Teams365 Blog - Potentials Realized

#Teams365 #1546: Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #37: Making Virtual Events Memorable

3/26/2018

Suzuki writes " We make things memorable when things are novel, surprizing, emotional, and attention grabbing". While all training can benefit from a little jazzing up, it is especially true with virtual training. Think about how memorable the calls and meetings you have attended over the month of March. Which ones have stood out for you?

Here are a number of things we can do to make our virtual calls more memorable by making them more novel, surprizing, emotional or attention grabbing:

More novel - Mix it up. Move from a conference call to a video streaming session. Let people know that it's going to be a different call. See what happens. Other ways to make things novel are:
Change up the format
Have a different host or facilitator
Do things in a different order

Surprizing: If trust levels are high, and participants are open, surprises can be part of an every day experience. Jazz things up a bit during a call. Let people leave a little early, or bring in a guest speaker.

Emotional - I write and speak a lot about the importance of connecting people early on to their WIIFM - What' s in it for me. part of this is connecting with people's emotion. This may be through music, a photo or story. What can you do to help people connect emotionally to the topics you are exploring?

Attention Grabbing - What would be a 180 on the regular start of your meetings? If you don't ever show videos, why not incorporate a short one (don't have any - check out our Teams365 one-to-two minute weekly videos), or turn some data into an infographic.

Calls and meetings don't have to be "Death by Conference Call" as I write in my book - Effective virtual Conversations. What can you do to jazz up your next meeting and make it more novel, surprizing, emotional or attention grabbing?

Enjoy!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

#Teams365 #1346: Team Building Tip #151

9/7/2017

We are back to our regular Thursday Team Building Tip, this one #151 in the series. If you have been following the blog for any amount of time, you may have noticed my leadership philosophy and belief in the importance of leveraging the best of the team and making sure they are equipped with the best learning opportunities.

Today's Teams365 Team Building Tip #151 is all about thinking about how to equip the team members with more peer learning opportunities. This could take a number of forms including:
* Pairing peers together for job shadowing
* Pairing peers together in action learning sets, where they share insights and problem solve around real-time business challenges and opportunities
* Creating peer coaching opportunities. See the recent posts I have written on this topic, including last weekend's video on Five Peer Coaching skills.

Peers, especially in the virtual environment, may be better positioned than some leaders in providing advice and creating joint problem-solving with each other. This does not impede on the leader's role, rather the role of leader can then focus more on higher level resourcing, trouble shooting and liaison. Peer connections help to strengthen the team, harnessing the innate wisdom and expertise team members bring.

What do you see as opportunities within your team for more peer learning?

Have a great Thursday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Looking to equip your team with more knowledge about their styles through the DiSC? We offer the Everything DiSC and Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

You can grab a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon. You can also purchase a copy direct from our site, signed by me!

#Teams365 #1306:Weekend Quote

7/29/2017

This weekend's quote comes from Alan Alda. He wrote "You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.".

Much of what we do as leaders involves growth, and stretch zones. As Alda writes part of this involves moving out into those stretch areas or wilderness areas.

Where are you growing as a leader? What are your current stretch zones?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

Connect with us to be the first to know more about launch events around my newest book - Effective Virtual Conversations - coming out later this summer.

#Teams365 #1250: Saturday Quote

6/3/2017

Today's Saturday quote comes from Margaret Lee Runbeck who wrote: "Learning is always rebellion. Every bit of new truth discovered is revolutionary to what was believed before".

In today's VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) learning has taken on new meaning. We need to engage in learning every day, unearthing our assumptions and challenging the way we have always done things.

What learning have you undertaken recently that you would see as revolutionary to your work?

What needs to be stirred up?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

Connect with us to be the first to know more about launch events around my newest book - Effective Virtual Conversations - coming out mid-July.

#Teams365 #1058: Virtual Facilitation Tip #29: Visuals

11/23/2016

In our 29th Virtual Facilitation Tip I'm getting you to think about how you can integrate more visuals into your virtual programming to boost learning, and engagement.

Several studies have found that visuals are processed at a much faster rate than text and auditory information, some studies finding it up to 60,000 times faster. While this has been deemed an "internet hoax" note for yourself how you take in photos versus text.

In terms of both application and integration of learning in the virtual domain, consider what can you do to boost visuals in your programs by integrating more:
Animations
Video - i.e. Ted Talks (videos are noted to have greater engagement than text)
Using photos (check out Conversation Sparker.com for our photo deck)
or by bringing in a Graphic Recorder to bring to life your training and learning process
Metaphors

This week, take a few minutes to outline what is possible in including more visual materials. What would this take?

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Check out our newest on-demand course: Teams365 Teamwork Foundations
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
(416)996-8326

#Teams365 #1046: Virtual Facilitation Tip #24: Emojis

11/11/2016

Today's Virtual Facilitation Tip gets you thinking about how to incorporate emojis in your virtual training sessions. They are a great tool for not only engagement but feedback. Here are five opportunities for you to incorporate emjois into your next virtual session:

As a check in at the start of the call - have people select and share the emoji that represents them as they start the call

Mid point do a check in to see how people are feeling about their learning. This is a great pulse check.

At the end of the session, have people choose an emoji which represents their learning experience with you overall that day.

Two other ways we can incorporate emojis are to:
In communication skills training, get people to select emojis which represent each of the character's mindset after showing a difficult conversation.

