Over the last few years, there’s been a treasure trove of content built up here. As part of the Flashback Friday series, I like to go back and do a quick share of past posts. This week I am reaching back to a great post from 2017 on 7 Focus Areas for Team Leaders. Ask yourself how much this has changed in the last few years. My guess is they are all still relevant for your work:

Today's blog post focuses on 7 tools for leaders we have covered during 2017. As busy professionals, both team leaders and team members can benefit from having a robust toolkit of tools to pull from. Here are seven that we've focused on throughout the year:

1. Questions - Questions form the backbone to any great conversation. One of the Teams365 videos which has been viewed the most this year is the 20 Coaching Questions video I created from Teams365 #1277. You can view the video here. Subscribe to our Teams365 Leadership YouTube Channel to keep up-to-date with the weekly Teams365 videos I release each Sunday.

​2. Techniques for leading more effective virtual conversations – One-on-ones, virtual meetings, and webinars. With the launch of my newest book this past summer, Effective Virtual Conversations, I started dedicating Monday's Teams365 blog posts to the topic of leading more effective virtual conversations. If you have not checked out the 26-ish weekly posts on these, please do so here.
​Whether it's using more breakouts or asking better questions, virtual meetings and webinars can break the mold of what I call "Death by Conference Call" - the multi-tasking, zoning out mindset. Be sure to also check out the related Community Calls I have hosted this fall as well.

​3. Tools for collaboration - Working across teams, and organizations, and industries is becoming much more the norm for most leaders and team members today. In February, I focused on the topic of Collaboration. Take a look at the top posts from February around the topic of collaboration.
 
4. Strategic planning - Whether strategic in your organization means 36 months or 10 years, planning sessions for teams continued to be very popular in 2017. You will want to check out several of the posts I have included around this topic here at the blog.

​5. Strengths-based teamwork - Almost every month this year I found myself facilitating strengths-based teamwork sessions with teams, both in person and virtually. Whether we explored StrengthsFinder 2.0 or used VIA Strengths, I found these conversations to be extremely vibrant and transformational for teams. Circling back with most of them months later, strengths-based approaches really stuck out for them, and were approaches they could integrate into their everyday work. Contact me to discuss how we can bring a strengths-based teamwork session to your team this next year.
  
6. Feedback - Another area I found most of my team support boiled down to this year was around the areas of feedback. Check out the Teams365 posts on the topic of feedback here. 

7. Difficult Conversations - Going hand in hand with feedback was the topic of having more difficult, or courageous, conversations during 2017. Check out the Teams365 posts here on this topic.

What are the areas you have been focusing on?

All the best,
Jennifer

Last week’s post got you to think about meetings and what’s going to help you keep them on track, especially if they are virtual. Part of the challenge to virtual calls is not only keeping them focused but making sure we also bring everyone’s voice into the room. There are a variety of techniques we can be leveraging to make sure that meetings are interactive and are not just a talking head.

In your next meeting, consider using the following elements:

• Visuals – What visuals are going to capture people’s attention? What will prompt or provoke some new thinking?
• Media – Have you created some music or video that will stimulate or prompt a different energy?
• Breakouts – If you are looking to bring people’s voices into the room, can you incorporate breakouts into the main room? Maybe different groups explore ideas around the varied topics you are exploring? Perhaps sub-groups meet in breakouts according to the topic they are interested in.
• Annotation – Annotation is often an underutilized way to bring peoples voices into the room.
• Chat – Get people to input and communicate via chat.

Also, like today’s post recommends, be sure to incorporate the 8 Essential Virtual Meeting Tips I share in Effective Virtual Conversations. This may include questions I term as the 8 Essential Virtual Meeting Questions:

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

(Source: Chapter 9, Effective Virtual Conversations, Jennifer Britton, Copyright 2017)

What are you going to do to make the most of your next meeting?

Best,
Jennifer

A large part of the conversations I have directly with team or with leaders is around trust. This seems to be one of the most significant issues in organizations today, helping or hindering what gets done.

As we wrap up to the 20 for 20 series, I want to put some further attention around some of the Team Essentials. These are things that we will want to return back to and explore further with those we work with – even if we work remote. In fact, trust can become an even more important issue for those working in the remote space. It’s our trust levels that often go hand in hand with our sense of connection. When working remote, that sense of connection can have significant impact on our motivation, engagement and even ability to show up and do great work, day in and day out. If we don’t trust, or even know, those in our team, it’s hard to collaborate. This will ultimately have an impact on outcomes and results.

