Teams365 Blog - Potentials Realized

#TEAMS365 #2091 – Weekly Journaling Prompt 68

9/21/2019

It is Saturday which means that it is time for another weekly journaling prompt. If you are new to this, check out the past posts I have shared. I hope that you will build in 10-15 minutes this weekend to grab your journal and take some notes.

This week’s prompt gets you to think about, and journal on the question, “My favorite place is…”.

Where do you love to be?
What’s so special about it?
What does it provide for you?
What’s so special about this place?
What is possible for you in this place?
When you are not there, what do you have to remind yourself of?
What can you do to spend more time there in the future?
What could you incorporate more of from this place, into your regular everyday experience?

Enjoy your reflections,
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.

#TEAMS365 #2085 – Weekly Round Up

9/15/2019

Happy Sunday! This week we’ve explored a number of key topics of interest to those who are both working remote and also in-person. If you haven’t read this week’s daily posts, be sure to check out:

Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt # 64 : Read it here
Friday’s Flashback Friday post around habits: read it here
Thursday’s Team Building Tip #253 - Read it here
Wednesday’s post on the remote work myth that “out of sight equals out of mind”. Read it here
Tuesday’s post of Remote Work Pitfalls. Read it here.
Monday’s post around the art of Questioning in Effective Virtual Conversations. Read it here.

Given that it’s mid-month, it’s a great opportunity to take a look at your goals for the month and see how you are coming with them. What are you tracking? What are you noticing? What do you want to focus more on?

A reminder to also check out last Monday's Effective Virtual Conversations call on more effective meetings. Check out this 20 minute video for some quick tips you can implement right away in your next team meeting.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Jennifer

PS - In today's #90DaysPlanDoTrack Instagram Post I included several prompts for you to consider as you do your mid-month planning - be sure to complete your week in Review and the Monthly Daily Trackers in your PlanDoTrack or Coaching Business Builder workbooks.

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.

#TEAMS365 #2078 – Weekly Round-up – Remote Work, Daily Steps, Virtual Facilitation, Why Not?

9/8/2019

As we’ve stepped back to work, this week’s focus here at the blog has started to zoom into the remote workspace. Sundays here include a weekly round-up so you can catch up on posts you might not have read during the week. Here’s what I covered this week:

Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt 66 – Why Not?
Friday’s Flashback to 7 skills for Virtual Facilitators
Thursday’s Team Building Tip – What needs to go under the microscope?
Wednesday’s post on the tagline of my PlanDoTrack publication – Daily Steps + Consistent Action = Momentum
Tuesday’s focus on Getting Organized for Fall: 4 Areas for Making Remote Work, Work
Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip getting you to explore how your work has changed in the last year

I hope that it’s been a great week for you and that you are already getting back into the routine you want for this last 4 months of the year. If not, what changes do you want to make? What time could you carve out today to get more organized?

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 Season 2 of 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.

#TEAMS365 #2077 – Weekly Journaling Prompt 66

9/7/2019

It’s Saturday which means that it’s time for another weekly journaling prompt. This week’s prompt gets you to consider and reflect on the question “Why Not”?
Perhaps you are thinking about whether you invest time and resources into something. If you are only asking WHY, consider asking WHY NOT?

As you step into your fall routine, what would be the benefit of creating a quick 10-15-minute window to reflect on and capture some ideas in a journal. Even if this is the first week you do it, journaling can provide a number of benefits including:

A space to stop and pause and note what’s happening in your life or work.
An opportunity to explore issues of importance from different perspectives.
The chance to see how items are connected.
The pause to develop new insights.

I’ve bundled a set of the Weekly Journaling Prompts together in convenient quarterly downloadable notebooks. Take a look at them in our Potentials Realized store:

You’ll find Volume 1 (Weeks 1 – 12) here
You’ll find Volume 2 (Weeks 13 – 24) here

Wishing you 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.

#TEAMS365 #2075 – Team Building Tip 252

9/5/2019

Each Thursday I share a question for prompt for you and your team to consider and explore together. They are questions you might bring into your team meetings to create a quick new focus OR they might get circulated in a weekly email. Feel free to share, while attributing this blog as the source.

This week’s question - #252 in the series – gets you to consider the question “What needs to go under the microscope?”.

When we put things under the microscope a number of things happen:

We can adjust resolution
We can zoom into new parts
We can get curious about detail

My undergraduate degree is in science and I spent a lot of time peering through microscopes in my first few years at McGill. The process always fascinated me and has left its mark around the different perspectives and insights microscopes provide.

What issues do you want to put under a metaphorical microscope?

What could benefit from a zoom in or looking at more detail?

