This week’s blog post focuses in on the important topic of retention, or memorability of calls.

It’s likely that the call you are hosting today is one of many virtual sessions people are dropping into. What are you going to do to make it memorable?

As I shared in Teams365 15  Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #37 – As Suzuki Writes:  “We make things memorable when things are novel, surprizing, emotional and attention grabbing”. What are the things you can be doing to create this?

A couple of things that we can do to make it memorable include:
Jazzing it up – including a video you have created or something a creator has shared on YouTube. (Always be sure to confirm usage rights, and when in doubt, reach out!).

Provide an opportunity for people to talk about their experiences in smaller groups. Check out if breakouts are an option in your platform. If so, could you build in a 5-10 minute section where people share how the topic connects to them and what they can do.

Prime people for the fact that the call is going to be different than usual. Let people know what you can expect. Start your call off differently – perhaps with something more personally involved than others. Note that as people are coming onto a call it may take them a few minutes to get grounded. We may be unfocused based on what we are experiencing.

IN addition to talking about the topic, are there some graphics which can be incorporated into the session? What additional follow up can people engage with? Note that you may want to consider both pre and post work.

As I shared earlier this year in my March 2019 Effective Virtual Conversations calls, Ebbinghaus did initial research on what we retain and what we remember. He created what is now known as the forgetting curve. In essence, as time progresses, as days progressed, we remember even less.

And so how can we boost that? There are several things that he found really made a difference. The meaningfulness of the information, the way it's represented, as well as some physiological factors, stress, sleep, et cetera.
Using some of the techniques I’ve outlined in the first part of the blog post may also help to boost retention. What do you want to incorporate to support enhanced retention?


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 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.

Here we are again at the end of another week. This week’s focus has been on FOCUS and starting to consider year-end activities. If you didn’t catch all the blog posts this week, here’s a chance to catch up.

Take a look back at the following blog posts:

• Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt around “I want to let go of….”
• Friday’s Flashback on Planning a Virtual Co-working Session (Teams365 1733)
• Thursday’s Team Building Tip with questions to consider around results.
• Wednesday’s Focus on planning and scheduling the last one-on-ones of the year
• Tuesday’s Focus on Creating FOCUS in the Last Mile of the Year
• Monday’s focus on Effective Virtual Conversations Tip: Skill of Design in the Virtual Space (part 3)

Enjoy your review!
​
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. ​

​This week’s Weekly Journaling Prompt invites you to consider the question “I want to let go of….”. As you consider this year (or the last while) what are the things you want to let go of or release?

Enjoy your reflections!
​Jennifer

Very shortly I will be leading a new podcast entitled the Remote Pathways Podcast™ with my co-host Michelle Mullins. As many of you know from my writing here, I’m passionate about remote work in all it’s shapes and forms.

Earlier this year, in July, I completed a new writing project I have entitled “Remote Pathways” I’ve alluded to it in several posts already. It is somewhat modelled after a “choose your own adventure”, exploring the different remote and virtual professional pathways we can find ourselves working within.

From leaders who manage teams which work remote most of the month, to project teams which span the globe, from remotepreneurs leading virtual businesses, remote work is on the rise.

We’ll be following many of these trends and taking a deeper dive into the adventures of the Digital Dozen™, twelve different types of remote professionals. I hope that you’ll join us and will follow along at the new website – link to RemotePathways.com.

With so many professionals jumping into the remote workspace, I am hoping that the years of writing on remote work, and virtual teams here at the Teams365 blog will be of service.

With that in mind, I wanted to highlight an earlier blog post  - Teams365 #1729: Plan a Virtual Co-working Session

​As we move into fall, it can be very useful for teams to continue to put attention around getting things done WHILE connecting. A favorite activity I continue to facilitate is GET IT DONE afternoons, which really become Virtual Co-Working Sessions. They are a derivative of the virtual retreats I have been offering for teams, business owners and leaders since 2007. 
​
Virtual co-working sessions may range from one-hour sprints, to four-hour blocks, to full day sessions.

Three considerations to making a virtual co-working session work include the following:
​
1. A platform where you can all meet, see each other and converse for periods of time.

• Streaming is often best; however, others may appreciate the ability to take their work on the road and call in at time.

2. Focus – collectively and individually. Consider these questions:

• What’s bringing you together today?
• What’s the focus – is it to do something collectively or individually?
• What outcomes do you want?
• How do you want to break it down – meeting every hour for check-ins? Meeting more frequently?

3. Scheduled Checkpoints 

• A way to share and keep the momentum going throughout the day. I have found that virtual group and team sessions have been the seeds for some amazing new ideas and cross-pollination. Be sure to build in blocks where people are not only checking in around what they are doing, but also consider the value of building in some time for sharing of learning or insights.

