Category: Innovation

TEAMS365 #2183 - Week in Review

12/22/2019

It’s the first weekend of the holiday season for some. For others, in retail, it may be another day in lead up to a continued busy period. This week we’ve covered a variety of topics including:

Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversation Tip – Embrace the Differences. View it here. Read it here.
Tuesday’s focus on Digital Transformation. Read it here.
Wednesday’s focus on Ten Areas We Covered This Year. Read it here.
Thursday’s focus on Team Building Question – “How do you want feedback?”. Read it here.
Friday’s focus on 10 Questions to Take Stock of The Year.
Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt around what you want to put in your time capsule

Enjoy your review!
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.

Coaches - What's possible if you were take 60 days of focused action on your business? Join us starting January 1st for this experiment in 60 days of focused action at the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator. Join us. Early bird rate to December 23, 2019

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TEAMS365 #2178 - Digital Transformation

12/17/2019

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As an author and consultant, I often work with organizations and teams around the topic of digital transformation. As someone who has usually worked as an early adopter with technology, sometimes out of geographic necessity, digital transformation is an extension of the work I’ve been doing for several decades now.

You can hear more about the various pathways that bring us into remote and digital work at the new podcast I am hosting with colleague Michelle Mullins. Together we are exploring the people, pathways and processes that make up the remote workspace.

Digital transformation has been one part of this equation. From large banks, to healthcare, to education, the way we are connecting, conversing and doing our work is essential.

Many rural areas now have access to medical advisors that would not have been possible years ago. I remember vividly being part of some epiphany moments and paradigm shifters in 1998 (yes, that’s 1998) with a community deep in the interior of South America. A funding grant from the Canadian International Development Agency helped to fund solar panels, a satellite connection and special laptops to link that community with educational materials. When I arrived at the community to meet with my team who had been based there doing related work in primary health and infrastructure rehab, I was struck (as was often the case) with the very limited resources available for students. One notebook each, a small pencil and bare bookshelves. This pilot project was a bit of a game changer for that community, opening up the doorways to education for those children.

While not every project like this is a success, they radically change the paradigm of how we work, what’s available and then what’s possible.

This is also what’s happening in the era of digital transformation.

While we may not be comfortable in letting go of “how we’ve always done things” it’s important that we also look at the questions of:

What can we do now?
What’s now possible?
What new connections are there?

VUCA, digital transformation, and AI (all 3 separate things) are showing up in some workplaces at the same time. IT can be overwhelming for some and spark creativity for others.

Providing a space for people to connect and share their insights in a way where they can be heard.

As a team, over time, be sure to build in time to explore additional questions around:

What changes do we need?
What can be evolved? Repurposed?
What new things do we need to create?
What do we need to stop doing?
What conversations are important for you to have as a team? What space and time do you need to earmark so these conversations are taking place?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

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TEAMS365 #2154 – Weekly Journaling Prompt 77

11/23/2019

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This week’s weekly journaling prompt gets you to consider the question – “I am on the path to ____”.

This is a great question to do some free-flowing writing around. Questions you may want to think about as you write today include:

What’s shifted for you this year?
Where have your adventures taken you this year?
What are the new skills you are learning? What doors are they opening?
What are the new experiences you are having? How are those shaping you?

Enjoy the reflections!

As a reminder, I’ve pulled together a quarterly workbook with 12 weeks of journaling prompts you can pick up at the Potentials Realized store. It’s only $7 so a great stocking stuffer for yourself or a loved one. It’s delivered digitally to you. Check out the store here.

Enjoy your weekend!
Jennifer

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#TEAMS365 #2118 #Flashback Friday – Remote Work Landscape in 2015

10/18/2019

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This week’s Flashback Friday takes us into some of the past posts I’ve included around working remote. As someone who supported teams more than 25 years ago in pretty extreme remote environments, helping teams thrive in the remote space has been a key passion and focus for me. This week’s post takes us back to some of the stats around remote work we started seeing back in 2015. Remote work is not new, rather, it is becoming more common place for employees of all types.