What are the different ways we can build trust? I like to go back to the basics. Trust is seen through behaviors we undertake and choose to share. It includes the things that can seem mundane like:

• Showing up
• Being prepared
• Following through on what we say we will
• Providing feedback (about what’s working, and when its not!)
• Communicating
• Inquiring/asking questions

There are several excellent models around trust that teams may want to explore. Two that I have continued to point to include:

• Reina and Reina’s model around trust – Check out some of their writing here.
• Stephen Covey’s books around Smart Trust and the Speed of Trust 

​What are the books and resources you recommend around trust? Are there any podcasts or other resources you go-to on a regular basis?

Enjoy the conversation,
Jennifer

​In my former world of work as a remote leader with teams across ten countries, and in the last fifteen years of working remote a majority of the time, remote work is second nature, and is the primary focus of our support. As more organizations are gravitating to a remote work approach, it can be important to become more explicit with some of the nuanced differences in leadership and teamwork between in-person work and remote work. Today’s post explores four areas to pay attention to as a remote team:

1. Building everyone’s skill set and leadership capacity – In a remote team, it can be critical to equip all team members with skills and leadership capabilities even if they do not hold the title of leader. Given that remote team members may be the “face of the team or organization” or represent the organization to those locally, ensuring our team members are equipped with the right skills can make or a break an organization that is remote, or is moving remote. What are you doing to invest in team member’s development on an individual level?
​
2. Spending time on team development – 2016 research done by Culture Wizard found that only about 1 in 4 remote teams benefited from any team development. This is an area that is often overlooked in terms of what might be possible. At Potentials Realized, we specialize in remote team support and bring years of experience in supporting remote leadership development, virtual skill development and remote team support. Reach out to learn more about the Remote TEAM DAYS we facilitate. From half day to full day virtual sessions, to strategic planning conversations, team development in the remote space is just as important, or even more important than that in the in-person space. Team development is a blend of both focusing on results as well as building relationships.

At Potentials Realized, we offer a suite of support services specialized for remote teams – from strategic planning, to team development, to virtual training in key leadership topics (link to map of remote team topics) or our Teams365 modules. From one-hour lunch and learns to multi-day sessions we’ll meet up with you in the remote space, designing and facilitating your event, without your team having to travel (unless they want to!). Set up a call to discuss.

Questions to consider:

• What opportunities do we have this year to bring the team together (virtually or in person)?
• What opportunities could be benefit from?
• What needs attention – building our relationships, clarifying our results, or both?
• Making things explicit – All teams may falter if things are not made explicit. When assumptions go unchecked. This is particularly true in the remote space when all of us may have “different pieces of the puzzle – i.e. different contexts we operate within, different skill sets, and different vantage points on the work we are undertaking. Being proactive in sharing our context, priorities and preferences builds trust and connection, and also supports a wider understanding of priorities, practices and approaches.

More questions to consider:

• What are the things that need to be clarified?
• What needs to be shared more?
• What are the assumptions which are not being named or checked?
• What else is not being seen?

3. Proactively taking time to build relationships – In the remote space it’s hard to meet colleagues as you head into the lunchroom or head to the water cooler. We usually only come together for formal events. Given that socializing time looks different in the remote space it can be important to be more proactive in building relationships. As an organization or team, you may want to take some time to create more informal connection points. Whether this is a virtual co-working space which opens up for short windows each week, or whether it’s an informal but facilitated series of conversations at lunchtime by a colleague (think virtual lunch and learns or book club calls). Remote workers need a sense of connection and identity (stay tuned for more on this topic tomorrow).

4. Be aware of what’s below the “waterline” – In my 2019 workbook/planner PlanDoTrack, I provide the metaphor of an iceberg as a valuable tool for self-development and team development. Where teams of all kinds can benefit it by exploring what’s below the waterline of their work.

Best wishes, 
​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 start 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.