In leadership skills training for virtual leaders have group members listen to a voice only call between a leader and their team members. Get people to select an emoji to represent how you think the two parties are feeling. Then show them a video recording of the same conversations where you can see their faces. How accurate were they?

Emojis are not only fun (or silly to some) but they can be used as a great indicator and tool for learning.

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326
Last call! Join us this coming weekend in Toronto for the November 12 -13 Group and Team Coaching Intensive - 2 days of team and group coaching skill training (approved for 19 hrs of CCEs with the ICF)

#Teams365 #1044: We Remember 7 things: Virtual Facilitation Tip #23

11/9/2016

We can only remember seven things. As an undergraduate science student years ago I remember one of my profs telling us the story of why phone numbers were only seven digits. Our brains are only able to retain a finite amount of things and research has shown that is approximately 7 plus or minus 2 numbers. Hence, why phone numbers used to be 7 things in length.

When transitioning to creating powerful learning events in the virtual domain, it's important to remember that we still can only retain seven things. As I've been sharing in recent Virtual Facilitation tips here at the blog it's really important in the virtual domain it to have an number of anchor points during calls and reminders of where you have been and where you are going. Some trainers are tempted to provide a long laundry list of ideas during a virtual event but keep in mind people may not be able to retain all that information.

As you go to prepare for your next virtual meeting or presentation, consider the top seven ideas you want to communicate. What’s important about them? How are they connected? What is the order in which they are important? Try to wean that down to three, These three may become the core focus of the call you lead. Consider how you can build in time to share and reinforce these three areas with your group - chunking it down to the three areas - start, middle and end.

There you go! It can be as easy as that to be able to chunk down your next training or call.

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326
Join us this weekend - November 12 -13 in Toronto (or visually) for the 2 day Group and Team Coaching Intensive (19 CCEs with the ICF).

#Teams365 #1043: Virtual Facilitation Tip #22: STart, Middle and Ends

11/8/2016

JThe latency and recency effects indicate that our brains remember the start and end of things. What happens in the middle is often a jumbled blurr. The implications for this is that in the virtual world, when leading a call where we may not have the agenda posted on a flipchart or available on the screen it can be important to place a heavier emphasis of the process, at several strategic times throughout the call.

The idea of first impressions are just as important in the virtual realm, and possibly even more so as we have today's natural habit of multi-tasking when on conference calls to compete with. What's the thing that's going to capture your group member's attention and quickly (and I mean within the first 30-60 sections) get them connected with the materials and topic you are exploring? Helping people recognize that this is going to be a different learning experience is important for virtual facilitators who want to lead engaging and effective virtual events to keep in mind.

For other things you'll want to incorporate at the start, refer to a post earlier this year on Preparing for your virtual event.

Even if your call is only one hour, at the middle, remind people of what you've covered and where you are going to go next. Finally, at the end fot he call provide everyone with one more process overview.

What is important for you to note about your process at different times?

Have a great Wednesday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Check out our newest on-demand course: Teams365 Teamwork Foundations
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365

Join me this weekend in Downtown Toronto for a two day coaching skills training program - the Group and Team Coaching Intensive approved for 19 CCEs with the ICF. Limited in person and virtual spots available to join the training virtually for the two days.

#Teams365 #1037: Virtual Facilitation Tip #19

11/2/2016

In the realm of virtual facilitation polls are often an underutilized feature. Some platforms require that you create them outside of the platform, whereas others will allow you to embed them. Earlier this year I had fun creating some polls for our blog using PinPoll. In the virtual facilitation space, consider how you might incorporate a poll to seek out participant's thoughts.
Here are some possible ways to use polls:
1. To test knowledge and what people have absorbed. It could be a multiple choice format. For example, which is true - a, b, c, or d (a and c)
2. To solicit input - i.e. What do you prefer? or
3. To gauge agreement - i.e. How much do you agree (strongly, somewhat, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree)
4. To get feedback - similar to polls you may get people to choose an emoji which represents how they feel as they are going off to lunch.
5. To consider what's next - i.e. What do you think will be the outcome? a. b, c, c etc.

What has been your experience with polls? How do you incorporate them into your work?
Have a great Wednesday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

November 01st, 2016

11/1/2016

Engagement and interactivity is key in moving away from a death by conference call mind set in virtual calls today. When using platforms such as WebEx, Abode Connect or even Zoom, getting our participants active with annotations and/or whiteboards can move the presentation from a one way mode into an interactive conversation.

Many virtual platforms will provide participants with annotation tools such as a pen, highlighter and/or typing ability. Consider how you can get people to use these during a virtual meeting or presentation. Consider the following:
Get people to use the text function to reply to a question posed on the screen (i.e. in your PowerPoint Deck). This is great when group numbers are bigger and the chat function may move to fast with the responses.
Provide a list of attributes - for example characteristics of a great leader - and have people put a check mark beside the two they most agree with or an X beside something you think doesn't belong.
Before your call starts, have the welcome slide show a map and have people dot where they are located. This can create a sense of connection, and interest.

Whiteboards are usually another function. You can create your own with a blank slide, or if a platform provides it, get people to capture their notes in breakouts using the whiteboard. They can then share it with other breakouts in the main plenary. Just like in a face to face meeting, these notes can be captured by others for overall learning and record.

What can you do this week to enhance the interaction in your virtual work? What will make it more hands on for people?

Have a great Tuesday,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326