Teams365 Blog - Potentials Realized

#teams365 #363: Leadership a - z: Z is For Zoom

12/29/2014

We've finally made it to z in the Leadership a - z. Z is for zoom. As a metaphor, what do you need to/want to zoom into? What do you want to get a close up around:
- Results
- Relationships
- Focus
- Stakeholders
- Communication patterns
- Styles
- Coaching and Mentoring Skills
- Feedback
- 1-1s

Throughout the year these areas have been key focus areas we have explored here at the blog. As you consider the next year, what do you want to zoom into?

Have a great start to this last week of the year,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team
Creator of the Inner Biz Leader(TM) Virtual Business Planning Retreat - a self-paced retreat supporting you in creating your plan for the next year, while exploring your leadership foundations
(416)996-TEAM (8326)

#Teams365 #362: Leadership a -z : X is for X-CeL

12/28/2014

As we move into the X of the Leadership a - z I've taken the liberty of shortening most of the "ex" words to x. Throughout the year we have looked at what helps teams excel through the Six Factors of High Performing, or Exceptional, Teams.

We've looked at what it takes to accelerate results, through exact, and shared, expectations.

We've looked at the key skills team leaders lead from, along with teamwork competencies.

As an analogy, we've seen how team leaders use x-ray and diagnostic capabilities to observe what is going on, and to address issues which need attention.

What can you do to xerox, or copy, what worked this year, next year?

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Authorized Everything DiSC partner and Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team
Email: info(at) potentialsrealized (dot) com
(416)996-8326

Teams365 #350: Leadership a-z - R is for Recognition

12/16/2014

We are at R in the Leadership a-z today. As we have explored this year, high performing teams have great results and relationships. Many of the posts I have written will support team leaders in enhancing focus and conversation.

One area we haven't explored too much is around recognition. How are you recognizing your staff for good and exceptional performance? I wanted to share with you a short post from last year's Biz Toolkit focus on Recognition:

"As a professional, how much time do you spend recognizing your staff and acknowledging their achievements. The topic of recognition can be a very personalized one, and not everyone is going to value the same things or even find recognition always positive. Consider these scenarios:

* A very introverted member of staff who is extremely shy and likes to stand behind the scenes is acknowledged publicly in a full organization meeting for their achievements and is asked to stand up to take credit. What do you think the impact is for them?
* One of your top performers is given the task to leading yet another special project. This one with high visibility. This comes as they are just winding down a year long other high visibility project, and after they have indicated that they are looking forward to being able to focus more on their core tasks as they have some evolving elder care responsibilities for one of their parents. What do you think the impact is for them?

What do you use to recognize employees? Recognition programs will vary from company, to company, dependent on the industry, size, and whether an organization is unionized or now.

Here are some possible recognition possibilities:
- Gift cards
- Staff/team lunch, BBQ
- Special sporting event - tickets or participation
- Time off
- Public acknowledgement - by email, in company newsletter/publication, in a presentation
- Hand written card of thanks
- Note on file for achievement
- Certificate
- Take them out to lunch
- Give them a gift so they and their family can go out

And of course, a simple thank you!"

Before the year is up, make a note around what you want to do to recognize your team during 2015.

Have a great week
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
(416)996-TEAM (8326)
Looking to do some planning for 2015 in bite-sized chunks? Consider the Inner Biz Leader(TM) Virtual Business Planning Retreat which can be taken on demand at Udemy. More info here

#Teams365 #349: Leadership A-Z is for O: opportunities, Optimism...

12/15/2014

I am jumping back to the "O" of the Teams365 Leadership a-z as it somehow got OVERLOOKED last week.

As I thought about the letter o and leadership as we start this last full week of work before the holidays the words opportunities, optimism and orientation.

For many businesses this many be the one time of year where they do shut down their operations for a few weeks, or more to a skeleton crew oer the holidays. Getting back to work in January often involves the orientation of new staff. one of last week's posts was on New Hire Orientation which you can read here.

As many of us turn our attention to planning at this time of year, it's an opportune time to take stock of the opportunities facing you in the coming year. This is one of the focus areas my Inner Biz Leader(TM) Virtual Business Planning Retreat (An On-demand program) explores. You can read more about the Virtual Retreat, and sign up here.

As you consider the coming year, what are your top 3 opportunities for 2015?

Optimism is one of the twenty one core competencies of emotional intelligence Martin Seligman studied optimism and found that it lead to higher performance rates in sales professionals. Some of his research concluded that those professionals who are optimistic handle rejection better. you can read more about it here.

What are you optimistic about next year? What has you learned from this year?

Have a great start to the week,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
(416)996-TEAM (8326)
Looking to do some planning for 2015 in bite-sized chunks? Consider the Inner Biz Leader(TM) Virtual Business Planning Retreat which can be taken on demand at Udemy. More info here

#Teams365 #337: Leadership A-Z: M is for Motivation ....

12/3/2014

Today's Teams365 Leadership a-z is at M. Management, momentum and movement have all been key topics in coaching conversations i've had this week.

Here's what I wrote about micro-managing and motivation last November - who other key M areas:

Today we are a the letter M in #leadership a through z. Two words in particular jumped to mind for me -
Motivation and Micro-monitoring

Motivation: What motivates you as a leader? What motivates your staff? A great book on this topic is Dan Pink's book Drive. In the book he explores what motivates us and proposes that we are motivated by three things - autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Questions to consider:
Looking at ourselves, where do we get motivation from? Is it an internal driver like purpose, or an external driver like money or recognition? Consider your team members - what are their motivators? What can you do to align their motivators with tasks that need to get done?
How do goals support motivation for your team members?

Resources around motivation:
Motivation 123 website - a website dedicated to motivation. You can visit it here
Jim Riley presents various theorists around motivation including Maslow (remember his Hierarchy of Needs) and others. You can read Jim's overview here.
An animated video by RSA based on a presentation Dan Pink gave. View it here.

Micro-management versus micro-monitoring: A common statement in any leadership development training process is that you don't want to micro-manage.

As a former co-facilitator of mine, Doug McLaren, always stated "as a leader you want to micro-monitor, not micro-manage". Micro-monitoring is about being aware of what your team members are working on, and making sure that you are there to provide support, resources and troubleshooting as needed. Micro-management, in contrast, is about taking over and not letting your employees work autonomously. As indicated earlier in this post, what is a major driver of motivation? Autonomy. Consider the implication

Questions to consider:
What does micro-management mean to you? What does it look like?
What does micro-monitoring mean to you? What does it look like?
On a scale of 0-10 (with 0 being none, and 10 being high) where are you as a micro-manager? A micro-monitor?
What support does each one of your staff really need at the moment to be successful with a particular task or project?

Heading off to the December Team Leader Breakfast Cafe in a few minutes to explore Vision - keep your eyes open for the recording later this week!

Have a great rest of your week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

#Teams365 #336: Leadership A-Z: L is for....

12/2/2014

We are at "L" in the leadership a-z today with words including loyalty, leverage, leadership, listening, letting go.

Leverage is critical for today's teams. Leveraging, or capitalizing, on the best each team members brings is essential in a context where team members may be changing frequently, and decisions and actions need to be made in a "less than perfect" environment. Given ongoing change things may never be perfect. Leverage is a scientific term which makes us think of a lever and the amount of force needed to tip it. With leverage you may not require as much force.

For the past 336 days, we've been exploring different facets, skills and foundations of team leadership. Areas such as skills needed for coaching your team, mentoring, teamwork skills, providing feedback, setting goals. One area we have not explored is leadership styles. There has already been so much written on this, and several wonderful models created such as Blanchard's Situational Leadership Model which asserts that our style as leader needs to change according to the level of confidence and competence our team members bring to each task at hand.

Another area we explored throughout the year was listening. Trust drops when people do not feel that they have been listened to.

Letting go is sometimes just as important as adding on or prioritizing. In today's business context the ability to know what to say no to is just as important as saying yes. AT the start of every month this year I have encouraged you to consider what you, and your team, need to let go of? What's weighing you down? What is not essential? What could be done better by someone else?

One of my favorite "l" words that came up for me today was LEAP. It is often said that real breakthroughs are not an incremental shift, but a LEAP into a new terrain. Where have you and your team leaped this year? What impact did it have? Where might a LEAP be needed going forward?

As you move through today, consider what your leadership style is and where a LEAP might be of benefit.

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

#Teams365 #309: Leadership a-Z - B is for....

11/5/2014

We are at B in the Team Leadership A through Z. As I thought about some of the areas I see teams working around, excelling in, and struggling with, some of these words and questions came to mind:

Behaviors - What are the behaviors that are habits within the team? What behaviors are supporting positive movement, expansion and awareness? What behaviors are detracting from the team's relationships and results? What behaviors are toxic? What behaviors need to be addressed
As we saw recently with revisiting the Six Factors of A High Performing Team, teams that excel have shared behavioral agreements around acceptable and not-acceptable behaviors. What agreements do you have in place?

Beliefs - Beliefs shape our action, attitude, and goals. What are the beliefs that exist within the team? What beliefs are enabling, moving you forward? What beliefs are getting in the way? What is a "reframe" on these?

Budget- Budgeting skills are often a new area for team leaders. What do you need to notice about budgeting? What's important here?

Bold - Boldness often takes us out of our comfort zone, that uncomfortable place where learning really happens. It's also the place where transformational, not incremental, change happens. What does bold mean for you? Where have you been bold lately? What impact did it have?

Bucket - What are the buckets the team is responsible for? Would everyone agree? Who is looking after each area? What's most important in each bucket right now?

Bundle - Bundling or chunking helps with focus, prioritization and getting results. What needs to be bundled right now?

Better - We can always get better. As we have seen in past posts, leaders who focus on their team members' strengths will often see productivity gains along with better relationships. where can your team get better? In what areas? What would leveraging everyone's strengths look like in 2015?

Best - Where are you at your best? Where is the team at its' best? What would it take to spend more time in this place during 2015? How can you celebrate when you have been at your best this year?

Last November when I did the Leadership a-z over at the BizToolkit blog, I wrote about Behaviors and the skill of bottom-lining. You can read that 2013 post here.

Have a great day!
Jennifer

TEams365 #308: Leadership a-z: A is for....

11/4/2014

Today marks the start of a new series focusing on the a through z of Team Leadership. This time last year i did a similar series of blog posts over at the BizToolkit blog. You can read what I read my last year's post on A is for Action and Accountability over at the BizToolkit blog leadership here.

In addition to Action and Accountability, some of the words I have included in the Teams365 version for A include:
Attitude - What's the attitude you are demonstrating. What's the attitude each team member is bringing?
Able/Ability - What are you able to do? What abilities does the team bring? Each team member? How do you leverage these?
Aspire - Where do you aspire to move to?
Assumptions - What assumptions are you holding?
Articulation - To articulate is to spell something out. What do you need to articulate to the team?
Accepting - How accepting is the team? What do you bend for? Consider a bottom line? Deal Breaker?
Astute - Astute leaders use their intuition and observe. What are you noticing?
Assessment - What assessments are working for the team? What do you each need to step back and make a self-assessment on?
Agility - Agility, which embodies flexibility, is critical for today's ever changing workplace. Agile is also a term which has been embraced within the IT, and related sectors, as a core component of,, and approaches around, leadership.

What are the questions for you to explore today?

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Leadership, Teamwork and Coaching
Join us in a few weeks for the Virtual Facilitation Skills Intensive online program - November 25-26, 2014 OR the two day in person Facilitation Skills Intensive program in Toronto (December 15-16, 2014)
(416)996-8326