Teams365 Blog - Potentials Realized

#TEAMS365 #2110 – Team Building Tip 257: The Devil's Advocate

10/10/2019

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to think about the question “What would the devil’s advocate say?”.

The Devil's Advocate view on a team may be in complete opposition to everyone else. It may also be the unpopular voice in the room.

At the same time, the devil’s advocate voice can point to an area which needs to be addressed or changed. This perspective can be very important when change is ongoing.

Rather than vilifying the voice of the devil’s advocate, it could be useful to invite their perspective around issues of importance. This may tease out alternative viewpoints, unforeseen risks, assumptions the team is making, or unpopular views.

How can the voice of the "Devil's Advocate" be useful to you as a team right now?

Many teams feel that they may remote the voice to the dissenter if he or she leaves the team, but note that it's likely that that voice will re-emerge if changes are not made at the deeper level of the team's system (it's culture, roles, how they do things, norms etc).

What is important to note on your team right now about key issues and the Devil’s Advocate view?

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.
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 #2108 – Performance Reviews in the Remote Space

10/8/2019

This week takes us into the interesting landscape of performance reviews in the remote space. Just as feedback is important in the in-person realm, feedback in the remote space is also important. Perhaps even more so, given the isolation and possibility that things can get off the rails very quickly.

Just as in in-person work, it is important to provide feedback and checkpoints on a regular basis. Usually the pace around everything is faster in the remote space, so consider how you might build in monthly or bi-weekly checkpoints for team members to see how they are doing.

Questions to consider when shifting performance reviews and conversations to the remote space:

HOW do we evaluate? Considering your feedback process is critical for remote workers. We want to be sure that they are getting regular, consistent feedback. No comments, or radio silence, is not enough. Consideration around HOW we evaluate - through written feedback, verbal feedback, review of job products - is a great starting point.

What are the different sources of feedback? Given that people are liaising with lots of different members, WHO is well placed to provide feedback? HOW do we invite them to provide feedback?

Getting really clear on outputs - In the remote space what we see in work is usually the end product. Being super-specific around outputs and what success looks like is very important in any type of performance conversation. Measuring on the process is usually a little trickier as it often is not seen, so consider how you are speaking to success measures and outputs in your performance conversations.

Provide multiple checkpoints - Formal feedback cycles may be much quicker than in-person given that we usually don’t see each other and informally connect with updates. What are the checkpoints you are going to put into place to make sure that people are feeling supported, and that issues are being “caught” in time?

Micro-monitor, don’t micro-manage - Micro-monitoring is a key part of virtual team success. When we have staff who work remote, it’s key that we are monitoring their results and outputs, rather than trying to micro-manage what they do. Micro-management is usually impossible or improbable given distance. Together with members of your team, set up a schedule to track, report and discuss key metrics and milestones.

What is important to put into place for your performance reviews?

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.

#TEAMS365 #2044 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #105

8/5/2019

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations post takes us to #105 in the series. The focus this week is on the skill set of Accountability. It’s much harder to track things in the virtual space, given that our time windows of synchronous moments when we are together can be limited. At the same time, our work may still be interdependent.

With this in mind, it is important to discuss what accountability can look like on your team, and how you want to support it.

Consider these ideas for supporting virtual or remote accountability:

Make it visible – Keeping things visible allows us to keep things top of mind. If there are key goals are there dashboards or visible measurement items, you can create and share in your intranet or team portal?
Create peer accountability partners – In the virtual space, relationships are essential, and we may not take time getting to know our peers. Creating peer accountability partners where everyone has one or two buddies, helps with information flow across a team, and also can boost the needle on accountability.
Help people see the bigger picture and connections – Many times team members don’t realize how interconnected things are, and that their work may directly impact another team members. Help teams members see the bigger picture of tools and also how their work flows into another's.
Build in time to check in – What doesn’t get tracked, doesn’t get done. What time are you building in for tracking and check in? This might be 5 minutes in a weekly team meeting, or via one-on-one calls.
Model accountability – If leaders are not following through it’s hard to ask team members to follow through. Model accountability and walk your talk!

