This week I am reaching back to one of the original Teams365 blog posts.
 
Here’s what I wrote, which might be an interesting conversation starter as you go through your year-end discussions. Expectations are often at the heart of a high performing team. 

Our final team building tip of the year gets you to think about the expectations which need to be clarified for the team. One of the biggest hindrances to exceptional team performance is lack of clarity around expectations.

Earmarking a focus around clarifying expectations in the new year can pay off in dividends.

Areas you may want to ensure you have clear, and shared, expectations around are:
- What does success look like? For us individually? Collectively as a team?
- What are our start and end times?
- What does quality mean?
- What does being an exceptional team mean?
- What are we committed to creating? What do we need to do in order to get there?
- What do you expect of me as leader this year? What do I expect from you this year?

What other expectations are important for your team to discuss as you get back to work in January?

Enjoy the conversation,
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 year teams of all kinds have been finding micro-windows for conversation. The business context is not slowing down, change is ever present, and teams are needing to manage uncertainty. When we have a context like this, it can be really important to zoom into connecting with our bigger picture, and also focus on prioritization and systems.

As a team, it may be useful to invest time focusing on revisiting or discussing:

#1 - Our Ways of Working/Team Agreements: What are the norms and ways we work together? What’s acceptable? What’s not?

A reminder that much of the recent research, including Google’s project Aristotle, has validated what many of us as team practitioners have been doing for years – helping teams articulate HOW they want to operate. What’s acceptable and what’s not on a team?

#2 – Our Vision: Vision helps us move through the ups and downs of business. When things are changing at the micro-level, our vision may become more static, and can act as a guidepost. What are you doing to revisit your vision? How aligned is everyone around the vision? Does everyone see how they fit into the vision and how they contribute? Note that the time window around vision may be shorter than it was – rather than focusing on a 10-year window it may be 36-month vision.

spending a few minutes as a team at year end to reconnect around what your vision is for the upcoming year can be a valuable exercise.

I wrote more extended posts around working with vision back in 2015, and here are some of the questions I included at that time for discussion as a team in Teams365 #366. Here are some of those questions I included at the time:

Before you get back to work for the year, spend a few minutes reflecting on these key questions for your 2015 goals:

• What are your key goals for the next year - personally? As a team?
  
• On a scale of 1-10, how easy are these goals? Which ones are going to be the most stretch?
• What will keep these goals at the forefront for you this year?
• How do you want to track them? What are key milestones along the way?
• What do you need in order to achieve them (people, resources, finances etc)?
• What are you committed to achieving this next year, no matter what?
  
• How do your individual, team and organizational goals align?
• Who will you be accountable to?

• How will you celebrate them along the way?

Take time to write these down in  a place you can refer back to. When you get back to work, share and discuss these with your team members, those you collaborate with, and other stakeholders.

#3 - Systems and Processes become important given that we may need to shift our role even more. When we leave a role often our knowledge leaves with us. Savvy leaders know the importance systems and process play in helping to build on the learning that people bring. Even if they are moved to a new project, good systems and processes will help capture the learning.

#4 – Relationships. As I write in my latest work around Remote Pathways, “no person is an island”. Relationships play a critical role for team members, especially in the remote space. Remote does not equal disconnected. What are you doing to bring people together regularly to build trust and connection?  With low levels of trust, it’s likely that people will not be willing to bring their best self to work. With low levels of trust, it’s unlikely that the big issues will be surfaced. When people do not feel connected, it’s also unlikely that the real issues get surfaced. We want to make sure we help team members, especially remote team members, see their connections with each other.

For more on trust, check out this earlier Teams365 blog post and related cartoon around 9 different ways to build trust or Teams365 1512 for Building TRust in a virtual team.

Check out this blog post on creating connection and building community across the team.

Enjoy your conversation!
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.

Some teams will start winding down in the next while. Before it gets to be the last minute, it can be useful to schedule some time to do a formal team wrap-up. Here are several questions you may want to ask/discuss. They were originally shared in my earlier Teams365 blog post.

Here are six questions to be asking yourself and your team to finish off on a "high note":

1. What projects need to be completed prior to the end of the year? What will it take to wrap these up?
2. What, if anything, needs to wound down before the end of the year - processes, accounts, reports?
3. If we need more people power on a project before the end of the year, what do we let go of?
4. Before we disband for the holidays, what lessons learned and recommendations for next time do we need to capture?
5. What new habits do we need to develop as we get back to work in January?
6. What do we want to celebrate?

