What team practices are supporting relationships?
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From the realm of high performance we know that teams which excel have strong relationships. Part of this is making sure we have strong team practices – that could include Monday morning meetings, a mini-team event each month, a Thursday night social or a quarterly team development activity.

Consider your team right now and think about what is needed on the part of the team. What will help the team connect, have fun and get to know each other? Having fun as a team is important as it can help people relax and bring themselves more naturally into their work. If they are not able to bring their natural self to the workplace, disconnect may happen between how they work at home and how they work at work.

Here are seven different ways teams may be connecting with each other:

1. Daily huddles or quick status meetings (10-15 minutes) to keep projects on task.
2. Monday morning meetings – a meeting at the start of the week can support focus and alignment for the team, assisting with priorities and information sharing. Monday meetings may also flag issues that need to be addressed but haven’t been noted before.
3. Monthly project assessments – some teams may do a short monthly team meeting, highlighting key projects which need attention and/or doing a review. Some of the more common project questions are included under the next category of team debrief.
4. Team debriefs post major project (or mid-term). These may get the team to identify lessons learned, what’s working, what’s not and suggestions for the future.
5. A weekly or monthly social event around town. PingPong and darts are favorite options. Escape rooms and/or axe throwing are for teams who are more edgy (note: these options may not be applicable or appropriate for every team and their culture!).
6. Quarterly Booster Shots – Dedicating half a day or a full day to team development and/or learning. It could be undertaking an assessment together such as the Everything DiSC, or StrengthsFinder.
7. Key to making these valuable team practices, teams will want to consider the purpose and efficiency of each approach. Just because you do it, doesn’t mean it’s going well.
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What is the team finding valuable? What needs a change?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

This weekend, we are going to take a look back at some of the Teams365 Teamwork Videos already created, just in case you missed them. Take a look at these past videos:
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Teams365 #885: Accountability and the Team: 1 minute 41 seconds – View it here.
Teams365 #553: Project Check Points - Check it out here.
Teams365 #391: Delegation - Watch it here.
Teams365 #1611: Teamwork and Complexity/ Focus and Renewal - Check it out here.
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A reminder for you to feel free to link to any of these videos or show them as part of your upcoming team sessions.

If there are videos you would like to see created from past Teams365 posts, please let me know.
 
Best wishes,
Jennifer

It’s hard to believe that another month has gone by. Here we are at the end of September and it’s time to do our monthly stock taking and reflection.
If you do track your monthly goals and metrics, today is the day to do this!
Take note of these questions:

• As you reflect on September, what have been your successes and accomplishments?
• As you reflect on the last quarter, what have been your successes and accomplishments?
• What are you most proud of?
• What successes this month do you want to duplicate?
• What top 3 learning have you head that you want to carry forward?
• What key relationships have helped you so far this year? Which ones need more attention?
• What has helped your successes?
• What has hindered or gotten in the way?
• What does your team need to be acknowledged for?
  
  As you look to October, consider these questions:
• What are your key priorities for October?
• What are the key goals?
• What are the major priorities?
• What will you need to place attention on?
• What changes do you want to make in October or this quarter?
• What habits do you want to leverage?
• When will you check in to explore your progress, and make changes?
• What resources do you want to tap into?
• Who can help you be successful this month?

This month also is the start to a new quarter. Grab a few more minutes to think about, and NOTE (yes – write it down).

1. What are your top 5 priorities for this quarter?
2. What will “wild success” look like at the end of the quarter in each of these priority areas?
3. What, and who, do you need to complete these priority areas?
4. What do you need to say NO to, in order to focus on the priorities?
5. What else is important to note about this quarter?

If you have a copy of the Coaching Biz Builder Workbook and Planner it’s time to complete a new quarterly planning section. Join me for a quarterly planning hack!

Enjoy your reflection!

Coming up – October and a focus on Teamwork Skills.

Best,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) 
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

​As we move into fall, it can be very useful for teams to continue to put attention around getting things done WHILE Connecting. A favorite activity I continue to facilitate is GET IT DONE afternoons, which really become Virtual Co-Working Sessions. They are a derivative of the virtual retreats I have been offering for teams, business owners and leaders since 2007. 
Virtual co-working sessions may range from one-hour sprints, to four-hour blocks to full day sessions.
Three considerations to making a virtual co-working session work include the following:

1. A platform where you can all meet, see each other and converse for periods of time.

Streaming is often best, however, others may appreciate the ability to take their work on the road and call in at time.

