Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

teams 365 #3366: 25 Ways to Create More Innovation in Your Team

3/23/2023

Innovation is the lifeblood of any organization that wishes to remain competitive and successful in a rapidly changing business environment. A team that fosters innovation is one that will stay ahead of the curve and outpace its competitors. Here are 25 ways to create more innovation in your team:

Encourage brainstorming sessions to come up with new ideas.
Establish a culture of experimentation and taking risks.
Provide training and development opportunities to team members.
Create a diverse team with varied backgrounds and skill sets.
Encourage cross-functional collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Use technology to facilitate communication and collaboration.
Provide the necessary resources for team members to pursue their ideas.
Set clear goals and expectations for innovation.
Celebrate successes and failures as learning opportunities.
Foster a culture of continuous improvement.
Create an environment that encourages curiosity and questioning the status quo.
Encourage team members to take ownership of their ideas and projects.
Establish an open-door policy for communication and feedback.
Provide incentives and recognition for innovation.
Create a supportive and inclusive work environment.
Encourage team members to attend industry events and conferences.
Provide opportunities for team members to learn from thought leaders and industry experts.
Establish a mentorship program for team members.
Encourage team members to read and stay informed about industry trends and innovations.
Provide opportunities for team members to attend workshops and training sessions.
Promote a healthy work-life balance to avoid burnout and encourage creativity.
Create a process for evaluating and prioritizing ideas.
Allow team members to fail without fear of retribution.
Encourage team members to seek out feedback and constructive criticism.
Finally, provide a clear vision and direction for the team to follow.

Innovation is not something that happens by chance. It requires effort, dedication, and a culture that supports and encourages new ideas. By implementing these 25 ways to create more innovation in your team, you can build a team that is creative, forward-thinking, and poised for success in today's competitive business environment.

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized |Reconnecting Workspaces | Group Coaching Essentials
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Follow us on Instagram @ReconnectingWorkspaces
Phone: (416)996-8326

Check out my TEDx talk

Looking to bring your workplaces back together, whether you are remote, hybrid, or face-to-face? Pick up a copy of my new book, Reconnecting Workspaces, at Amazon.

TEAMS365 #2627 - 10 Quotes on Team Innovation

3/10/2021

Innovation has become a requirement not a necessity for teams, organizations and professionals.

Dr. Ken Hudson defines innovation as: “Innovation is the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage”. https://drkenhudson.com/best-way-define-innovation/

What are the elements which are important for you in terms of innovation? Are you involved in innovating a product? A process? A service?

To get your juices flowing here are 10 quotes on innovation:

“Innovation is taking two things that exist and putting them together in a new way.“ - Tom Freston

“The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.” – Arthur C. Clarke

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” – Peter F. Drucker

“Dreamers are mocked as impractical. The truth is they are the most practical, as their innovations lead to progress and a better way of life for all of us.”
― Robin Sharma

“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”
― Roger Von Oech

“The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.”
― Aldous Huxley

“Being right keeps you in place. Being wrong forces you to explore.”
― Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation

“Some fish love to swim upstream. Some people love to overcome challenges.”
― Amit Ray, Walking the Path of Compassion

“Innovation is an evolutionary process, so it's not necessary to be radical all the time.”
― Marc Jacobs

“Do not get obsolete like an old technology, keep innovating yourself.”
― Sukant Ratnakar, Open the Windows

What steps do you want to take around innovation?
Enjoy!

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

TEAMS365 #2544 – Team Building Tip #274 – Calibrate

12/17/2020

This Thursday’s Team Building Tip is CALIBRATE. What do you want to focus on adjusting?

Calibrate is defined by the Oxford Languages as “adjust (experimental results) to take external factors into account or to allow comparison with other data.”
This week, as many teams go to wind down their work for a few weeks, consider as a team, what do you want to CALIBRATE?

What are the things you want to ADJUST to take external factors into account?

What are the areas you want to compare with other data?

What’s important as a team to have dialogue around right now?

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

TEAMS365 #2542 – Power Up – Stand Out Virtually – In Review

12/15/2020

Last week I hosted the Power Up Stand Out Virtually Five-Day Challenge. As with any of the challenges I’ve run this year, it as full of learning, connection and ideas. I love the inspiration of bringing different people together for a series of calls.

