many of the teams I work with would benefit from more of a focus on the principles identified.

The Productivity Habit – Chris Bailey. I really enjoyed reading Bailey’s book. As someone who is regularly asked to speak with teams and emerging leaders around personal productivity, this book is an excellent resource covering pertinent research and providing very practical, and tactical, activities to undertake. I appreciated how Bailey included how much time it would take to cover each chapter, and it allowed me to cover more than I might have while traveling for work recently.

The Weekend Effect – Katrina Onstad. Another book about the importance of time, and renewal. I enjoyed how Onstad also provided research and stories about the importance of taking back our weekends.

Grit – Angela Duckworth - Another valuable read around leadership in today’s uncertain context.

Scrum – Jeff Sutherland - With Agile’s leveraging of teams, I found that this was an important read for me, providing more of the framework behind this increasingly adopted, and important topic.

Deep Work – Cal Newport – Living and operating in a digitally distracted world, Deep Work is a wonderful read, and an important reminder of the need for deep work.

Radical Candor – Kim Scott - A must read for all teams who want to be able to accelerate their results. This year I would trace much of the challenges experienced by teams that I worked with back to a struggle with being able to practice candor in their communication, pointing to and speaking to difficult issues in a way that was productive, and effective.
 
What books were you influenced by this year? What did you enjoy reading?
 
 
 With best wishes,
Jennifer

As I write on page 327 of Effective Virtual Conversations, "Leadership needs to change as the context changes. The new norm for many virtual leaders is continued volatility, ongoing change, and complexity in different locations" (pp 327, Effective Virtual Conversations).

​Although I wrote this earlier this year, the new norm for leaders of all kinds is becoming disruption. Whether you are a virtual leader or an in-person one, how is volatility, change and complexity impacting your work? What are you noticing about how you are changing your leadership style?

​I did a quick search on writing around leading in disruption and here's what I came up with:

​Succeeding in Disruptive Times from KPMG. Read it here.  They note the research they have done where 34% of CEOs have indicated that they have failed to "achieve the value in their transformations" due to factors including "inability to innovate", "missing the cultural connection", and inability to execute" (pp 2)

​Check out "Tech Disruption Forces CEOs to Rethink Leadership" - Read it here.

​Here's Washington Post's Top 10 Leadership Books to read during 2017 - Read it here.

​15 of the Best Leadership Books to Read in 2017  from Inspiring Leadership Now - Read it here. I was pleased to see many of the books I've read this year - including Kim Scott's Radical Candor.
​
What constitutes leadership for you right now? What are the major forces shaping your business? What is required of you?

Have a great start to the week,
Jennifer
​

Over the lats month we've been looking at the Foundation of Teamwork (you can catch up on posts you missed here).

Today I wanted to share with you a list of some of my favorite books in the topic of teamwork. These are ones I find myself recommending to new and experienced team leaders and team members alike. 
In no particular order you may find these useful in your work, and great summer (or winter!) reading:

Jim Collins - Good to Great
Robin Sharma - Leading Without Title
Daniel Goleman - Primal Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
Katzenbach and Smith - The Wisdom of Teams
Ferrazzi, Keith. Never Eat Lunch Alone
Susan Scott - Fierce Conversations
John Whitmore - Coaching for Performance
Kerry Patterson - Influencer
Steven Covey - Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Steven MR Covey - The Speed of Trust
Lencioni, Patrick – The Advantage, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Team Player

What are some of your favorite teamwork books? Feel free to share!

Have a great Saturday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Set up a conversation about how we can support you and your team though enhanced coaching, mentoring or other support
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Yesterday's post explored the topic of accountability and included six leadership questions you will want to incorporate into your team discussions, if you are not doing so already.

​In today's post I wanted to return back to Our Essential Leadership Reads Series, and  provide you with five resources you might find useful around accountability. Note that accountability is not created in isolation, it's also related to Trust, Goal Setting and Relationship Management.

​Here are five books and other resources you may find useful in your work:

​Accountability: The Key to Driving a High Performance Culture - Greg Bustin - View it here on Amazon


​The Oz Principle - Getting results through Individual and Organizational Accountability - Connors, Smith and Hickman - View it here on Barnes and Noble

​Crucial Accountability - Patterson et al. View it here on Barnes and Noble

Fix IT - Getting Accountability Right - Connors and Smith. View it here on Barnes and Noble.

​No More Excuses - Sam Silverstein - View it Here

What other resources would you recommend to others?

