I am starting to receive a number of emails and phone calls from teams who are looking to organize their year end functions. It's only about 70 days until the end of the year. What are you as a team hoping to complete before 2017 winds down? How will you be preparing for your best year yet in 2018?

I wanted to bring forward a post that I wrote late last year which was posted on LinkedIn Pulse. It's entitled "4 Best Practices for Year-End Team Retreats" and is geared to anyone who is starting to think about what your year-end retreat can look like. I hope that you find this useful as our FlashbackFriday this week. Here's what I wrote in that LinkedIn post:
"It’s that time of year for parties, year-end team retreats and other events. Are you maximizing the amount of time and impact of these team events?

Having supported year-end programming for teams and organizations for many years I thought it would be useful to share four focus areas you may want to consider as you start preparing, planning and perhaps facilitating your year-end processes.

Number One — What’s the purpose? If you had to distill down the top two or three takeaways from the retreat process or that off site, what is it? The purpose of our year-end function can impact the structure and activities undertaken in the program.

Is the purpose of your year-end event:

• to build connection?
• to share important information?
• do some goal planning?
• to build understanding across the silos, that may exist within your organization?

I’d encourage you to think about the top two or three purposes of the upcoming program and link to consideration #2.
Number Two — What is the connection to the business? Think about what is the connection to the business. It’s still very common in today’s world for people to just go through the motions of a traditional annual year end party and /or event. 
Are you really maximizing that investment of bringing people together?
Could you build into that luncheon a half-day session before or after, to do some work with your staff teams to support their development, to help them look at their skills and strengths and styles and also to share with them, you know, and help them connect to the link with your business.
What opportunities do you have already formalized for bringing people together at year-end? What changes or additions do you want to make?

Number Three — Do you want to do it all alone? Many organizations today have a committee and amongst that committee membership, there may be some members who would be very comfortable in facilitating your year-end team or organizational process.
So, think about who might be best equipped to do the work? Is it you, members of that committee or maybe you are interested in bringing in an external facilitator?
One of the things we do, is either we come in and facilitate or develop activities which you can facilitate yourself.
Think about how you might be able to leverage the resources you have and or bring in some special guest speakers or external resources to contribute to the environment that you want to create.
Number Four — How are you going to take this forward?One of the biggest challenges that we see in learning and development today is this continued lack of transferability to the work place.
This was what drew me to focus more on the area of Coaching which places an ongoing emphasis on accountability and transferability to the workplace.
One the things I like to encourage organizations that I partner with to always thinking about is – How will you sustain the conversation? How will you take this forward into your work?
Hopefully any year-end retreat process or year-end meeting will have an action step and a very formalized action planning stage. Remember to build in time in the new year to revisit your commitments and accountabilities.

Here’s a quick recap:
Number One - Think about the purpose. What are the top three or four reasons or things that you want people to take away?
Number Two - What’s the link of the year-end program to the business? Is it just to have fun or something else?
Number Three - As your approaching your year-end processes, is this something you want to do or do you want to bring in a facilitator? A third option perhaps is to have something designed for you, so you can facilitate it yourself.

And finally, Number Four. What are the takeaways? How will people sustain the conversation? When will you check in on your actions and commitments?
I hope that you’re finding these ideas valuable, practical, and of course, implementable."

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

One of the recent themes I have been focusing on here at the Teams365 blog is how do you foster more trust in teams so that you can have more innovation in the light of disruption, and as you will see in tomorrow's weekend quote, you can encourage more risk taking. These activities pre-suppose that teams are comfortable in giving feedback to each other. I've done a number of posts in the past about providing better feedback and what's important about it. I'll also be stepping into a number of team engagements later this month on providing feedback, so I wanted to revisit this again.

Here's what I wrote in #Teams365 #1296: Leadership Practice - Feedback:

eadership Practice – Feedback
One of the areas many team leaders struggle with is providing feedback. Sometimes feedback has not been well modelled 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.

For more posts on feedback, check out these past Teams365 posts;
Teams365 #525:  Three Keys for Providing Effective Feedback. Read it here
Teams365 #1252: Preparing for the Feedback Conversation. Click here to view it: http://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-1252-preparing-for-the-feedback-conversation

You may also want to check out the Foundations of Feedback series I did last year in 2016.

This Friday’s post will provide an overview on 4 Essentials with Feedback: http://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-398-four-essentials-with-feedback

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What is important for your team to explore right now around feedback:
- How to give feedback?
- How to prepare to receive feedback?
- Sharing how you want to receive feedback?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

 This fall I have been speaking a lot on virtual and remote team success, given the release of my most recent book (Effective Virtual Conversations) and the expanding interest in this topic in many industries. It's also more likely that virtual team leaders may be tasked with their own team's development. A 2016 study by R3 found that only 22% of virtual teams participated in virtual team development. Take a look at this survey here.

Here's a past post I thought many of you would be interested in - 4 Areas for Virtual and Remote Teams to Focus On. While these are not the only 4 things to explore and shore up with your team, they are four very important areas.

Take a look at what I wrote back in #Teams365 #1161:


Virtual and remote teams continue to spring up for a variety of reasons  whether it's a project team that is weaving together skills and expertise from across geographic locations, or whether it's a global team, it's important to invest in the development of virtual teams just like we do for in-person teams. This post explores four separate areas you may want to put more attention around.

Clear goals  - Goals create both focus and alignment. In a virtual team, it is important to help the team look at things from both the individual and the team level. Make sure to stimulate conversation/focus on the individual level and also the team level around questions such as
What are your key priorities?
How does each team member connect into the larger interface of the team?
What is the overlap or gaps between individual and team goals?
What resources are needed?
In terms of sequencing, what needs to be completed first before another person can start?
Being clear on what success looks like and what is necessary to achieve this (resources, feedback loops, reporting structures)

Roles and responsibilities – In virtual teams it is important to spend time being crystal clear and granular in terms of what the roles and responsibilities of each team member are. Clarify issues such as:
how their work intersects with others.
Who they report to,
Who they receive feedback from and when.
Being detailed on this helps to clarify, and bust, assumptions which may be held.

Matrix relationships – It is likely that the employee will have a series of matrix relationships in some instances, especially if they are global. Being clear on what the reporting structures are and how and when issues should be flagged with each leader. Being intentional around the feedback loops are also important.

Creating Connection - In virtual teams it is very easy to overlook the fundamentals like creating connection across team members. In future posts we will explore different approaches and activities to create connection across the team. For now, take a look at these past posts which address the issue of creating connection.

Where are you as a team in all four areas? Take note of what needs attention.

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Last week I started a series of posts which will take us to the end of the year around different activities you might want to use with your own virtual or remote teams. It reminded me of a past series I did late last year and into 2017 which might also be of interest to you- the Team Development A-Z where I explored 26 different activities you might want to undertake with your team. Some were written posts, others were video posts. Check out some of the past posts, such as Teams365 #1111 - Taking a Look Back at Different Team Development Activities, here:

Here's what I wrote in that post, and included as links to several descriptions:
Over the past two months I've been doing a series on different team development activities you can use with your team. Let's take a look back at some of the more popular posts:

​Teams365 #1107: T is for Trust. This post goes into some of the different ways trust is built on a team Read the post here.

​Teams365 #1106 - S is for Strengths

​Teams365 #1100 - Q is for Questions

​#Teams365 #1070 - E is for Exceptional

​#Teams365 #1074: H is for Habits

​#Teams365 #1084: M is for Metaphor

​I do hope you will take a look at some of these and get inspired about something you might be able to do with your team.

​Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

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It is Friday and time for a look back at some of our more than 1300 posts. In keeping aligned with this month's theme around virtual facilitation, I am taking us back to Teams365 post #566 - 7 Keys for Virtual Facilitation. As someone who has been involved in leading virtual calls and teams for several decades now, I continue to see waves of professionals adding virtual facilitation skills to their mix. For more than five years now we have been offering a Virtual Facilitation Train-the-Trainer. It's an areas I am offering more supports around, especially with the launch of my newest book, Effective Virtual Facilitation.

Whether you are just getting started, or are a "virtual pro" here are 7 things to keep in mind with virtual programming:

even Keys for Powerful Virtual Facilitation - Jennifer Britton

From Webinars, to virtual meetings  which bring together teams scattered across a country or the globe, virtual facilitation skills are increasingly becoming an important skill set for leaders and team members alike. Chances are you have recently participated as part of a virtual meeting that was less than optimal.

This article explores seven keys for powerful virtual meetings. These seven quick items used together can be very effective in amping up your next virtual event success.

1. Engagement is key - Helping group members connect regularly with the WIIFM (What's in it for me) and engaging them in the dialogue is almost more important than it is in the in-person realm.  Competition with emails and your desktop is often the reality. Keep pace moving, encourage reflection and dialogue and take the pulse regularly to see where people are at.

2. Connection is the foundation - While you might not be able to see each other feeling connected with others is an important foundation for virtual meeting success, particularly if these meetings will continue for some time.

3. Trust is Critical- Just as in the in-person environment, trust is critical. Given that we don't have the regular touchpoints where we can be "seen" building trust in the virtual environment can be even more pointed. Consider how you are building your reputation and ask what others think of you.

4. Good Design - Good design is especially important in the virtual domain. Consider what the overall blocks of the meeting or event are and how they fit together or are sequenced. More focus on process rater than less can be of benefit in the virtual domain. What are the design elements which will support the most effective virtual event? Consider  breakouts, polls, use of a whiteboards, keeping it simple if technology is going to be a hindrance.

5 - Leverage technology  - Use the technology you have available and which is accessible to all. I often go to the "lowest common denominator" so we are not creating any new divisions based on technology available. If you can use more interactive supports such as breakouts to engage everyone, use them. Consider what support will help you - for example, have a co-facilitator who can set up breakouts while you are facilitating. Don't try to do it all alone!

6 - Visuals are an important boost - Having a virtual anchor point, even on a phone call is important in the virtual realm. visuals can create a focus, and grounding point. If you are only meeting by phone consider sending out a one-pager prior to the call  for meeting participants to download, print and use. Make sure they are  provided this well enough n advance of the call.

7 - Be nimble as a facilitator - Being flexible as a facilitator in the virtual realm is essential. Expect technology to happen because it will. Have a number of "back ups" available which you can draw upon. Think through the various scenarios which may happen and how you will deal with them.

What other tips would you suggest to others who are starting out with virtual facilitator? Please feel free to comment below.

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

With this week having been "back to work" for many of us, I thought it would be fitting to dedicate this week's Flashback Friday to a past post I've written on getting back to the fall routine. Here's what I wrote last year during Teams365 #980 - Six Back to Work Routines you will want to keep an eye on. What are the areas you want to make sure you don't lose a focus on, as you gear up for the fall?

Here's Teams365 #980:
Today marks a back to regular working routine for many of us and our teams today, with Labor Day behind us, it is full throttle until the end of the year. Today may be the first time your entire team is together after a summer hiatus. As you get back into the swing of things here are six routine areas you may want to look at, or re-establish:

​1. Team meetings
​2. Lunchbreaks
​3. Start and end times of the day
​4. Workout routines
5. Regular learning opportunities
​6. Time with loved ones

​As with anything, you'll want to also keep in mind current priorities and goals you have for the rest of the year. These may influence the weighting and importance of each of the six routine areas. ​Let's look at each one of these in turn:

​1. Team meetings - If team meetings fell by the wayside over the holidays, now's the time to get them back on track! Have you as a team committed to meeting weekly, bi-weekly, monthly? Schedule these in everyone's calendar before the week gets away from you. It's likely that there will always be competing priorities and it's harder to be made to shift if it's in everyone's calendar.

​2. Lunchbreaks - Some organizations are great at having a fixed culture where lunch breaks are encouraged, whereas at others, people work through them, eating at their desks. Lunch breaks can be a great time to clear your head, connect with others and renew. Whether you spend lunch getting to the gym or pool (something I do on a regular basis), out for a lunchtime walk, or connecting with colleagues in a lunch room, consider the benefit of grabbing some mid-day brain breathing!

​3. Start and End times of the day - Also common in many organizations is the creep of start and end times. What is expected in your organization? What's going to support a healthy work-life balance, while ensuring things are getting done efficiently and effectively. Remember that hours logged in does not always mean they are productive hours. This week consider what you would like to establish around your working hours, and how productive you really are throughout the day, and the week.

​4 Exercise/Workout routines - What is your commitment to exercise and workouts? We know that the sedentary lifestyle of many office workers today has the potential for health risks. What commitment have you made to yourself, and your loved ones, around exercise? This week, what's the groove you want to get into around working out? Who and what will help you support this?

5. Regular learning opportunities - from mentoring relationships to on-demand courses, to certificate programs, and job shadowing, learning opportunities abound in many organizations. What are the skills and experiences which will help you and your team do their best work today? Over the next year? Consider what learning opportunities you have scheduled in, or want to schedule in, for the rest of the year.

​And finally, making sure you have prioritized quality time with your loved ones. It's easy for work and commuting to become the dominant times of our day. What is your commitment with your loved ones around spending quality time this fall? What support do they need from you as they get back to work and school?


Looking for similar articles? Check out Teams365 #979: Gearing Up for Back To work. Read it here.

As part of this week's #FlashbackFriday I am reaching back to a couple of older posts I wrote in 2014 on Peer Coaching. This is an area which is often overlooked in workplaces today, especially in team-based environments.. Are you equipping your team with skills in the area of peer coaching?

Here's what I wrote back in Teams365 post 199:

"Over the last couple of weeks  we’ve been focusing in on coaching skills for leaders. A reminder that we can also build coaching skills on the part of the team members we work with. In fact, peer coaching can be a powerful tool for teams, and groups, to leverage.

Core peer coaching skills to foster:

1. Asking great questions. You may want to revisit the Baker’s Dozen post earlier this week or some of the many questions we’ve posed over the past six months. Powerful coaching questions are typically short (5-6 words), are open-ended, and seek to expand understanding or support action.

As I’ve written in past posts, WHAT questions often open up the largest terrain. How questions may put people into a process mindset (HOW CAN I DO THIS) which may get people stuck. WHY questions may put people on the defensive.

2. Listening deeply - Really being present and listening to their colleagues, with out judgement and interruption

3. Knowing when to jump in with advice - Coaching is not advice giving. As peers you may have valuable insights to offer.  If you are tempted to jump in with advice, ask if this is wanted/valued.

4. Really being present - In today’s pressure pot of business, it’s invaluable to have a moment to pause and reflect and also be heard. Really being present is key for success.

5. Support for accountability - Peer pressure can be a positive thing when used as a support for accountability around goals you, yourself, have set. How can you hold each other accountable for the actions and commitments you have set for yourself?

What other peer coaching skills would be useful in equipping your team members with?"

Questions to consider:
What can you do to boost skills in the areas of listening, presence, questioning.?
What opportunities do team members have in coaching their peers?
When is coaching appropriate in your organization? When is it not the best way?

For those interested in this topic of peer coaching, I would also invite you to check out a longer article I wrote on the topic entitled "Leveraging Peer Coaching for Better Results". You can view it at Teams365 #1149.

Have a great long weekend,
Jennifer

Yesterday I spoke here in Washington DC on Team and Group Coaching Virtually. As leaders, many times we are called upon to coach our team members, but are they ready to be coached? Here's a post from 2015 which you might find interesting - Four Coaching Flags, or four things to be aware of when coaching your team.  Consider what are flags coming up for you and your team right now.

Here's what I wrote in Teams365 #784:
A key success factor to supporting any learning or talent development initiative is to make sure that the approaches we are using are the  right fit. Whether we are coaching, training, mentoring, it is important to take stock regularly on what's working and what's not.