During the five days we explored:

The Power of Vision and Purpose
The Power of Engagement
The Power of Planning and Systems
Powering Up our Marketing and Branding
The Power of Teams and Community

Each one of these is an important lever as we move into a new year. What are you doing to build in time in your work for each one?

We’ll be touching on many of these topics later this week on Friday December 18th between 10-2 pm ET at the Virtual Open House I am hosting to showcase some of the work those in my community are engaging with. I hope that you will join us for the entire 4 hours or part of it.

If you missed last week’s Power Up Stand Out Virtually Five-Day Challenge, you can now participate in on-demand, moving through each of the five days at your own pace. It’s available to you at $47 US and includes the five days of videos, worksheets and even a few planning tools for you to take forward from PlanDoTrack. You can get it here

It’s likely that the entire skillset of virtual will continue to be a key focus for 2021, whether the world of work will include more virtual or hybrid work. I look forward to continuing to serve you in the new year!

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

TEAMS365 #2403 – Stand Out Remotely

7/29/2020

One of the many challenges faced at the moment is standing out remotely. With back-to-back virtual meetings becoming the norm, one call can blend into another. Note, if you haven’t read yesterday’s Back to The Basics call on the Energy of the Call, check it out.

At the same time, many professionals are concerned that they are not as visible in the virtual space as they are in a face to face environment. This translates to concern around their visibility for career progression, taking on special projects etc.

Several things you will want to consider:

#1 – What does “standing out remotely” mean for you ? What’s important about this? Do you want to stand out more so that your message is remembered – which may mean more about presentation techniques? OR is it standing out as a professional? And perhaps someone who is known for great virtual calls which whiz by and are remembered. What’s your WHY around this?

#2 – Our personal brand can get translated through the screen through our slides, images, our background and also what we are wearing. What are the brand elements you want to keep in mind?

#3 – Be proactive. This might mean getting into the rhythm of connecting regularly with others. It might mean getting a mentor. It might mean focusing in on getting active in a professional association. What do you want to be known for?

Standing out remotely means many different things. I’ll be focusing more on the topic in August as it relates to leading more engaging and memorable virtual calls. Are you ready to Stand Out? Check out my 5 Day Challenge – Standing Out Virtually at (insert)

Have a great week and hope you will join us next week.

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

TEAMS365 #2401 – Effective Virtual Conversations 160: Messy Middle

7/27/2020

This week’s focus is the Messy Middle. Just as the latency and recency effect indicate, we remember the start and end of things. The phase in the middle is often very unclear and forgotten. This has implications on a number of levels as virtual facilitators including:

Needing to be very specific in the mid-point about reinforcement
It may involve going out of your way to make the mid-point memorable. That could entail:
- Making it novel or different – what’s going to signal something different
- Making it interactive – could you incorporate breakouts, or a poll or some annotation?
- Perhaps giving people a pause to note things down

What are the things you want to do to help people FOCUS and RETAIN the mid-point?

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

TEAMS365 #2398 – FlashbackFriday: Digital Transformation

7/24/2020

I have been doing a lot of speaking this year around virtual conversations and digital transformation. Whether I have been speaking about creating MEMORABLE virtual conversations, or HOW to digitize parts of your business, your learning or teamwork, 2020 is apt to go down as the year where the pivot to digital transformation got accelerated. Here’s what I wrote only a short 7 months ago in December 2019 on Digital Transformation in Teams365 #2178.

Take a read and think about what is important for you to note:

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?

Interested in having a conversation about this? Need a facilitator or speaker to come in and discuss? Please reach out to me by email at info@potentialsrealized.com and let’s set up a time to talk.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

TEAMS365 #2396 – Back to the Basics: Virtualize and Digitize

7/22/2020

This week’s back to the basics post takes us to an area you might not have considered “foundational” a few months ago, but may now. 2020 has been the year of this in a tremendous tsunami of professionals, businesses and organizations moving to the virtual and digital space. It’s been amazing to see different people and organizations pivot, joining us in innovation.