Enjoy your weekend,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Looking to spark more conversation with your team? Consider the Conversation Sparker(TM) Cards
Set up a conversation about how we can support you and your team best
(416)996-8326

It's Friday and time for another Essential Leadership Read. Five more resources which you may want to check out if you are leading or Training Remote Teams:
 
Training Journal = REACH - https://www.trainingjournal.com/articles/feature/managing-remote-team

Full’s Article on 3 Tips for Managing a Remote Team = http://full.io/3-tips-for-training-a-remote-team/
 
Five Icebreakers for Distributed Team Meetings from the Lucid Meetings BLog - http://blog.lucidmeetings.com/blog/5-icebreakers-for-distributed-team-meetings
 
TeamBonding.com’s :  Five Team Bonding Tips for Remote Employees https://www.teambonding.com/5-team-bondingtips-for-remote-employees/
 
MindTools article on Remote Teams https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_40.htm

Enjoy your weekend,
Jennifer

This week's focus has been on coaching, with Monday's cartoon showing the new team leader Jo holding a one-on-one coaching conversation with Sujit one of her team members. You can read it here

On Tuesday I focused on the Four Foundations of Any Coaching Conversation and on Wednesday on 20 Coaching Questions you might want to use in your own conversations.

As someone who has trained thousands of coaches and leaders in coaching skills in the last decade plus, finding good books and resources on the topic are key. This is a mainstay of our work at Potentials Realized, and over the years I've not only written two books on coaching, but a number of our products like the Conversation Sparker cards, are geared to support people in having  better coaching conversations.

Here are five books on coaching I often recommend to those looking to add coaching skills to their mix:

Coactive Coaching - Kimsey House and Kimsey House

Coaching For Performance - John Whitmore

Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart - Mary Beth O'Neill

Coaching For Leadership - Goldsmith/Lyons

A new one coming out in a few weeks which looks like it will be a great one is Michael Bungay Stanier's The Coaching Habit. It will be released in early March.

What are some of your favorite resources around coaching? As always, please feel free to comment below.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

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

In light of this week's focus on relationships and trust here at the blog,  I wanted to include several resources you might be interested in reading to deepen your understanding of relationships and trust:

1. Simon Sinek's - Leaders Eat Last - I've picked this book up again recently and am enjoying the refresher on some of the science between team bonding. Increasingly neuroscience and other research is giving us a new empirical understanding as to how team formation really works. If you enjoyed his book, the Power of Why, you'll enjoy Leaders Eat Last.

2 and 3. Keith Ferrazzi's books - Don't Eat Lunch Alone and Who's Got Your Back - Quick reads and interesting, Ferrazzi is a must-read author in the area of relationships.

4 and 5. Stephen Covey's the Speed of Trust - a core measure of the strength of relationships in a  team is trust  Covey's two books - the Speed of Trust and Smart Trust - are also must reads for team leaders today. I continue to h ear from leaders in the technical domains (safety, electrical, chemical) that they enjoy the formulaic nature of Covey's writing.

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

Feeling confident and skilled at holding performance conversations is key for both new and experienced Team Leaders. Yesterday's Six Leadership Questions post went into detail around several questions you might consider bringing into your one-on-ones and other performance conversations. Check out #TEams365 #753.

Today I wanted to share some great resources -web and book based - which you might want to tap into in preparation for your next performance conversation. Check these out:
2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews - Paul Falcone - check it out at Amazon here.

Five Conversations - How to Transform Trust, Engagement and Performance at Work - Nigel Purse and Nick Cowley and Lynn Allison - check it out at Amazon

The Essential Performance Review Book - Sharon Armstrong - check it out at Amazon

Crucial Conversations - Kerry Patterson  - Check it out at Amazon

Fierce Conversations - Susan Scott - Check it out at Amazon

Have a great Sunday! Don't forget to take a moment if you haven't done so to let us know your thoughts regarding topic areas you are interested in reading at the blog and other learning and development needs you have as a team leader this year. Click here to access our First Annual Teams365 Team Leader Survey. It will take five minutes of your time. Thanks!

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

This past week our focus at the Teams365 blog was on virtual meetings. Rather than looking outside of our work, I thought it would be useful in today's post to include a variety of past resources  - blog posts and audios - which further explore the topic of virtual meetings.

As a recap, you may want to check out
The January 2015 Teams365 #390 - Sunday Audio on Hosting Effective Virtual Meetings. You can access it here and listen in.

​A 2008 article I wrote on Five Tips for Effective Virtual Meetings over at my Biz Toolkit blog. You can read that article here

​Teams365 #184 from July 2014: Virtual Meeting Tips - Read it here

​One of our Teams365 Cartoons on Death by Conference Call (Teams365 #611 from last year) - Read it here.

​and finally, this week's downloadable template with the Pre-Virtual Meeting Checklist. Check it out here.

​Earlier this week I sent out our monthly Leadership Newsletter. You can read it here if you missed it. Please subscribe if you'd like to receive it in your inbox on a monthly basis.

​Have a great week,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Join us on February 4th (12-3 pm ET online) for the Virtual Facilitation Skills Iintensive (a 15 hour Train-the-Trainer)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326