I like to look at the landscape of remote work and some of my current writing is expanding on this. Let’s take a look at where we were in 2015, only 4 years ago, around the landscape of remote work. Here’s what I shared back in Teams365 post #994:

Recently I’ve done a series of posts on virtual and remote team leadership. Learning how to be an effective virtual leader is one part of the equation of moving to a more mobile and engaged workforce. Another key part is creating an enabling environment for virtual and remote work, which may include ensuring there are adequate resources, policies and expectations around virtual work.

Here’s some research around the drivers for developing a more remote workforce. Softchoice’s study the “Death of the Desk Job” found through their survey that:

62% of employees believe they are more productive working outside the office
61% of employees prefer working the equivalent of an eight hour workday broken up over a longer day, rather than in a single 9-5 block
57% of employees work on personal and/or sick days, and 44% of employees worked on their last vacation
24% or organizations have set clear policies and expectations around appropriate work activities after business hours
74% of North American employees would quit their job for one that allow them to work remotely more often
70% would quite in favour of a position that offers increased flexibility

Reference: http://www.softchoice.com/about/press/2015/177 as quoted in HRD Issue 4.3, pp 48 in the article "Is your organization ready to be flexible?"

What you do know and notice about the appetite for remote work at your organization?

(You will find the original post here)

As you think about your world of work, industry and geography – what has changed? How have things shifted in the last 4-5 years? What trends are you seeing – let us know by commenting below.

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.

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#TEAMS365 #2072 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 109

9/2/2019

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This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip gets you to think about the question “How much has your work changed in the last year?”. The pace of technological change continues to create interesting waves and push backs.

Think about these questions:

What platforms were you using this time last year? Five years ago? Ten years ago?
What was your work characterized by – last year, three years ago, five years ago? A decade ago?
How were you working a year ago? Three years ago? Five years ago?
What type of conversations were you having virtually? Team meetings, team development, educational etc.?
What about digital distractions? Digital minimalism?
What devices were you using a year ago? Three years ago? How has this changed how, when and where you do your work?

In the last year, we have had great writing released including Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism which explores the experience of those who detox digitally.
The last year has also seen a huge wave of the audio-book, the podcast and other audio devices, thanks to the present nature of Apple Car Play, Alexis, and Google Home Minis.

It’s also likely that your work may have become either more global or focused in nature, depending on the industry you are in, and the geographic location you reside in. Technology thankfully is reducing barriers.

What do you note about how your work and ways of working have changed in the last year?

What additional changes do you want to embrace?

What do you want to change?

Best,
Jennifer

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#TEAMS365 #2068 – Team Building Tip 251

8/29/2019

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This weeks’ Team Building Tip gets you to consider the question: Where could you enhance your range? As professionals, mentors, leaders, business owners and coaches, we all have the opportunity to expand our range. Whether it’s via experiences, or challenge, expanding our abilities to grown and stretch, allows us to bring more to the people we are working with.

Expanding our range may also mean “getting out of our ruts”. Whether it’s due to always doing the same thing one way OR shaking things up or doing things in reverse order, it can be useful to do things differently. This may provide a new perspective OR create new energy around projects and tasks.

Our range can also be expanded by exposure to new ideas or new possibilities.
Consider these questions:

What are the things you could do to enhance your range?
What projects need a fresh injection of something?
Where could your work benefit from a new or wider perspective?

Best,
Jennifer

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#TEAMS365 #2061 - Team Building Tip 250

8/22/2019

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This week’s Weekly Team Building Tip brings us to the question of “What could use more percolation time?”

Like coffee, creative, new and innovative ideas sometimes need more time to percolate and simmer before they are ready, or complete.

As you consider your work right now ask yourself:

What could benefit from you stepping away for a short while?
What needs more time to simmer?
What needs more time before it is ready?
What might be pre-mature in your thinking or actions right now?

Consider what is going to benefit from a little more time BEFORE it’s ready!

It might be a creative project, a final report, or even a new idea you want to float by your boss.

Enjoy the reflection and space created by a bit more percolation!
Best wishes,
Jennifer

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#TEAMS365 #2036 Weekly Round Up

7/28/2019

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This week we’ve been focusing on a couple of different themes.

From Friday’s Flashback to Assumptions New Leaders Need to Reframe, to Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversations post on "What needs to be updated in terms of your technology?" Mid-week I explored the topic of creativity and provided you with some questions to consider on an individual level, as well as a team level.

Monday: #2030 - EVC Tip “What’s getting outdated and needs an update?”
Tuesday: #2031 - Creativity in the Workplace: Six Questions to Reflect On
Wednesday: #2032 - Fostering Creativity In your Team
Thursday: #2033 - Team Building Tip - “Where would it be useful to sprint?”
Friday: #2034 - Flashback Friday - New Leader Assumptions to Reframe
Saturday: #2035 - Weekly Journaling Prompt - "I want to savour..."

Enjoy this Sunday and looking forward to kicking off the new month with you soon!

Jennifer

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#TEAMS365 #2032 - Fostering Creativity In Your Team

7/24/2019

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Following up to yesterday’s post on Creativity, today’s post gets you to consider creativity in your team context. Just as we saw in yesterday’s post, there are many things that boost creativity.

In addition to the articles I pointed to yesterday, let’s take a look at these seven elements mentioned in The Power of Idea’s article.

This article points to creativity being fostered by solitude and being supported by an environment of trying things out.

What are you doing to foster down time for team members and/or experimentation time. Companies like Google, have been pointed to for many years as being generous with the time allocated for employees to take on personal projects, as well as experimental ideas.

Questions you will want to explore as a team around this topic include:

What does creativity mean to us as individuals on the team? As a team as a whole?
What’s important about creativity in our work?
What value does creativity provide, or what does it add to our mission and vision?
If it is important, what can we do to build more creative time into our approaches?

This week as I have been writing these two posts I have found that I mentally have collapsed creativity with innovation. In fact, the posts were spurred by reading a book I had purchased thinking it was about coaching for creativity, when in fact it was about coaching for innovation.

One thing to note is that creativity and innovation are two different things. I was curious what sort of research has been done on the link between creativity and innovation and so I went to look for some research. Here’s a study/meta-analysis done exploring the link between creativity and innovation. Sarooghi, Hessamoddin et al. “Examining the relationship between creativity and innovation: A meta-analysis of organizational, cultural, and environmental factors ☆.” (2015).

Take look at it here.

Wishing you the best,
Jennifer

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#TEAMS365 #2030 - EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL CONVERSATIONS TIP #103

7/22/2019

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This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip is #103 in the series and gets you to consider the question “What’s getting outdated and needs an update?”. In the realm of technology things are regularly getting updated - from devices, to software, to systems.

In your work, and office right now, what could benefit from an update? What is looking a little frayed or worn?

Also consider what you need to archive and/or back up.

Updating items could include:

Devices
Cords
Back-ups
Presentation Materials (i.e. slide decks, workbooks)
The platform you are using
The way you archive materials
Welcome emails/typical emails sent to people

What might benefit from an update?

Enjoy the reflection and action,
Jennifer

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Teams365 Blog

TEAMS365 #2183 - Week in Review

TEAMS365 #2178 - Digital Transformation

TEAMS365 #2154 – Weekly Journaling Prompt 77

#TEAMS365 #2118 #Flashback Friday – Remote Work Landscape in 2015

#TEAMS365 #2072 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 109

#TEAMS365 #2068 – Team Building Tip 251

#TEAMS365 #2061 - Team Building Tip 250

#TEAMS365 #2036 Weekly Round Up

#TEAMS365 #2032 - Fostering Creativity In Your Team

#TEAMS365 #2030 - EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL CONVERSATIONS TIP #103

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Teams365 Blog

Author

PicK up a copy of PlanDoTrack - For Virtual and Remote Professionals

Become a PlanDoTrack Facilitator:​STarts DEcember 3 2019:

Avoid the "Death by Conference CAll" - EVC Book:

Upcoming Programs

Archives

Categories

Become a PlanDoTrack Facilitator:
STarts DEcember 3 2019: