This month’s focus is on team development, an area I spent a lot of my time working with teams around. As you can imagine, I’ve already written a lot about these topics through some of the many series here at the Teams365 blog. Rather than reinvent the wheel I thought it would be useful to return back to some of the many posts I have already written.
 
I is for initiative, influence and impact. Check out the post I did on these topics here.
 
J is for Just-in-time. Check out this posts on Just-in-time here: 
 
I also shared in the Team Development A – Z the notion of Jeopardy. You can read the post here.
 
K is for Kick off. Check out this post on K is for kick off here.
 
K is also what you are Known for – what is your reputation? Check out this post.

L is for loyalty, leadership, leverage, learning, listening, lean.
Check out this post on L is for leverage here.
 
Check out these 6 Leadership Questions a day around L here.
 
Some of the activities you might consider including with team members are:
Listening – Check out some of the various posts on listening here.
 
A final area which is so important to teams today in times of change is the area of Learning to Learn. I haven’t written as much about this area but what do you notice about your ability to learn as a team? What has helped you do this?
 
Enjoy your Wednesday and I’ll be back with our remaining letters next week.
 
Best
Jennifer

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

20 Focus Areas for Remote and Virtual Team Leadership – Goals

This month we are bringing our attention back to virtual and remote team leadership issues. I thought it would be fitting to reach back to Teams365 #1408 - https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-1408-virtual-and-remote-team-development-13-goals, where I focused in on goals for virtual and remote teams. Here’s what I wrote about this topic about a year ago:
 
When we go to think about performance management it’s likely that the first thing that comes to mind is feedback and formal performance reviews. From being involved in performance improvement for many years I know that there can be a myriad of reasons of why we don’t see the performance we want in a team. It can be due to factors such as:

• Lack of clarity around goals
• Lack of specificity around what success will look like;
• Unclear expectations
• Lack of measurement or checkpoints to see how progress is coming

 
In this blog post today I wanted to zoom into an area that is often overlooked by leaders and team members – getting really clear on goals. While many organizations are familiar with SMART goal frameworks, not everyone is. Let’s take a look at what SMART-E goals are (note my addition of the E).

We want to make sure our goals are:
S - Specific - What specifically do you want to achieve? What will it look like?
M - Measurable - How can you track progress?
A - Achievable - With some stretch are these achievable?
R - Realistic - Again, with stretch are these in range?
T - Timebound - What's the timeframe on this - next week, end of June, early 2015?
E - And most of all, are these goals Exciting? If they are not exciting, chances are they might got get done, or may get done only to get them checked off.
 
Let’s take an example of producing a report. If we sit down to discuss the production of a report with a virtual team member, we will want to get much more specific than saying “I’d like you to produce a report”.
We first want to look at:
S – Specifics: What is the report on? Key successes this year for the team? Implementation of activities due to the funding received for the project?
How long is it? What should it include? – Photos/Videos/Case Studies?
Will it be print and hard copy?
Once we get granular around the details we also then want to be specific around M – Measurable.
M – Measurable: What are the measurements which will frame this activity or goal?
Well we know that it’s got to be 60 pages – no more due to page size, no less because that would leave blank spots in the booklet
A – Achievable: Is this possible?
At this point we want to confirm that this is possible, given time, skills, resources. Who else might need to be brought into the project for support? What responsibility or authority might be needed so the staff can complete the task?
R – Realistic and/or Relevant – In further refining this goal it is important to discuss the relevance of this project or the WHY? Why is it important for the project to look the way it will? Why is is important to have 60 pages, vs 59 or 61? What is important about capturing success stories (the staff member may now understand that these stories will be beneficial for future funders, as well as staff themselves).
T – Timebound: In looking at one of our last categories, timebound, we want to provide benchmarks so that we can check in around progress. While we don’t want to micro-manage projects, setting checkpoints for quick reviews and updates can provide a space to make sure things are progressing as planned, any resources needed are identified, and questions are answered as needed. It is often easier to set a time at the end of your meeting so you don’t have to do a back and forth on email.