Enjoy the conversation and the exploration!
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 (season 2 of the 90 days series has just started)
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.

#TEAMS365 #2072 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 109

9/2/2019

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip gets you to think about the question “How much has your work changed in the last year?”. The pace of technological change continues to create interesting waves and push backs.

Think about these questions:

What platforms were you using this time last year? Five years ago? Ten years ago?
What was your work characterized by – last year, three years ago, five years ago? A decade ago?
How were you working a year ago? Three years ago? Five years ago?
What type of conversations were you having virtually? Team meetings, team development, educational etc.?
What about digital distractions? Digital minimalism?
What devices were you using a year ago? Three years ago? How has this changed how, when and where you do your work?

In the last year, we have had great writing released including Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism which explores the experience of those who detox digitally.
The last year has also seen a huge wave of the audio-book, the podcast and other audio devices, thanks to the present nature of Apple Car Play, Alexis, and Google Home Minis.

It’s also likely that your work may have become either more global or focused in nature, depending on the industry you are in, and the geographic location you reside in. Technology thankfully is reducing barriers.

What do you note about how your work and ways of working have changed in the last year?

What additional changes do you want to embrace?

What do you want to change?

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.

#TEAMS365 #2068 – Team Building Tip 251

8/29/2019

This weeks’ Team Building Tip gets you to consider the question: Where could you enhance your range? As professionals, mentors, leaders, business owners and coaches, we all have the opportunity to expand our range. Whether it’s via experiences, or challenge, expanding our abilities to grown and stretch, allows us to bring more to the people we are working with.

Expanding our range may also mean “getting out of our ruts”. Whether it’s due to always doing the same thing one way OR shaking things up or doing things in reverse order, it can be useful to do things differently. This may provide a new perspective OR create new energy around projects and tasks.

Our range can also be expanded by exposure to new ideas or new possibilities.
Consider these questions:

What are the things you could do to enhance your range?
What projects need a fresh injection of something?
Where could your work benefit from a new or wider perspective?

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.

#TEAMS365 #2060 - Teamwork Foundations – Questions to Consider When Seeking Out a Mentor

8/21/2019

Mentoring is a very popular modality for development. It no longer is considered a one-way conversation with the senior person sharing all the knowledge. In fact, “reverse mentoring” has really taken root, with the more senior person often benefiting as much from the conversation as the more junior person.

In today’s post I wanted to share several questions to consider if you are seeking out a mentor yourself. These can help to gain clarity in terms of what you are looking for, and help you focus the conversations you are going to have.

Mentors serve a variety of roles in today’s workplace, including being able to share insights about the practicalities of business/industry based on their experience. They may also be able to shed light on “how things are really done”, giving you insights you might not normally hear about through other channels.
Just like any other business relationship, supervision or coaching, the mentoring partnership is dependent on a good match and fit. Take some time as you go to seek out a mentor to make sure they are going to be your best fit.
Questions to consider when seeking out a mentor

What is important for me to learn?
Where do I want to grow?
What am I looking for in a mentor?
What are the skills and experiences I hope the mentor will bring?
What can I bring to the mentoring relationship?
What time am I earmarking for this?
What are my goals?
What topics do I want to explore?
When/if things get tough, I will…

As you look to your responses to these questions, what do you notice?

Enjoy the conversations,
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.

#TEAMS365 #2058 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 107

8/19/2019

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip gets you to think about how you can “prime” people for success BEFORE a virtual call. Is there something you can have people watch, read or do, so that they are ready to have the conversation?

Several ideas for pre-work could include:

Having people take a self-assessment such as StrengthsFinder if you are working on a topic such as strengths. Have them complete the assessment prior to the conversation so you can start the conversation there.
Have them review a reading on strengths
Create a video around strengths

What are the things which will set people up for a good conversation?

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.

#TEAMS365 #2050 – Weekly Roundup

8/11/2019

This week we’ve taken a look at virtual team culture, stretch, accountability, minimizing distractions. These all seem to be key themes for teams today.
If you missed any of the posts this week, be sure to check them out:
2049 – Saturday August 10 - Weekly Journaling Prompt 62
2048 – Friday August 9 - Flashback Friday: Articulating your virtual team culture
2047 – Thursday August 8 – Team Building Tip 248
2046 – Wednesday August 7 - Teamwork Fundamentals: Minimizing Distractions
2045 – Tuesday August 6 - Remote Teamwork Fundamentals: Five Things to Keep in Mind
2044 – Monday August 5 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #105: Accountability in Focus

What’s going to help you this month as a remote team?

If you aren’t in a remote team, what can you translate to your context?

Enjoy your 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.