Looking for inspiration on what you might do in a virtual co-working session? Consider these ideas – they are all real programs I have facilitated over the years:

• One-hour virtual sprints for planning on the team or individual level
• 30-minute brainstorming/innovation sessions geared to create new product and or service ideas
• Four-hour GET IT DONE sessions where groups of solopreneurs connect virtually to take focused action once a month on things on their list. Check-ins are once an hour.
• Four to eight-hour Virtual Retreats, where each hour has a dedicated focus and theme to explore and/take action on. For example, an hour dedicated to creating a business plan, an hour to marketing approaches, an hour for project work).

Looking for a facilitator to host your next virtual co-working session? Contact me to learn more about this service I offer. 

What could a co-working event look like for you?

Warm regards,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success focusing on the Remote Space
Author of 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.
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. ​
Launching today  - the Remote Pathways™ Podcast

As we step into the “last mile” of 2019 (i.e. the last six weeks, give or take a few, especially if your business shuts down for the holidays), one of the key activities you will want to make sure you build in time for is a set of year-end one-on-ones with staff. While many organizations have moved to an ongoing feedback and performance management culture, it can be important to ensure that final one-on-ones don’t get forgotten in the rush of year-end.

Some of the elements you may want to include in your final one-on-ones are:

• A look back at the key highlights for the individual this year.
• Reflections and sharing on key performance witnessed – things that they did very well, times when you saw their strengths in action.
• What were their major accomplishments? What skills and experiences were learned/acquired? How can this support them going forward?
• Discussion around areas for growth and improvement in the new year.
• Looking ahead to the new year, what are the key priorities based on organizational and department goals?
• What are their key learning goals? Where do they want to grow? What changes do they want to make?
• Support needs for the new year.
• Learning needs for the new year.  Identification of any areas they would like to acquire more skills within in their work.
• Goals they have for themselves and their career.

What other items might you include in your year-end one-on-ones? Every team and organization is different. While not all of these categories may reflect the type of performance conversations you typically have, it can be useful to invite your team to consider the bigger context of their work (i.e. how has this year helped them with future career aspirations).

While it’s top of mind, I hope that you will take a few minutes to make note of the questions you want to include in everyone’s discussion.

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success focusing on the Virtual and Remote Space
Author of 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.
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. ​
Coming soon - the Remote Pathways™ Podcast

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip takes into Part 3 of Design. Over the past few weeks we’ve covered additional posts around Design in EVC Tip 117 and EVC Tip 116.
​
Virtual Facilitation and Virtual Learning have become the norm and “go to” in recent years. Whether we are expanding our skill base via a webinar, or whether we are attending a MOOC to learn the latest in a field of study, leveraging virtual learning opportunities is key.

As a provider of virtual learning services for the last fifteen years and having been involved with leading virtual learning as a leader, there are several things that we can do to enhance the learning involved. This is the focus of my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations, and is also the focus of a five week virtual train-the-trainer I lead called Virtual Facilitation Essentials.

You can also read through posts related to Effective Virtual Conversations in my regular Monday series.

To simplify (key in the remote space), five things that we can do consistently in our Design, include:

#1 - Consider and build in regular and frequent engagement touch points. We’ve all been on calls where the facilitator drones on and on in monotone. We know that creating frequent engagement touchpoints for people to engage with others in the virtual space can boost retention and interest. Different engagement touchpoints could involve inviting learners to:

• Comment via chat
• Annotate on the screen
• Reflect or comment on a question
• Input via a poll

While many of us (educators/facilitators/trainers) used to aim for engagement every 7-10 minutes in the in-person realm, in the virtual space this pace may be even more frequent.
 
# 2 – Create reflective pauses for people to write, and/or note what they are learning. Are you leaving a few minutes for people to note what actions are they going to take? How they are going to apply their learning?

The experiential learning model is grounded in exploring the WHAT? SO WHAT? NOW WHAT? Of a topic. In a virtual session, how are you helping your learners explore all three of these layers?

WHAT – What is this topic all about?

SO WHAT – What is important about this for you? What is the connection for you with this topic?

NOW WHAT – Now what are you going to do?

We’ve all been on calls where there was no time to note what application opportunities there are, and what next steps can be taken. Consider building in reflective pauses to deepen the learning.

#3 – Invite people to share/articulate their thoughts. Many of us create learning via speaking and/or sharing. What opportunities can you build in to create a sharing of information and learning? This might include using a breakout and having people connect with one or two other peers, going around and hearing from each person, and/or using chat or annotation to share their thoughts.

What can you build into your call, or after your call?

#4 – Consider virtual learning in its entirety. While in the “in person realm” it’s often possible to do everything in the room, virtually we may want to consider how to break up the learning process with structured activities coming before and after the learning. I commonly call these “pre-work” and “field work”. Check out an earlier blog post I did on different examples of these at my Group Coaching Ins and Outs blog: Six Ideas for Field work in your next coaching engagement.

Questions to consider:

• What are the different touchpoints people engage in as part of your virtual learning?
• What should they do, read or listen to, before the experience?
• What time should they build in afterwards to focus on application?
• What else is important to note with your programming?