Sometimes there are flags which signal that things are not going as they should. In the coaching approach you may see:

• Lack of follow through on the part of the person being coached
• Circling of the client
• Person not showing up for their coaching sessions
• Jumping from one topic to another
• Client not seeing value of coaching

Questions to ask:
Is this person coachable? Do they really want to engage in the coaching process? Without their active participation it is not possible to coach a person. While people can sit passively through a workshop, in coaching they need to be an active participant?

Is it time to revisit the coaching goals they have set for themselves? Are these goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound)? Are the goals stretch goals?

When the client "circles" it may be for several reasons. This often signals a place where the person is fearful or feeling dis-empowered It may signal an "inner critic" or "gremlin". For more information on this topic i'd highly recommend Rick Carson's book Taming the Gremlin.

Finally when a client is saying they are not seeing value in the coaching process it may be time to have them take stock of their accomplishments and learning since the start of the coaching process. Sometimes we are so in he phase of learning that we have not stopped to reflect and note what is different and what changes have happened.

There are several more flags you may see around coaching, however, thse are four very common ones experienced by coaches as leaders, as well as internal and external coaches. What other coaching flags have you experienced?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

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It is Friday and time to go back into the vault to take a look at a past post. One of the Leadership Practices posts this week was on Presentations, a topic I know is of interest, and concern, to many professionals. Presentations are one area that often can improve over time, regardless of how much experience we have had. If you haven't taken a look at this week's Leadership Practice post, I would invite you to.

​Here's another Teams365 post I think you will enjoy - Teams365 #643: Three Keys to Strong Presentations from 2015:

"Powerful presentation skills are key for anyone in today's business world. This post focuses on three quick ideas you can incorporate to boost your next presentation.

1. Remember that people remember the start and end of things. What are known as the "latency" and "recency" effect play out for your group members. They will most likely remember how you start your presentation and how you end it, and the mid-point is likely to be fuzzy. Ensure that you reinforce key messages at the start and end of your presentation.

2 Less is more - Trying to fit too much into your presentation may lead to a sense of overwhelm and lack of clarity. Consider what are the key messages you want people to remember and/or take action on. As you go to prepare consider what are :
a) the key messages you want to communicate - if you had to bullet the presentation down to 3 bullets, what would they be?
b) what elements of the presentation are essential  - at the core, what do you want to make sure you want to cover?
c) what needs further reinforcement - what key ideas need reinforcement? When and how will you reinforce these?
d) what needs to be pruned - yes, sometimes we do need to cut out a chunk!

3. Make it about the participant's experience. Leading from the WIIFM - What' sin it for me - helps people connect early on with how a presentation connects with their world. it puts them in the driver's seat right away. What can you do to help people connect with the WIIFM?

In an upcoming presentation, consider how these three areas can further strengthen what you have to say."

Have a great Friday,
Jennifer

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I am always curious to see what was happening a year ago. It lead me to reach back to see what I was writing about last August. Last August I did a monthly series on New Team Leader Tips. More than 14 posts on things leaders will want to consider in their first 90 days. One area that is a stretch for many new team leaders is the area of developing a strong relationship with their boss. Here are some things to consider.

​Let's take a look at what I wrote last August in Teams365 #944:
New Team Leader tip #9 got you thinking about the lay of your land.  One of the most important relationships you will foster as a new team leader is that of your boss. As a team leader your role is often one of a  conduit, feeding information downwards from your boss to your team and moving it upwards from your team to your boss.

Establishing a solid relationship with your new boss is key. How would you characterize it so far?

Questions to consider:
What are your boss' expectations of you? Of the team?
What are your bosses preferences in terms of communication, updates, frequency of contact?
What are your bosses key priorities? What is important about these to them?
What can you depend on your boss for?
What type of requests can you make?
What does your team want your boss to know about?
What advice and guidance has your boss provided you with so far?
What key relationships do they recommend you establishing?

If you haven't had discussion around these points so far, it can be useful to raise them in your next meeting or touch point.

Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
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