As many readers may know I’ve spent the bulk of my career since the early 1990s leading virtual teams and businesses. When I opened the doors of Potentials Realized (metaphorically, of course, as I’ve never had a brick and mortar location), I’ve always been fascinated to think about how I could adjust and evolve in-person events to the virtual space.

My driving force was not just a fatigue with travel, having spent most of the 1990s and early 2000s either flying around the world, or having the privilege for many years of adventure travel as part of my everyday body of work, but it also was in response to some vision loss I encountered in 2003 from an eye infection which quickly got out of control. While my vision was impacted, it’s been an ongoing driving force for my creativity and advocacy that virtual events can be just as interactive and impactful IF we incorporate great design. I’d invite you to take a look at the many, many posts here at the Teams365 blog which link into virtual conversations, or pick up a copy of two of my more recent books – The PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner for Virtual and Remote Professionals OR Effective Virtual Conversations.

Today we have the opportunity to continue to virtualize and digitize a lot of our work. Here are some of my favorite types of virtual events:

Core Elements when we think about virtualization include some of the many ideas I shared in my post yesterday – Stand Out Virtually. From clarity, to visuals, to leaving a pause, these are core elements.

Another foundational element of standing out and creating value is making sure that you engage. Engagement means involvement. It doesn’t mean just talking at people. Be sure to leave space for people to interact with others, or even interact with their own thoughts. If it’s a big call, what can people do to take a pause and note things down for themselves? Or share with another person in a breakout?

Some of the favorite virtual events I like to run are virtual business planning retreats, annual groups like the Learning Lab and Design Studio I host throughout the year and also Get it Done afternoons where we get our work done!

In times of physical distancing many are yearning for connection and collaboration. What can you do to create more connection in your next digital offering? In your next virtual conversation?

Please share with us what’s important for you to note!

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

TEAMS365 #2378 – Weekly Journaling Prompt 107

7/4/2020

This week’s Saturday Journaling Prompt is “the road less traveled”. Consider what is important for you right now. What are the pathways you are taking? How are they traveled? Are they less traveled?

Consider what are the ways your journey is going? What have been some of the highlights of the year? What have you been surprized by? What have you been WOWed by?

Consider the road less traveled.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Check out our Digital Resources to support you in your work and conversations

TEAMS365 #2370 – FlashbackFriday – Teamwork Skills In Complexity – Experimentation

6/26/2020

Many of you know that I cohost the Remote Pathways podcast. It was inspired by a writing project I started last year about the Digital Dozen™, twelve different types of remote workers. This writing has been shaped by my own adventures in the remote space over the last three decades.

One of the most important areas I ‘ve seen for teams that thrive in complex and uncertain times is adopting an experimental mindset. This is a topic I wrote about a few years ago in Teams365 #1597 which I thought would be good to return to in today’s Flashback Friday. In fact, at the Remote Pathways Community, we’ve had Experimentation as our Quarterly Theme for 2020. What have you done this quarter to incorporate more experimentation?

Here’s what I wrote in Teams365 #1597:

This month we are exploring the skills required in teamwork, including listening and curiosity. Today I wanted to take a dive into a third skill area, that being the area of experimentation.

Experimentation is key for business leaders and teams today. Many times, the context is changing so quickly that we don’t have time to complete an entire roll-out before having to make a final decision. That can lead to a mindset of experimentation, where it is encouraged to try things out, see what works and what doesn’t.

In supporting experimentation in our team we want to:

Encourage and reward trial and error
Create safety around not getting “things right”
Provide team members with time and resources to experiment, beyond their everyday team responsibilities
Facilitate an evaluation of projects or “experiments” that are completed or are even at the midpoint

Questions we may ask at project reviews include:

What’s working?
What’s not?
What are the things that need to be abandoned or tweaked?
What additional resources do we need?
What unknown obstacles have become visible?
What is the big learning we are taking?
What is the one thing/ or the many things we are going to do differently going forward?
Who else can we learn from (including our own past projects?

What are you going to do to create more of a focus around experimentation?

Have a great weekend!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Check out our Digital Resources to support you in your work and conversations