1. Focus – collectively and individually. Consider these questions
2. What’s bringing you together today?
3. What’s the focus – is it to do something collectively or individually?
4. What outcomes do you want?
5. How do you want to break it down – meeting every hour for check ins? Meeting more frequently?
6. Scheduled Checkpoints - A way to share and keep the momentum going throughout the day. I have found that virtual group and team sessions have been the seeds for some amazing new ideas and cross-pollination. Be sure to build in blocks where people are not only checking in around what they are doing, but also consider the value of building in some time for sharing of learning or insights.

Looking for inspiration on what you might do in a virtual co-working session? Consider these ideas – they are all real programs I have facilitated over the years:

• One-hour virtual sprints for planning on the team or individual level
• 30-minute brainstorming/innovation sessions geared to create new product and or service ideas
• Four-hour Get it Done sessions where groups of solopreneurs connect virtually to take focused action once a month on things on their list. Check ins are once an hour.
• Four to eight-hour Virtual Retreats, where each hour has a dedicated focus and theme to explore and/take action on. For example, an hour dedicated to creating a business plan, an hour to marketing approaches, an hour for project work).

Looking for a facilitator to host your next virtual co-working session? Contact me to learn more about this service I offer. 

Best wishes,
Jennifer

This week’s weekly journaling prompt gets you to consider the question “What’s your secret sauce?”. What’s the one thing that sets your apart – as a leader? A team?

If you are just joining us for these weekly journaling prompts, check out the others here.

My intention in sharing these weekly journaling prompts is to provide you with a space to pause and reflect on what’s going on.

In my decade plus of work as a global professional as a leader with the United Nations and other international aid organizations I kept a journal religiously. While they are tucked away in a safe place, I look forward to going back and re-reading these as a later date. They not only will serve as an important memoir for me, but at the time, writing was a wonderful way to capture what was going on, connect the dots of my work and life, make sense of the experiences I was having (commonly referred to as “sense-making today”, clarify priorities and also have an outlet.

If journaling is not something you have considered before, here are two articles which point to why journaling can be important:

Nancy J. Adler’s Harvard Business Review Article – Want to Be an Outstanding Leader: Keep a Journal.
LifeHack’s article “Journal Writing: Five Smart Reasons Why You Should Start Doing it Today”.

Have a great weekend!
Jennifer

​It’s back to work for many teams and some team leaders may be curious about what to do to move their team forward. In the next few series of posts, I’ll be covering 10 different ideas you might want to incorporate with your team.
As I have written in past posts, teams which excel usually have made sure they are aligned around the following six elements:

• Shared vision
• Shared Goals
• Clear Roles
• Clear performance measures
• Shared Team Practices
• Shared commitment

 
While at an initial glance, many of the activities I’ll be sharing this month appear to fit under the shared team practices umbrella, many also move the needle on the other six elements. Given that teams which excel are good at both results as well as relationships, consider how you can provide a focus on both in your work.

Covering the 10 ideas is going to take a few posts, so let’s get started!

Idea #1 for Back to Work focus with Team – Schedule time in everyone’s calendars for regular, and effective team meetings. As I write in Effective Virtual Conversations, asking 8 questions before every team meeting can help to make them more effective:

1. What’s the purpose?
2. What takeaways do we want?
3. Who needs to be on the call (in the room)?
4. What preparation is needed for us to be most effective?
5. What pace do we want to keep it engaging?
6. What will help keep the focus?
7. What is absolutely essential for us to cover
8. What follow-up might be required?

(Effective Virtual Conversations, Copyright Britton, 2017)
 
Idea #2 – Map out the major team goals and activities in the next 1-2 quarters (or longer). Provide everyone with a  visual mapping of:

• Key activities
• Key priorities
• How activities connect with one another
• Who is responsible for what

While there are many ways to do this, the more visual the better! Taking time to share this across the team also supports the team in keeping focused and aligned.
 
Idea #3 – Revisit, or visit, your vision as a team. Fill in the blanks,
It’s December 31, 2019 and we are looking back to take stock of the past 16 months. ____
Consider filling in the blanks around questions like:
Our major accomplishments have been _____________.
We are most proud of_______________.