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.

#TEAMS365 #2027 – FlashbackFriday: Leadership Practice - Feedback

7/19/2019

This week’s Flashback Friday takes us back to the 2017 series entitled “Leadership Practices”. Given that this time of year often involves planning, I wanted to take us back to our focus on feedback.

Here’s what I wrote in Teams365 #1296:

Leadership Practice – Feedback

One of the areas many team leaders struggle with is providing feedback. Sometimes feedback has not been well modeled to us, or we may not operate in a feedback culture. Creating the context of regular feedback - both positive and constructive – can be an important shift in changing the way people work and interact. When feedback is sparse we may inadvertently create a culture where team members move below the radar line, and people are afraid to take risks. When we create a culture where feedback is offered on a regular basis – both positively and constructively – we are often able to take more risks and try things out in an iterative fashion.

Several keys for providing feedback include:

Make feedback regular. In moving to a feedback culture we want to make sure that we are providing feedback to our team members in both positive and constructive ways. Poor performance, or performance that is not meeting the mark should not be a surprise at formal performance evaluation moments.

Leaders alone may not be the only ones providing feedback. Building the capacity within our team to provide peer feedback can support a shift to an overall feedback culture. In building the capacity within team members to provide feedback we want to make sure that we train people in providing feedback. It can be useful to start with comments like “ I see one of your strengths as…..” or “I appreciate it when you….”. Constructive feedback from the perspective of “one thing you might want to try is…..” or “one are you may want to focus on is….”.

Be sure that in providing feedback you are speaking to observable behaviors not personality issues. A major trap in feedback is that we attribute poor performance not to things we see, but to heresay or assumptions. It is important to provide feedback on things we have seen ourselves.

Practice giving feedback in authentic ways. When feedback cultures are not established it can feel awkward to provide feedback and it may not be modeled in different voices. Providing team members with the opportunity to provide feedback using a framework mentioned in the last point, may start to build the muscle and confidence around feedback, along with a common framework with different voices.

As you think about feedback for the year, what do you notice?

Enjoy,
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.

#TEAMS365 #2013 - FlashBack Friday: Developing Your Team Through Mentoring, Coaching and Leadership

7/5/2019

One of the areas I spend a bulk of my time in is the area of mentoring. I thought it would be useful to return back to a post I shared back in July 2014 on the differences between mentoring and coaching. Both are key conversations to incorporate in organizations today. What are you doing to foster development in your teams?

Here’s Teams365 # 212:

In terms of the development of members of your team, mentors, coaches and leaders all play important roles in building capacity of the team, individually and collectively. You can view past posts about mentoring here and coaching here.

Mentoring is often an underutilized method of support in organizations today. Mentors provide the value of being able to provide tremendous insight into the culture of an organization, how to "practically" get things done, and also into networks and technical issues important for different roles. Along with my colleague, Susan Combs, we continue to hear from organizations that are interested in adding mentoring, but they don't know where to start to support their mentors and proteges/mentees. This summer we launched the Mentor RoadMap(TM) series of workbooks for mentors and proteges. Organizations who have gone through the initial beta tests have found the resources to be invaluable! Interested in learning more? Contact us to set up a conversation about how mentoring could benefit your organization.

Coaching also can play a key role in the development of the team - as individuals and also as the team itself. Research by the International Coach Federation has found that coaching has a number of productivity benefits, as well as other related areas. The 2009 Global Coaching Client survey found that:

Increased productivity measures include:

Improved work performance (70%)
Improved business management (61%)
Improved time management (57%)
Improved team effectiveness (51%)

Improved positivity measures include:

Increased self confidence (80%)
Increased relationships (73%)
Improved communication skills (72%)
Improved work life balance (67%)

We've focused on coaching skills for leaders here at the blog this month, and sometimes it can be useful to bring in an internal or external coach to work with your team. Contact us to learn more about what this could look like with your team.