Finally, you will want to check in around the E – Exciting. How is this project/task/goal exciting? This speaks to motivation and what will help the staff continue to move through the ups and downs of the project. Perhaps the staff member has always wanted to focus on publishing, or writing, or maybe this is a way they see that they can leverage their past experience as a yearbook editor. Ask the team member why the project is important and how they find it exciting.

The SMART-E framework allows us to break down the goals we are working on into more manageable chunks, and helps us connect with the bigger picture of why goals are important as we look at adding an E (Excitement).

While I have used an example with just one person's goals here, you can use this same framework for breaking down team-based goals as well.

Let us know how you are using the SMART framework in your virtual team.
 
Enjoy your weekend!
 
Best wishes,
Jennifer

Some of our related blog posts this month will take a deeper dive into each of these, starting with Listening.

Communication is a two-way street, and many professionals forget that communication often gets lost, or misunderstood as it is received. Whether it’s due to distractions (for example, a noisy environment or  something else on your mind) or whether it’s due to

A couple of key notes when you are cultivating listening with your team:
What are people listening for?  Are they listening for what the person really is saying or are they thinking about how they are going to respond?
Are they just noticing the words or are they also noticing body language? We know from research that body language and how things are being said contribute to a significant part of the message. Getting team members to notice what body language says, and does not say, in the context of communication can be extremely powerful.

While this may be common-sense for some on the team, many team members may not have thought through the impact of:

• Tapping your foot while listening to someone else
  
• Crossing your arms
• Looking up or away from a speaker who is talking to you
• Looking over your glasses as someone speaks to you.
  

How clear is the request being made in communication. Brevity and consistency is important in today’s world. So is “the call to action”. What are you asking people to do. Take action? Read something?  Make a decision? Do something differently? Reply back to you. These are all different requests and if a request is not being made explicitly, it may be difficult to interpret what is being asked for.
 
In my next couple of Tuesday and Wednesday posts I’ll be exploring some of these other skills – Experimentation, Open-mindedness, Problem Solving, prioritization.

What’s the key learning/insight you want to take from today’s blog post?

Enjoy your Wednesday,
Jennifer

In the former world of work where change was not an every day occurrence it was easier to plan and move through tasks. When complexity exists, it may be that the list you start off with, may not get completed.

As a graduate student in the early 1990s, as I prepared for one of my first global work assignments I we fortunate to be mentored by a wonderful professor who had spent a lot of time the decade prior doing a lot of work. At the time, I was curious about how she managed to navigate the ever changing waters of her work  - where politics and changes abounded.

She shared with me the term “Embrace the chaos”. As I set into my next six-month assignment, which ultimately had me working globally for the better part of the next decade with different organizations, and in different locations, I realized how important the mindset of embracing the chaos would be for me as a leader.

According to Wikipedia, chaos theory in layperson’s terms is:
Chaos theory is a part of mathematics. It looks at certain systems that are very sensitive. A very small change may make the system behave completely differently. Very small changes in the starting position of a chaotic system make a big difference after a while.

So what does chaos theory have as implications for leadership:

1. We may not be able to contain or constrain something, thereby looking to influence is a better approach;
2. Given that different patterns may emerge, and are usually unpredictable, leading from a place of not knowing, and harnessing all wisdom or expertise in your team can be important;
3. Rather than fight against the chaos – embrace it – Don’t’ spend energy on something that will be  unpredictable. Change thinking and mindset to meet this rather than fight it.

Embracing the chaos also required that I learned to work, lead and make decisions in a  contingency approach. Rather than assuming things would move from A to B to C, it meant that we would sometimes go from A to Z to C then X. Scaling back expectations, negotiation, influence and prioritization all were critical skills. How are your fostering these in your team right now?

For more on this topic, you may want to check out this great download Leading in Complexity  What makes complexity different and how can leaders respond effectively? By Keith Johnston, Carolyn Coughlin, and Jennifer Garvey Berger May 2014  found at: https://www.cultivatingleadership.co.nz/site/uploads/Leading-in-complexity.pdf

This week's Teams365 video addresses the topic of delegation. In today's world of "doing more with less" leaders and team members can benefit from the skill of delegation.  What do you want to delegate? What will make it successful?

Today's post brings to life the 2015 Teams365 post #391 on Delegation.

Be sure to check out other Teams365 videos at our YouTube Channel.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

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 - 1-1s, 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 Collboration. 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 persona nd 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 every day work. Contact me to discuss how we can bring a strengths-based teamwork session to your team this next year.
  

6.  Feedback and Difficult Conversations - Another area I found most of my team support boiled down to this year was around the areas of feedback and getting more comfortable with difficult, or courageous, conversations. Check out the Teams365 posts on the topic of feedback here. 


7.  
 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 other tools did you draw upon regularly as a team leder or team member this year?

​Have a great Wednesday,
Jennifer

​

Today's Leadership quote comes from Fred Hilmer who wrote, " Leadership requires five ingredients - brains, energy, determination, trust and ethics. The key challenges of today are in terms of the last two - trust and ethics".

What do you see as essential ingredients for leadership? What would you indicate is the role of trust and ethics in your work right now?

If you are visiting us for the first time, please check out past posts related to:

Trust
Leadership
Teamwork.

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

As I write on page 327 of Effective Virtual Conversations, "Leadership needs to change as the context changes. The new norm for many virtual leaders is continued volatility, ongoing change, and complexity in different locations" (pp 327, Effective Virtual Conversations).

​Although I wrote this earlier this year, the new norm for leaders of all kinds is becoming disruption. Whether you are a virtual leader or an in-person one, how is volatility, change and complexity impacting your work? What are you noticing about how you are changing your leadership style?

​I did a quick search on writing around leading in disruption and here's what I came up with:

​Succeeding in Disruptive Times from KPMG. Read it here.  They note the research they have done where 34% of CEOs have indicated that they have failed to "achieve the value in their transformations" due to factors including "inability to innovate", "missing the cultural connection", and inability to execute" (pp 2)

​Check out "Tech Disruption Forces CEOs to Rethink Leadership" - Read it here.

​Here's Washington Post's Top 10 Leadership Books to read during 2017 - Read it here.

​15 of the Best Leadership Books to Read in 2017  from Inspiring Leadership Now - Read it here. I was pleased to see many of the books I've read this year - including Kim Scott's Radical Candor.
​
What constitutes leadership for you right now? What are the major forces shaping your business? What is required of you?

Have a great start to the week,
Jennifer
​

Yesterday I spoke here in Washington DC on Team and Group Coaching Virtually. As leaders, many times we are called upon to coach our team members, but are they ready to be coached? Here's a post from 2015 which you might find interesting - Four Coaching Flags, or four things to be aware of when coaching your team.  Consider what are flags coming up for you and your team right now.

Here's what I wrote in Teams365 #784:
A key success factor to supporting any learning or talent development initiative is to make sure that the approaches we are using are the  right fit. Whether we are coaching, training, mentoring, it is important to take stock regularly on what's working and what's not.

Sometimes there are flags which signal that things are not going as they should. In the coaching approach you may see:

• Lack of follow through on the part of the person being coached
• Circling of the client
• Person not showing up for their coaching sessions
• Jumping from one topic to another
• Client not seeing value of coaching

Questions to ask:
Is this person coachable? Do they really want to engage in the coaching process? Without their active participation it is not possible to coach a person. While people can sit passively through a workshop, in coaching they need to be an active participant?

Is it time to revisit the coaching goals they have set for themselves? Are these goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound)? Are the goals stretch goals?

When the client "circles" it may be for several reasons. This often signals a place where the person is fearful or feeling dis-empowered It may signal an "inner critic" or "gremlin". For more information on this topic i'd highly recommend Rick Carson's book Taming the Gremlin.

Finally when a client is saying they are not seeing value in the coaching process it may be time to have them take stock of their accomplishments and learning since the start of the coaching process. Sometimes we are so in he phase of learning that we have not stopped to reflect and note what is different and what changes have happened.

There are several more flags you may see around coaching, however, thse are four very common ones experienced by coaches as leaders, as well as internal and external coaches. What other coaching flags have you experienced?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

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