Winter 2019 programs start this week including the Coaching Biz Growth Lab (an annual focus on coaching business development), GroupCoachingEssentials (8.75 CCEs), the Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (10 CCEs) and the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program (8.5 CCEs) - geared to support you in creating more exceptional virtual conversations. Finally the Mentor Coaching Group for Winter 2020 will begin - aimed at coaches who are working towards their ACC, PCC or renewing.

As we go to wrap up the year, I wanted to take this opportunity to stay thanks for reading. When I began this experiment in hosting a daily blog ack on January 1st, 2014 I thought that it would run for perhaps one or two years. Here we are, six years later.
​
There have been several themes that have remained the same throughout my six years of writing here – the focus on teams, leadership and also the remote space. Those working in the remote space have mushroomed in recent years, and I hope that those of you who work remote continue to find this a useful resource.

The Teams365 series of programming has expanded widely in the last six years as well – from what used to be in-person training deliveries, today, most of the Teams365 work is delivered virtually to groups ad teams across industries. There are also on-demand programs (including a focus on feedback, and teamwork essentials) which you can take at your own pace.

The Teams365 brand has been joined by the Remote Pathways Podcast a short while ago. Highlighting the adventures of the Digital Dozen I’ll be exploring twelve different pathways to remote work today. I’m super excited to be co-hosting it with colleague Michelle Mullins, who also provides coaching and training support for remote professionals.

One of the Remote Pathways offerings you may want to explore in the new year includes our Team Days, geared for remote teams. Held virtually, these are a half-day to one-day programs delivered on Zoom for teams. Most teams call in from their usual location – and are amazed at how connected they become over the course of the day, and how clear they get in terms of the results they are all working towards. I hope that in 2020 we can provide your organization with Team Day support for your remote teams. Please contact me to set up a time to connect.
 
This year brought another 365 days of posts. Here’s where we went this year in year 6 of the blog:

• January - Productivity
• February - Collaboration and Relationships
• March - Virtual Team Culture
• April - Teamwork and Team Essentials
• May - Teamwork in Uncertainty
• June - Team Tune Up, Systems Check, Feedback and Performance, Navigating Disruption
• July - Digital Detox, Work-Life, Focus, Simplification, Habits and Creativity
• August - Teamwork foundations, Remote Work
• September - Remote Work Myths and Working Tips
• October - Remote Team Success, and Team Tips
• November - Focus, Planning, The Last Mile
• December - Working Across Uncertainty

 
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.

Coaches - Join me January 1st as we kick off the 60 Day Acclerator of the Coaching Business Builder. 60 days of focused action on your coaching business.

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.

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. ​

One of the themes this week has been about building team culture in your remote or virtual team. As part of this week’s FlashBack Friday, let’s look back to a post from this March.

Here’s what I wrote in March:
 
Yesterday’s Teams365 post #1905 focused on virtual team culture. Be sure to check it out if you haven't done so.

Today I wanted to explore three different ways you might support your team in identifying their own virtual team culture.

As a reminder, team culture usually points to three things - who we are, how do we do things and what is important to us.

Here’s a quick listing of different activities you might consider incorporating:

Who we are:
Virtual teams which excel know each other. They have strong relationships across the team, which allows them to call on others, and “have each others’ backs”. To strengthen your connection, consider these activities:

Have the team create a list of words/adjectives which describe who you are. Shape these into a word cloud which can be visible to the team.
Discuss the question “Who are we when we are at our best?”. Again, use the words to create a graphic about who you are.

At your next team meeting, have each person share one thing others may not know about them.

At your next team meeting, have each person share something that is unique to their location (this works especially well if you have a global team).

In your next meeting, share your screen which includes a variety of photos or icons. Have each person select the photo or icon which represents what they bring to the team.

How we do things:
Each team will have its own unique practices and ways of doing things. This will vary from team to team. Spending time discussing how you do things, and what the expectations are, creates clarity and builds trust, boosting both performance and results.

To explore this topic further consider:
Discussing “how we do things” (communicate, make decisions, work across differences, address conflict) can be a series of different discussions and activities. It might include a Rules of the Road which everyone has signed off on.

What makes you unique and distinct in terms of how you do things?

Another tool is to look at the IS/IS NOT table. This can include it is, it is not…
 
What is important to us:
Clarity around priorities and goals for the entire team helps with alignment, prioritization and decision making. Spending time on a regular basis discussing what is important to us may also involve:
​
A list visible to the entire team (ie. Think Intranet or other post on)

• Top 5 Goals for the month
• Top 5 Priorities for the week
• Top 5 Priorities for the quarter
• Enshrining your Team Agreements or Ways of Working into something that is visible. Some teams have enshrined this into a plaque, a screen saver or other.

For more on these topics, and a demonstration of what some of these can look like (photos), take a look at my January 2019 Virtual Team Builders call which I did as part of the Effective Virtual Conversations series. You can check it out here.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

​This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations post takes us to #105 in the series. The focus this week is on the skill set of Accountability. It’s much harder to track things in the virtual space, given that our time windows of synchronous moments when we are together can be limited. At the same time, our work may still be interdependent.

With this in mind, it is important to discuss what accountability can look like on your team, and how you want to support it.
​
Consider these ideas for supporting virtual or remote accountability:

• Make it visible – Keeping things visible allows us to keep things top of mind. If there are key goals are there dashboards or visible measurement items, you can create and share in your intranet or team portal?
• Create peer accountability partners – In the virtual space, relationships are essential, and we may not take time getting to know our peers. Creating peer accountability partners where everyone has one or two buddies, helps with information flow across a team, and also can boost the needle on accountability.
• Help people see the bigger picture and connections – Many times team members don’t realize how interconnected things are, and that their work may directly impact another team members. Help teams members see the bigger picture of tools and also how their work flows into another's.
• Build in time to check in – What doesn’t get tracked, doesn’t get done. What time are you building in for tracking and check in? This might be 5 minutes in a weekly team meeting, or via one-on-one calls.
• Model accountability – If leaders are not following through it’s hard to ask team members to follow through. Model accountability and walk your talk!

Best wishes,
Jennifer

​As I mentioned in last week’s FlashbackFriday post, this time of year often signals the start of new leaders’ roles. With that in mind, I thought it would be useful to reach back to a 2016 post on the 7 Key Challenges for New Leader.

Here’s what I wrote in that 2016 post:
​
Seven Key Challenges of New Leaders
1.      Too much information
2.      Too much management by boss
3.      Buddy to Boss syndrome
4.      Trying to be “liked by everyone”
5.      Working to make changes too fast
6.      So much to do, so little time! – Create Boundaries
7.      Trying to be like the last leader

Over the last month here at the Teams365 blog we've been looking at tips for new team leaders. Today's post looks at seven key challenges for new leaders. These are in fact challenges for leaders of all tenure. Let's take a look at each one, one at a time:

1. Too much information: During the first few weeks and even months of a new role there is information coming at you from all directions. Consider what approaches are going to allow you to avoid overwhelm. This might include asking yourself what's needed now, next week, next month, next quarter OR figuring our where you want to file everything and scheduling a time on an ongoing basis to review it.

2. Too much management by your boss - As I've written multiple times, your relationships with your boss is one of your most important relationships. For many reasons your boss can be overly hands-on and directive at the start of a new role.  Diplomatically you will want to navigate the tension of your own autonomy as a leader, and also taking their advice into consideration.

3. Buddy to Boss Syndrome - When you take over a team that you were once part of you may face the buddy to boss syndrome. In these instances, it's not only you making the adjustment, it's also the team as well making the adjustment to you in a new role. What conversations do you need to have with your former colleagues on the team?

4. Trying to be liked by everyone - one of the biggest adjustments for some new leaders is not being liked by everyone. Leaders making the hard calls doesn't always cultivate friendship. There is an important difference between being liked and being trusted, and this is important for leaders of all tenures to keep in mind.

5. Working to make changes too fast - While change is important, making change too fast in a team can create a lot of waves and potentially may not be in the best interest of the team. What new insights are you getting around issues from your new vantage point? What are the key issues which really need a change?

6. So much to do, so little time. Remember that as a leader you can delegate. It's not about doing everything yourself. AS a leader it's important to have the space to build relationships, support the team etc. What are the things you do need to delegate? What boundaries do you want to create with your time so you can focus on the strategic issues, not just the tactical issues?

7. Trying to be like the last leader. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we try to fashion our approaches and movements like someone else. In what ways are you unique? What makes you completely different than the last leader? How do you own this and communicate this?

These are just seven areas of many more which may pose challenges. What would you say is on your top five list of challenges as a new team leader?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer