Yesterday’s Teams365 post #1905 focused on virtual team culture. Be sure to check it out if you haven't done so.

Today I wanted to explore three different ways you might support your team in identifying their own virtual team culture.

As a reminder, team culture usually points to three things - who we are, how do we do things and what is important to us.

Here’s a quick listing of different activities you might consider incorporating:

Who we are:
Virtual teams which excel know each other. They have strong relationships across the team, which allows them to call on others, and “have each others’ backs”. To strengthen your connection, consider these activities:

Have the team create a list of words/adjectives which describe who you are. Shape these into a word cloud which can be visible to the team.
Discuss the question “Who are we when we are at our best?”. Again, use the words to create a graphic about who you are.

At your next team meeting, have each person share one thing others may not know about them.

At your next team meeting, have each person share something that is unique to their location (this works especially well if you have a global team).

In your next meeting, share your screen which includes a variety of photos or icons. Have each person select the photo or icon which represents what they bring to the team.

How we do things:
Each team will have its own unique practices and ways of doing things. This will vary from team to team. Spending time discussing how you do things, and what the expectations are, creates clarity and builds trust, boosting both performance and results.

To explore this topic further consider:
Discussing “how we do things” (communicate, make decisions, work across differences, address conflict) can be a series of different discussions and activities. It might include a Rules of the Road which everyone has signed off on.

What makes you unique and distinct in terms of how you do things?

Another tool is to look at the IS/IS NOT table. This can include it is, it is not…
 
What is important to us:
Clarity around priorities and goals for the entire team helps with alignment, prioritization and decision making. Spending time on a regular basis discussing what is important to us may also involve:
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A list visible to the entire team (ie. Think Intranet or other post on)

• Top 5 Goals for the month
• Top 5 Priorities for the week
• Top 5 Priorities for the quarter
• Enshrining your Team Agreements or Ways of Working into something that is visible. Some teams have enshrined this into a plaque, a screen saver or other.

For more on these topics, and a demonstration of what some of these can look like (photos), take a look at my January 2019 Virtual Team Builders call which I did as part of the Effective Virtual Conversations series. You can check it out here.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

This month I am highlighting different virtual team builders. These are all things I use regularly with different teams I work with. From health care, to social services, public service to IT. Yesterday I spotlighted a quick energizer/warm up called COINS, and today I wanted to talk a little about using ICONS to explore different topics.

Here’s what I wrote about incorporating icons into a virtual team session:
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“Another exercise I use regularly in helping teams get to know each other, and stat to build trust is sharing a slide which has a variety of icons on it. You will see an example below. While I show this on the screen I have select an icon which represents what they are bringing to the group/team that day or what they are thinking about around the topic we are exploring.

This exercise has the advantage of providing a springboard for some interesting themes to emerge in the conversation.

Here's an example of a recent icons slide I shared. I purchased the original graphic over at Adobe Stock.
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I’ve used iterations of ICON activities for different teams I’ve worked with. Sometimes we are exploring the topic of feedback, other times, difficult conversations, goals for the year, or sometimes goals for the year. The benefit of using ICONS is that it can provide new layers to a conversation. When people are working in different languages, or even the same language, it can provide some new nuances to a conversation, energizing it in different ways.
 
How might you incorporate more around icons in your work?

For more on creating engaging virtual conversations, and virtual team development, check out my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations.

Best,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.
​

As I wrote in my most recent Effective Virtual Conversations newsletter,  one of my favorite “ad-hoc” virtual team builder activity is one called COINS. I picked this up from a colleague several years ago who uses it regularly for in-person programs. I’ve found it to be just as effective in virtual programs.

Here’s how I described it in this month’s newsletter:

Exercise #1 - COINS
This exercise involves team members selecting some change/coins that they have available at their desk (or maybe in their pocket or their briefcase or purse).
 
First they need to select a coin and then notice what is the year on that coin.
 
The invitation is to share one thing about your work, your life, or what you were doing in the world during that year.

Perhaps I picked 2004. That was the year Potentials Realized, my company was started. Maybe I pick a coin that was 2009, which was the first year one of my books was published - Effective Group Coaching, or maybe I picked 2017 and I decided to talk a little bit about releasing Effective Virtual Conversations.

So coins is a lower risk exercise. Hopefully people have materials on hand.

This exercise can be a real conversation starter especially if you are working with a global team. It is interesting for people to show their national coinage. It also gives people a chance to talk a little bit more about how coins operate or how currency operates in their own context.”

How might you incorporate an activity/conversation starter like COINS in your next activity?
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For more on creating engaging virtual conversations, and virtual team development, check out my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations.
 
Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), Coaching Business Builder (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where we explore topics related to productivity, teamwork, coaching, business development and leadership. ​

​Today’s Effective Virtual Conversation tip is that “Parking Lots provide a virtual space to leave issues for discussion later”. In any given program or meeting, it is likely that there will be additional items which cannot be covered during the conversation. Capturing these in a parking lot is really beneficial to make sure they don’t get lost. What is critical in any conversation is that the parking lot issues go somewhere and are not lost.
 
What can you do to create a parking lot in your work? What can you do to capture them? What will you do or schedule to make sure they are not lost?
 
With best wishes,
Jennifer

We’ve finally made it to Pitfall #10 of the Effective Virtual Conversations Tip - the Multi-tasking Mindset. This is tip #47 in the series.
 
Here’s what I wrote in Effective Virtual Conversations about pitfall #10 in virtual facilitation:
 
“The multi-tasking mindset can be commonplace for many of us. What can you do to capture people's attention and keep it focused?
Solution: Consider these questions.
·         Are you making a request for people to disconnect from other technologies?
·         Are you changing the pace frequently (i.e. every 5-7 or 10 minutes)?
·         Are you creating opportunities for individuals to pause and engage at their desk?
·         What engagement strategies are you employing?”
As I have shared in other posts, engagement is critical in avoiding the “Death by Conference Call” mindset. We want to be using a variety of approaches – from breakouts where people can connect with each other, to using annotation to get people to share their ideas on the screen. It’s likely that when people are on their own devices, the allure of multi-tasking is going to be great, and if they are in dialogue with each other, they may find that more engaging and focusing.
 
What are the strategies you could use to support greater engagement in your calls.
For more ideas, check out some of the monthly Effective Virtual Conversation calls I’ve hosted since the book launched last July, including the October 2017 call on Breakouts that Sizzle. You can view the playlist here.

​With best wishes,
​Jennifer
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It's Monday and time for another tip for your next virtual meeting, webinar or virtual conversation. It comes from my latest book, Effective Virtual Conversations.

Today’s quote explores pitfall #6  when technology breaks down. In virtual work it can be useful to consider that technology will likely break down, rather than be stable.

As I wrote in Effective Virtual Conversations,
“Technology glitches are one of the most common tricky issues facilitators can face. Always having a back up – or multiple back ups to guard against this. Check out the services you are using and have a back up. Make sure your connection works from your landline and mobile (and VoIP). Sometimes there can be a difference as to what you can access and where.
Know how to complete quick items like record, mute, unmute, raise hands, chat or work a white board. Practice is usually the only way to master these.”

One of the things that a lot of new virtual facilitators find challenging is working with new skill areas or having to multi-task with new skills in two areas. For example, reading chat and speaking at the same time may not be an easy approach, nor may creating breakout rooms while still speaking.  Sometimes you may just want to provide a short pause to allow people to write something down or take notes about learning or next steps, while you are trying to do two things at once that you may not be familiar with.

Over the last few weeks I've been exploring common pitfalls to watch out for when leading virtual calls - conference calls, webinars or virtual coaching sessions. A more common one is that the recording does not work. I f you aer hosting an ongoing group which has group members absent who are relying on the recording, this can be a big deal. Having a reminder or checklist to go through to make sure the recording is on when you start is one approach, as is having a back up on a different system, for example, recording to One Note on a computer if the recording feature you do have, does not work. I am saying here "on a different system" because sometimes  the recording on the same system may not work. Be sure to test it in whatever set up you have.

Here's what I wrote about this pitfall in Effective Virtual Conversations:
Sometimes group members will not be able to attend calls and will want to catch up by listening to a recording. Sometimes this does not work.

Solution: Make a habit of checking and knowing that your recording is working. If you run a similar program over time it can be useful to have a recording for classes recorded each time.  If the system's recording facility does not work, what can you put in place. My usual back up is often going to One-Note, which can usually record the audio component of my call. I always have a spare laptop on hand to do this so that it is not recording from the system.

Enjoy the start to your week,
Jennifer

This week we make our way to the 4th pitfall which virtual facilitators of all kinds may face in their conversations. It can be common that one person can't get on the platform you are using. This may be more common for one-off programs, or when you have a global group, where different platforms may be accessible or not.

In pitfall #4, there are a number of different strategies we can take. Here's what I write in Effective Virtual Conversations:

"Virtual events can be intimidating ..... Spend time with your team/event participants in advance setting them up for success.

Solutions: Give participants the opportunity to log on and test the systems prior to the event. Be specific on what time you want everyone on the line. For example, if a call starts at 9 am, having them on the line at 8:45.
It can also be useful to develop a troubleshooting guide people can refer to (i.e. if this happens, try this...) or provide a video tutorial for common blips.
It is important to keep the program moving so always have a back up person who can help that person rather than leaving them to figure it out for themselves.
Finally, figure out if there is an alternative way for people to join. For example, they are having problems with their broadband. Can they call in instead? What supports would they need in advance to benefit from this?"

One of the things I make as a regular practice when I am facilitating solo and do not have a producer or other program support back up, is to host a pre-call as part of the program, on the platform we are using. In addition to ensuring that everyone can access the platform and knows how to, this can be a valuable pre-program activity helping you see the connection between different person's goals and focus areas.

What do you want to put in place to ensure that everyone can access the call?

A few weeks ago I started the 10 Common Pitfalls in Virtual Facilitation series, exploring on a weekly basis different pitfalls that we can face when we are leading a virtual call - webinars, conference calls, or virtual coaching sessions. To newer facilitators these often represent the barrier to moving their conversations to the virtual space.

Take a look at our first two Pitfalls here.
Pitfall #1 - Read it here in Teams365 #1553
Pitfall #2: You can't upload your presentation - Read it here.

This week's pitfall, pitfall #3, gets you thinking about what happens if the group can't hear you. As I write:

"Solution:  Occasionally this crops up. You may need just to log in again. Some platforms allow you to do an audio test prior to the session, so you are confident you can be heard. If only one or two participants can't hear you, then it is likely their connection and not yours. Before you log off to reconnect (which may disrupt the system), check on how many people can't hear you."

There are a few other things that may be going on as well:
Your mike is muted
Your system volume is lower than it should be
There is a lot of background noise - consider wearing a headset or investing in a specialized mike OR making sure your calls are hosted in a place where you can close the door an minimize any ambient noise.

What is going to give your call sound the best quality? Have you done a test to see how you sound? It's easy to do and well worth taking a few minutes to check out before you host a call.

I cover these pitfalls in greater depth throughout Effective Virtual Conversations. If you haven't picked up a copy yet you will want to consider adding it to your bookshelf. Typical of my writing, it's a robust, practically written reference guide to creating more engaging, and interactive virtual events. Conference calls and video streaming doesn't have to be boring! Pick up a copy at Amazon here.

Given my own background as a virtual team leader I have always been hungry for more resources regarding what will help teams excel in the virtual space. A 2016 study by Culture Wizard found that only 22% of virtual teams had engaged in development of their team. How much focus do virtual and remote teams at your organization get in terms of their development? Sadly, I think "out of sight" does translate to "out of mind" for many organizations when it comes to the virtual and remote workforce.

​As I wrote on page 354 of my book, Effective Virtual Conversations:
​"“There are several factors that can make virtual team development challenging. It is not only the time zone differences, but different priorities, the perceived lack of connection, feelings, and that team members don’t understand your reality or the lack of every day cues.”

​How are these factors playing into team identity and culture?
​What can you be doing to help team members understand the different priorities they bring?
​What can you do to boost connection?

​Some recent posts you will want to check out is the 20 Activities for Your Virtual and Remote Team Series, along with focusing on spending intentional time identifying elements of your team culture.

More on this to come this month!

Best wishes,
​Jennifer