What else do you want to make sure you have dialogue about before the team starts to disband for the year?
​
Enjoy the conversation,
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.

As we step into the “last mile” of 2019 (i.e. the last six weeks, give or take a few, especially if your business shuts down for the holidays), one of the key activities you will want to make sure you build in time for is a set of year-end one-on-ones with staff. While many organizations have moved to an ongoing feedback and performance management culture, it can be important to ensure that final one-on-ones don’t get forgotten in the rush of year-end.

Some of the elements you may want to include in your final one-on-ones are:

• A look back at the key highlights for the individual this year.
• Reflections and sharing on key performance witnessed – things that they did very well, times when you saw their strengths in action.
• What were their major accomplishments? What skills and experiences were learned/acquired? How can this support them going forward?
• Discussion around areas for growth and improvement in the new year.
• Looking ahead to the new year, what are the key priorities based on organizational and department goals?
• What are their key learning goals? Where do they want to grow? What changes do they want to make?
• Support needs for the new year.
• Learning needs for the new year.  Identification of any areas they would like to acquire more skills within in their work.
• Goals they have for themselves and their career.

What other items might you include in your year-end one-on-ones? Every team and organization is different. While not all of these categories may reflect the type of performance conversations you typically have, it can be useful to invite your team to consider the bigger context of their work (i.e. how has this year helped them with future career aspirations).

While it’s top of mind, I hope that you will take a few minutes to make note of the questions you want to include in everyone’s discussion.

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success focusing on the Virtual and Remote Space
Author of 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. ​
Coming soon - the Remote Pathways™ Podcast

Working with strengths is another powerful antidote for teams operating in today’s VUCA context. Helping people bring their strengths to work everyday boosts engagement and can be a powerful motivational factor which we know is a key component for virtual teams today.

In this week’s Flashback Friday I wanted to link back to Teams365 #1240. 

Here’s what I wrote about different ways to support a focus on strengths with your team:

Gallup has studied the realm of strengths for many years now and research shows that helping employees and team members leverage their strengths every day leads to significant gains. The Gallup Strengths Center mentions these as some of the benefits of strengths-based management practices in December 2016. 90% of organizations which incorporated strengths-based management practices found:

• 10% to 19% increase in sales
• 14% to 29% increase in profit
• 3% to 7% higher customer engagement
• 6% to 16% lower turnover (in low-turnover organizations)
• 26% to 72% lower turnover (in high-turnover organizations)
• 9% to 15% increase in engaged employees
• 22% to 59% fewer safety incidents

​Read Gallup's article here.

​So what are some practical and tactical ways team leaders can support their team members in bringing their strengths to work every day?

​#1 - Help you team understand what their strengths are - Knowing our strengths is not an intuitive process for many of us. Helping team members understand what their strengths are is an important part of the process. There are several ways to explore strengths including the VIA Character Strengths Survey, and StrengthsFinder. Helping team members consider the question "When are you at your best?" also helps team members become more aware of their strengths.

​#2 - Get team members sharing more about their strengths - What they are and how they use them every day at work. This can be a great team meeting conversation touch point. Whether you make it part of a regular team meeting, or a special event, conversations like these lay the foundation for effective team building.

​#3 - Pair people with different strengths - Teams which excel usually have complimentary strengths. Pair people on the team together who may have complimentary strengths.

​#4 - Pair people who have similar strengths - You may also want to pair people who have similar strengths so they can compare notes and get inspired from each other about how they leverage their strengths.

#5 - Find ways to utilize your strengths more regularly. When we are able to use our strengths more readily engagement goes up as does our satisfaction levels. If using your strengths is not part of your everyday work, have some dialogue with your boss about how you could take on special projects which would leverage your strengths, and/or explore other development opportunities. I can think back to how my participation in many special projects and committees allow myself to bring my best to work, while further building my own skill set and opening up new opportunities where over my career progression I could use my strengths more on a regular basis.

​What other ways do you see as possible for people on the team to leverage more of their strengths?
 
For those interested in learning more about this topic, do check out an excellent article by Courtney Ackerman. 

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. ​

Yesterday we explored some of the key ingredients for helping teams thrive in the remote space. Given that many team members in the remote space are likely to be part of several matrix teams, it’s good practice to have them identify what is important to them.

Some of the additional ingredients teams require in working remote are:

• Understanding around how their roles work together
• Clarity around what they need to do
• Resourcing required
• Knowledge of, and connection with, the people who can support them in getting things done
• Knowledge of who is who on the team, who they can go to for what, and how their work interfaces or connects in with others
• Focused time to work on getting to know their team members, and build trust (check out the past Teams365 posts on building Trust)
• Authority to complete the work that they have been tasked with
• Feedback around what is working, and what is not with their actions

What are the things which you see as being important to ensure for your team members?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

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. ​

Each Thursday I provide a question for you as a team to explore and have a short conversation around. Typically, these are questions which may provoke new discussions you are not having or prompt a sharing of information that is not naturally available.

This week’s team building question might fall into the category of “provocative” for some teams.

The question is “What is not being spoken about?”.

We know from research that teams which excel are teams which are able to surface difficult issues for exploration, without fear of retribution. This is not easy and requires high levels of TRUST and connection with other group members.

When we don’t surface issues, or address issues which need to be raised, it’s likely that they will grow in magnitude and possibly FESTER, creating more toxicity for the team. Rather than being an issue which could be addressed quickly it may become an issue that gets charged with emotional and resentment.

When we are surrounded by an elephant in the room it can be refreshing to finally name it, even if we can’t address it right away.

As a team this week, how might it be useful to surface the issues which are not being spoken about? What do you want to do to capture these and address them in the medium- to long-term? When we open what might be perceived as a Pandora’s Box it can be useful to have shared clarity around what will happen with these issues. Are you looking to spark conversation and problem solving or provide a “release valve” on issues which need to be surfaced but may not change? Consider how you want to set this question up as a team.

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.
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 Flashback Friday post takes us back to a post from 2017 on Remote Team Mistakes. Our focus these last few months has been on remote team mistakes. Here’s what I wrote in Teams365 #1163: 
​
This month's focus here at the Teams365 blog has been on virtual and remote teamwork and leadership. Check out our March 2017 posts if you haven't been along on the journey so far.

Today's post covers a range of virtual team faux-pas or mistakes. Things that when overlooked, can lead to missed opportunities, and sometimes a reduction of trust and connection. Consider how you might as a team be able to avoid these and what solutions make most sense for you:

* Not trying to meet regularly - Regular meetings are important in the virtual domain AND an important corollary is that meetings should meet the needs of the group in terms of efficiency. What can be shared before or after the meeting rather than during the meeting. "Out of sight does not always equal out of mind."
* Not thinking that different team members need support - Being on a virtual team can be isolating. While many of us love the autonomy this provides, it does not mean that we don't need support. Be clear with support needs across the team. Regular 1-1s can be important in the virtual/remote world.
* Not considering what type of support different team members need - Given that teams are diverse and complimentary, it is likely that team members will need different types of support. Spend time this week inquiring what type of support is most useful if you don't know.
* Duplication of effort - Watch for how much duplication of effort occurs. This can be a signal that some changes are required around roles and responsibilities, priorities and/or communication.
* Priorities that become competitive - Having a line of sight across the team and priorities can be important in avoiding or minimizing this mistake
* Not having consistent measurement across the team  - What does success look like from each team member's perspective around their current priorities and initiatives. Be careful to note what consistent measurement means and looks like.

What other faux-pas are you aware of or want to take note of for your team?

Enjoy your weekend,
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. ​

Many of the skills we employ in the in-person world become augmented when we work remote. For example, let’s explore communication. Communication is always critical in any workplace context. As we shift to remote work, it become even more nuanced, with considerations around:

• What is the best way to communicate an issue which needs to be addressed by my colleague 12 hours ahead in terms of time, but who I will not cross paths with?
• What are my colleagues’ preferences in terms of communication? Consider:
  • Do they like a lot of detail? Context? Just the briefest of information?
  • What is the channel of preference – Phone? Email? IM? Other?
  • If we are using different platforms, like Slack, how can I share more detail, context and background in the message I am addressing?
  • What considerations and adaptations should I make given that English is not all our first working language?

Given the volume of information coming at people it also can be important to reinforce key messages through multiple communication touch-points. Just saying an important message once is not enough. Consider reinforcing messaged in different ways – i.e. via email, talked about in the team meeting, shared via video message etc.

Finally, check for understanding. In one-on-ones, via email and/or chat, what do people understand? What have they heard from the messaging? Have them rephrase or feed back to you what their understanding.

Communication is a cornerstone of high performance. Clear communication across distance, time and culture can be even more complex.

What are you doing to ensure that your communication is the best suited for the context and message? What are you doing to ensure that it's understood as it is intended?

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. ​