At the same time, teams excel because of great leaders. This is the emphasis here at the Teams365 blog. Helping you as leaders, and aspiring leaders, become better at what you do - through new skills, refined approaches, new insights and self-awareness. In a few weeks we will be launching one of our first Teams365 Team Leader Foundation programs on Time Management. The first of more than a dozen training modules for team leaders. New modules will be offered monthly and I hope that you will join us in the coming months with a focus on your own development. Learning is online so you don't have to travel!

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.

#TEAMS365 #2007: Mid-Year Checkpoint

6/29/2019

As we step into the middle of the year, it can be a great time to create a pause to undertake a quick mid-year checkpoint. Most Saturdays I share a Weekly Journaling Prompt, but this week you might want to explore these mid-year questions:

My theme this year is….
What have your successes been ?
Where has your focus been?
Who have you been working with?
What’ s been happening?
What have you taken a stand for?
What have you become known for?
What have been the major milestones?
What goals have you achieved?
What’s your focus for the rest of the year?

I shared these questions mid-month with the professionals who attend the Learning Lab and Design Studio, and they loved the reflection space.

Enjoy your time reflecting as well!
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.

#TEAMS365 #1998: Team Building Tip 241

6/20/2019

In recent years, more and more organizations have become more aware of the importance of growth mindset. Coined by Carol Dweck, growth mindset invites all of us into an ongoing learning insight. To learn more about Caro Dweck’s Work – visit her TED Talk - If you haven't heard Dweck talk about her work on mindset, here is a video.

Part of growth mindset, and at the heart of continuous learning is the notion that we may not yet have mastered things YET. As I assert in my writing, growth is about ongoing action, reflection, feedback and iteration. In fact, the tagline for my two recent planners, PlanDoTrack and the Coaching Business Builder, is Consistent Action + Daily Steps = Momentum.

It is through these daily steps and ongoing action that we see what works, and what doesn’t. It means that we are always learning and adjusting as we go.
As a team this week, I hope that you will engage in the discussion of “What haven’t WE mastered yet?”.

What are we still learning from, and learning about?

Enjoy the conversation!
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.

#TEAMS365 #1994: Sunday Round-up

6/16/2019

This Sunday I wanted us to take a look back at the week and what the blog posts were. Let’s take a look back at each one of this week’s posts:

Monday June 10 – 1987: Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #98: In Focus: MOOCs
Tuesday June 11 – 1988: Mid-Year - Feedback and Performance Check
Wednesday June 12 – 1989: Mentoring
Thursday June 13 – 1990: Team Building Tip 240
Friday June 14 – 1991: A Look at Listening and Questioning
Saturday June 15 – 1992: Weekly Journaling Prompt 53

What’s important to take a look at more in-depth?

Warm regards,
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.

#TEAMS365 #1989 – Mentoring

6/12/2019

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.

#TEAMS365 #1989 – Feedback and Performance Check

6/11/2019

A few days ago, I shared a post on preparing for the performance conversation. Feedback and performance conversations are often an area team members of all kinds struggle with, regardless of level of experience. When is the last time you held a two-way performance conversation – receiving and providing feedback to those you work with?

Things to keep in mind:

Feedback and performance conversations should be ongoing.
Signal when you are having a performance conversation. Sometimes it’s so informal that people don’t even recognize that they are receiving feedback. This is particularly important if performance is not going well.
Be specific about what performance is expected for each role. Provide examples of what good performance would look like.
Be sure to indicate what follow up is needed – and follow up. Lack of follow up may signals that you are not interested, or that things are better, when in fact they may not be.
Are you making the performance conversation two way? Any performance conversation is an opportunity to get feedback for yourself.
Experiment with leading with what the other person sees and observes about their own behavior. What do they notice?

What else is important to note in your feedback conversations?

Enjoy your 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
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.