All the best,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Recent books include: 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.
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. ​

Where did the week go!? We’re here on Sunday and I wanted to take a quick recap of where we explored this week:

• Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt – Read it here
• Friday’s post which took us back to a LinkedIn Pulse point I shared a few years ago entitled “4 Best Practices for Year-End Team Retreats”
• Thursday’s Team Building Tip getting us to think about the team question “What would create more safety?”
• Wednesday’s post around setting our remote team up for success. Read it here.
• Tuesday’s post around Team Effectiveness for your remote team. Read it here.
• Monday’s post on Effective Virtual Conversations. Read it here.

What are the things that are important for you to note about your focus this week? Your achievements?

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. ​

This week’s Weekly Journaling Prompt brings us to #73 in the series. This week’s prompt gets you to write about, and reflect on, “I love __ about my work”. This is a great question to bring in at this time of year, as you are reflecting on what’s work, and perhaps what changes you want to take in the new year.

Each one of the journaling prompts provides you with a valuable question. If you are looking for a great year end series of prompts, consider picking up a copy of one of the quarterly downloadable Journaling Prompts downloads. You can find Volume 1 here. They just cost $7 US and provide you with space, and prompts to reflect, based on this series. Enjoy!

What time are you going to carve out this weekend to reflect?

All the 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. ​

As we move into the end of October, attention turns quickly to year-end events for teams. To give you some ideas, I thought I would dedicate this week’s Flashback Friday to a post I have shared before.

Here’s what I wrote in:

#Teams365 #1389: #FlashBackFriday: 4 Best Practices for Year-End Team Retreats

Here’s what I wrote as I shared a previous LinkedIn Pulse post entitled "4 Best Practices for Year-End Team Retreats". The post was geared to anyone who is starting to think about what your year-end retreat can look like.
​
“It’s that time of year for parties, year-end team retreats and other events. Are you maximizing the amount of time and impact of these team events?

Having supported year-end programming for teams and organizations for many years I thought it would be useful to share four focus areas you may want to consider as you start preparing, planning and perhaps facilitating your year-end processes.

Number One — What’s the purpose? If you had to distill down the top two or three takeaways from the retreat process or that off site, what is it? The purpose of our year-end function can impact the structure and activities undertaken in the program.

Is the purpose of your year-end event:

• to build connection?
• to share important information?
• do some goal planning?
• to build understanding across the silos, that may exist within your organization?

I’d encourage you to think about the top two or three purposes of the upcoming program and link to consideration #2.
 
Number Two — What is the connection to the business? Think about what is the connection to the business. It’s still very common in today’s world for people to just go through the motions of a traditional annual year end party and /or event.

Are you really maximizing that investment of bringing people together?

Could you build into that luncheon a half-day session before or after, to do some work with your staff teams to support their development, to help them look at their skills and strengths and styles and also to share with them, you know, and help them connect to the link with your business.

What opportunities do you have already formalized for bringing people together at year-end? What changes or additions do you want to make?
 
Number Three — Do you want to do it all alone? Many organizations today have a committee and amongst that committee membership, there may be some members who would be very comfortable in facilitating your year-end team or organizational process.

So, think about who might be best equipped to do the work? Is it you, members of that committee or maybe you are interested in bringing in an external facilitator?

One of the things we do, is either we come in and facilitate or develop activities which you can facilitate yourself.

Think about how you might be able to leverage the resources you have and or bring in some special guest speakers or external resources to contribute to the environment that you want to create.
 
Number Four — How are you going to take this forward? One of the biggest challenges that we see in learning and development today is this continued lack of transferability to the work place.

This was what drew me to focus more on the area of Coaching which places an ongoing emphasis on accountability and transferability to the workplace.

One the things I like to encourage organizations that I partner with to always thinking about is – How will you sustain the conversation? How will you take this forward into your work?

Hopefully any year-end retreat process or year-end meeting will have an action step and a very formalized action planning stage. Remember to build in time in the new year to revisit your commitments and accountabilities.
 
Here’s a quick recap:
Number One - Think about the purpose. What are the top three or four reasons or things that you want people to take away?
Number Two - What’s the link of the year-end program to the business? Is it just to have fun or something else?
Number Three - As your approaching your year-end processes, is this something you want to do or do you want to bring in a facilitator? A third option perhaps is to have something designed for you, so you can facilitate it yourself.
And finally, Number Four. What are the takeaways? How will people sustain the conversation? When will you check in on your actions and commitments?”

Have a great weekend!
​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. ​

This week’s weekly round-up gets us to look back at the blog posts this week.

• On Monday, in Effective Virtual Conversation Tip 114 we explored mentoring. Read it here
• On Tuesday we explored Performance Reviews and Conversations in the remote space. Read it here.
• On Wednesday, we debunked the Remote Myth– “They’ll Understand” – We may need to over communicate in different ways. Read it here.
• Thursday’s Team Building Tip got us to consider the Devil’s Advocate perspective around key issue. Read it here.
• Friday’s Flashback Friday took us back to at Teams365 2017 post on Remote Team Mistakes. Read it here.
• Saturday’s Weekly Journaling post explored the question “____ Is Enough For Me”. Read it here.

What is important for you to note?

Enjoy!
​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. ​