Enjoy the conversation!
Have a great Wednesday,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) 
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

It’s likely that this month your team is coming back together after months where not everyone may not have been around. September is an important time to get back to routines and habits, as well as creating new ones that may work better. Consider what you are doing (as a team, and as a professional) around these key areas:
Meetings – with meetings taking upwards of 40% of professionals times, what are the ESSENTIAL meetings to schedule this month? What can be deferred? Which ones do you need to negotiate your presence at? Where do you need to be, where you are not already? What’s going to make your meetings more effective?
Coaching Conversations – “Coaching is a conversation with intent” is what I wrote back in 2013 in my book “From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching”. What are the focused conversations you want to have an on a REGULAR basis this fall? What needs, and warrants, attention? What type of conversations are going to support different team members?
Email and Communication – What’s working with communication right now? What’s not? What can be streamlined (think email)? What are people’s preferences?
FOCUS – What are the interruptions that are pulling you off course? As you think about the last few months, what’s helped with your focus? What’s hindered? In today’s workspace focus is at a premium. What are the pockets where you can create more focus to get the important things done?
Renewal – The field of high performance sport shows that renewal is just as important as running. What are you doing to build in times for FOCUS and Renewal?
 
Best
Jennifer

As some readers may know, earlier this month I released a workbook and planner called the Coaching Business Builder: Workbook and Planner. Part planner, part self-guided reflection journey, it’s geared to support coaches in exploring their own unique ecosystem, potentials and plans for their business. Plans are in the works for additional editions down the road for remote professionals and leaders.

In the workbook section, I touch on a variety of productivity tools, or hacks, to consider. These are things that I have seen transform the work of business owners and leaders I have both coached, and worked with over the years. As we gear up for back to work next week, I thought it would be useful to share with you four productivity hacks and frameworks I think might be useful for you. These include:
 
1. Schedule in time for your regular planning. Whether it’s daytime or night, the act of scheduling time to identify, note and focus on your own tasks which are upcoming can save a lot of time. An old project management adage has said that for every 10 minutes of planning you save 60 minutes  of unfocused effort.  Think about how having a list every day can help you navigate the changing waters of tasks and priorities, as they shift.When do you want to schedule in planning? Daily planning? Medium term planning? Long term planning?

2. Consider what time of day works well. One of the key learnings which still stands out for me almost 30 years after being an undergrad science student at McGill University, is the importance of our circadian rhythms. Research continues to show how we each have a different internal clock, helping, and hindering us to get things done at different times of the day. This concept has been revisited and revived recently with books such as Daniel Pink’s When, where he explores the concepts of larks and owls.
When are you are your peak (morning/night/another time)? What can you do to tweak your schedule to leverage those windows?

3. Build  in pockets to get things done without interruptions. Interruptions are everywhere in today’s working world – from the bings of emails, to phone calls, to people dropping in. Research by Gloria Marks and her team have discovered how every interruption has an extended impact. She has found that after an interruption it can take upwards of 25 minutes to get back on task. 23 minutes and 15 minutes to be exact.  Look at her research here. What can you be doing to build in pocket to get things done? Minimize interruptions?
Check out this article from Inc entitled “Six Tips to Maximize Productivity on Remote Working Days” from Inc here.

4. Finally, consider what the priorities are – yours, your bosses and/or your teams. Schedule in time for this in your calendar and get it done! Covey’s Urgent/Important Matrix constitutes to be a valuable framework to help us all take into account what is truly important and urgent. Check out a past blog post I have done on this here. What would you like to focus on this fall? Which one area would make the biggest impact on your work?

Enjoy,
Jennifer

PS – Looking for some time to plan? Consider joining me this Friday for the month end reflection and new month planning session I am going to host as one of my monthly Virtual Hacks. This is a 60 minute virtual planning session I host on zoom, using many of the templates I have created for the Coaching Business Builder. If you don’t have a copy of the book, pick up one. I also provide group members with digital copies of the relevant tools from the book. This one-hour session, and materials, costs $39 US
Click here to register and reserve your spot.

One of the areas I commonly hear about from leaders and other professionals is the impact of interruptions and other distractions in their work flow. As research has shown, it can take upwards of twenty or more minutes to refocus when you have been interrupted. What boundaries do you want to create in your work this fall?
As you consider what boundaries are appropriate, consider these questions:

• What’s important in your work right now?
• What’s important with your team’s work right now? Your bosses?
• With this in mind, what are the boundaries need to help you focus and run at full capacity?
• What do you need to defer – shift to a later date?
• What do you need to delegate?
• What items/tasks/projects do you need to say NO to?
• What negotiation might this entail?
• What habits will help you stay focused?
• What else?

Here are some great articles which give you more tips for setting boundaries at work, and why that’s important:

The Inc article by Dana Dionta and Dan Guerra,  “How Successful People Set Boundaries at Work” - https://www.inc.com/dana-gionta-dan-guerra/how-to-manage-boundaries-at-work.html
 
Check out Erin Bucklann’s article over at DailyWorth, “How to Set Work-Life Boundaries at Your New Job” - https://www.dailyworth.com/posts/2251-how-to-set-work-life-boundaries-at-your-new-job

Best wishes,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) 
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326