This week we take a look back at a post which is probably even more relevant today than it was when I wrote it back in 2017 – Teamwork in Complexity.

What are you noticing about how teamwork is changing in your work in 2020?

What role does experimentation play in helping you be successful?

Take a look at this post:

This month we are exploring the skills required in teamwork, including listening and curiosity. Today I wanted to take a dive into a third skill area, that being the area of experimentation.

Experimentation is key for business leaders and teams today. Many times, the context is changing so quickly that we don’t have time to complete an entire roll-out before having to make a final decision. That can lead to a mindset of experimentation, where it is encouraged to try things out, see what works and what doesn’t.

In supporting experimentation in our team we want to:

• Encourage and reward trial and error
• Create safety around not getting “things right”
• Provide team members with time and resources to experiment, beyond their everyday team responsibilities
• Facilitate an evaluation of projects or “Experiments” that are completed or are even at the midpoint

 
Questions we may ask at project reviews include:

• What’s working?
• What’s not?
• What are the things that need to be abandoned or tweaked?
• What additional resources do we need?
• What unknown obstacles have become visible?
• What is the big learning we are taking?
• What is the one thing/ or the many things we are going to do differently going forward?
• Who else can we learn from (including our own past projects)?

Enjoy the conversations!
Jennifer

Welcome back and first of all, Happy Canada Day to other fellow Canadians. I hope that you are enjoying a day of rest and relaxation and maybe some good BBQ and sunshine.

As we kick off a new month, what’s important for you to keep an eye on?
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What are your top 3-5 goals?

What are the most important habits and routines to consistently undertake?

Like we’ve done in past months, what do you want to ensure you focus on?

Once you are done that, earmark some time to focus in on your mid-year review.

Here are a number of questions to take stock of the first half of the year, and look ahead to July, as well as the second part of the year:

• What have your successes been?
• Who have you been working with?
• I have PIVOTED BY…
• Where has your focus been?
• What have you taken a stand for?
• What have you become known for?
• Which goals are becoming new habits, or something you can check off?
• What do you notice about your metrics?
• Which goals need to be adjusted or let go of?
• The thing that helped me be most successful this year has been __________
• The thing that has helped me be happiest this year has been __________
• What has helped me be most healthy has been __________
• What I have noticed about my work/productivity/results and/or relationships is __________
• What’s your focus for the rest of the year?
• Looking ahead to the next six months, my top 3 – 5 priorities are:
• My theme for the rest of the year is…
• Success at the end of the end of the year includes:
• I also need to think about __________

 
Aristotle wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do”. What are the habits and routines which shape your world?
 
Planning Support with Your Business
Looking for a mid-year Virtual Work Planning session for yourself or your business? Check out the half day, one day and multi-day VIP working day sessions. You can find out more here.

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders 
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Check out our Digital Resources to support you in your work and conversations 
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This week’s Team Building Question asks you to consider “What could increase your range”? Individually? Collectively as a team?

Our range usually is the distance between the start and end of your comfort zone. Consider how this may have shifted in recent months. What in your comfort zone has shifted?

Our range is important as individuals as it allows us to continue reaching and growing.

Our range as a team is often the exponential amount of our capabilities and our collective comfort zone. This is important as it can help us as a team to continue stretching, growing, and also innovating.

What are the activities which could increase your range? Consider things like:

• Job Shadowing – Seeing others in action (virtually or in-person) so you can learn about how they do things, how they approach tasks you are not familiar with
• Mentoring – Working with someone more seasoned who can provide insights around HOW to do things
• Learning – Taking formal or informal courses
• Coaching – Working with a coach to explore alternative perspectives and ways of doing things, your mindset and/or belief systems. Contact me to set up a sample coaching conversation. 

 
Enjoy your conversations and action!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders 
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Check out our Digital Resources to support you in your work and conversations 
​

Inclusivity in the virtual space is an essential area to explore in virtual meeting spaces. What are we doing to ensure that we are bringing all voices into the room?

From time zone differences, to language differences, different technical backgrounds, and geographic differences, working in the virtual space often expands the diversity of those in the room. It’s not uncommon for most virtual conversations to vary on these different areas, along with many more – gender, race, sexual orientation, social identity, as well as the different thinking and learning styles, and ways we interact with the world.

For example, some of us need more time for reflection that others. Some of us may be learning by doing (kinesthetic) while others learn by hearing (auditory) or seeing (visual).

As a leader, facilitator or virtual host, what are you doing to ensure that you are incorporating a variety of techniques to bring all different voices in the room?

Consider these tips:

• Mix it up to ensure that you are incorporating approaches for different learning styles. For those that like visuals and learn that way, what images (versus text) can you incorporate? Might you include a video?
• For those that have a kinesthetic preference, what can you do to make the call more interactive and physically active? Can you incorporate annotation? What can you do to ensure that there might be some movement (safely!)?
• For those that learn auditorily (by listening), what can you do to incorporate more opportunities for virtual breakouts, dialogue and small group sharing?

Another dynamic you will encounter is those who are possibly dialing in by phone, and those on the web that can see each other. Consider what you are doing to speak to group members from both locations. If people cannot see others (i.e. dialing in by phone), I will usually get them to go first, to connect them in more quickly.

Geographically, what’s important to consider? Are you moving West to East, East to West, South to North, and North to South?

If group members on the call speak different first languages, what can you do to incorporate more visuals, and/or written prompts so people who have stronger reading ability can follow that rather than spoken words?

What else is important to note?

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​

Welcome back to another week in review! Here are the posts we’ve been exploring this week:

• Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt around GROW
• Friday’s Flashback Friday post on The Teamwork Skill in Complexity – Experimentation
• Thursday’s post with a brief introduction to the RAS and the Science of Attention and the Team Building Question of What are you paying attention to?
• Wednesday’s post – Have you scheduled these 10 areas yet?
• Tuesday’s post on Building Trust and Connection in the Virtual Space
• Monday’s post – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip: Make it Visible

Have you checked out these other articles I have written recently?

Check out the article published in Training Industry Magazine on Building Virtual Team Capacity, One Coaching Conversation at a Time

Check out my Thrive Global article on Rapid Change: 6 Areas for Teams to Explore

I hope you will take a few minutes to explore the posts and consider how they can support you in your work and conversations!

Enjoy your Sunday,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​

Earlier this year I shared a post on ten things you would want to make sure you took time to schedule. You can read Teams365 #2199 post here.

As we moved into the months of January and February a lot of our focus was on getting up to speed, and with the pandemic taking a lot of attention in recent months, some of these activities may not have been on the radar as much. I thought it would be useful to go back and take a look at these areas:

#1 – Team Meetings – Make them consistent and regular. It’s likely that you won’t be able to have everyone at the table (or the screen). Make sure that you create shared team agreements of what team members need to do if they are not present for meetings.

#2 – Meetings with Your Boss – Have you scheduled in time with your direct line manager? Keeping visible and being in regular communication is essential in today’s workplace. Corporate priorities can change quickly as can your boss’ priorities. How often are the two of you meeting? What format are you using? What’s important for them to know?

#3 – One-on-Ones with The Team – While group and team meetings are great, team members still need some 1-1 time. Be sure to schedule in some time with your team on a regular basis. Are you aiming for monthly 1-1 conversations? Quarterly deeper dives? Daily touchpoints? As a team talk about expectations and make agreements about who is responsible for scheduling and follow up.

#4 – Team Development Time – As I shared in yesterday’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip, team development time is critical and is often overlooked for virtual teams. Teams don’t just excel by osmosis! They need time to get to know each other, clarify how they are operating and focus in on what’s important.

#5 – Strategic Thinking Time — Are you leaving yourself enough time for reflection and thinking? Be sure to leave in enough time for strategic thinking. This can include creating, or revisiting your VISION, MISSION and MANDATE. Taking time to think strategically is important so that you have a clear big picture with a longer-term horizon. With things changing rapidly, the strategic horizon of 1, 3 or 5 years down the road can be invaluable in helping us keep moving, and not getting too set back by the small changes which can feel frenetic.

#6 — Time to Get Things Done — With meetings, communication and email taking a lot of time, what time are you leaving for yourself to get things done? For some professionals, it means coming into the office early to tackle key tasks for 30-60 minutes before others arrive. For others, it means booking a conference room and closing the door. Notice when you are most productive and when it’s important to get things done.

# 7 – Learning Time – What are your learning and development goals this year? Embracing ongoing learning has never been more important. What are the skills, processes and approaches which are going to help you do your best work? Note that learning can take many forms: including in-person programming, virtual learning as well as on-demand learning. Finally, peer learning (see #9) is another set of approaches.

#8 – Feedback Time – What feedback touchpoints are you building in throughout the year? Feedback in many organizations has moved to an ongoing cycle, and it can be important to make sure that it is happening regularly. Block off time in your schedule to get it done.

#9 – Peer Learning Time/Mentoring Time — What is the peer learning you want to undertake this year? Is it possible to do some job shadowing or pair with a peer partner throughout the year to compare notes, share resources and learn from each other?

In addition to peer learning, what about identifying a mentor in your organization or industry who can share their experience in order to help you understand “what’s below the waterline”?

#10 – Time Within Your Industry or Outside Your Regular Scope of Work — Finally, industry connections are key. Keeping current in your area of work may be as important, or more important, in the medium- and longer-term. What connection into professional associations are going to support you this year?
 
What do you want to make sure you make time to focus on?

Best,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​

Welcome back to this week’s Week in Review. It’s been a full week here at the Teams365 blog.

Some of the posts we’ve explored this week are:

• Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt on LEARN
• Friday’s Flashback posts on Virtual Co-Working
• Thursday’s Team Building Question around “What do you want to practice?”
• Wednesday’s focus on Better Virtual Meetings
• Tuesday’s post on 5 Types of Team Meetings to Focus On - Virtually
• Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip around “What’s Going to Make it Memorable?”

Enjoy your reflection!

Have a great rest of the weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​

This week’s Saturday Journaling Prompt gets you thinking about the idea of LEARN.

Every Saturday I share a different prompt for you to write about.

What are you learning these days? What’s important to learn? What else needs attention?

What else will help you learn and continue to grow?
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Enjoy your reflections,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​

What co-working have you been undertaking virtually in the last few weeks? While remote work can feel isolating, it’s valuable to create windows where we do get to work with others.

For today’s Flashback Friday post, I thought it would be useful to revisit this past post – Teams365 1729 – focusing on creating co-working opportunities:

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 a 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. 

Read the post here.

Best,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​

This week’s Weekly Journaling Prompt gets you to consider the question – “What do you want to celebrate?”.

As you think about the first five months of the year consider:

• What were your major accomplishments?
• What did you achieve?
• What are the things you are proud of?
• What is important to acknowledge?

I hope that you enjoy this week’s journaling prompt!
 
With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​