​This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 77 is “Vary Approaches”. The key to more engaging virtual conversations on webinars, in conference calls and also in virtual team meetings is to vary approaches.

Most technologies today allow for a variety of ways to keep the conversation going. You might choose to:

• Use breakouts – and have people pair off or meet in smaller groups.
• Use annotation and mark up their thoughts on the screen, circle their responses.
• Incorporate a poll. You might integrate an external poll such as Kahoot, or use an internal polling function on platforms like zoom. Polls can be used to incorporate people’s feedback and shape the call, or to get insights and feedback on different ideas.
• Use more visuals. Visuals of all kinds can also create a bit more focus and engagement. Whether it’s a provocative image, a mapping of a process flow, a model which, or a photograph which creates a metaphor for a complex issue.

If you have a 30-minute meeting incorporating one or two different approaches can make it more memorable, which in today’s world is important, given that many professionals spend the day moving from meeting to meeting, with each meeting becoming a blur. In terms of next steps “Being Memorable” is key to landing near the top of the to do list!

Enjoy the start to your week,
Jennifer

​My 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations, takes a deeper dive into creating more engaging virtual conversations. With many meetings shifting into the virtual space, being able to host effective virtual meetings and conference calls is critical. The added complexities of not always seeing each other, or being able to follow up directly, means that meetings are not always effective.  Check out this past Wednesday’s prompt on 8 Essential Meeting Questions (Productivity Tip 9 of 19 for 2019), as well as stay tuned to the upcoming post on Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversation Tip.
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I’m reaching back today in this FlashbackFriday post to Teams365 #1015 where I shared these additional tips for creating more engaging conversations:

“Key to creating engaging and interactive virtual events is in pace and interactivity. To avoid the death by conference call mode, consider how you are able to adjust pacing for maximum interactivity.
Different ways to change pace include –

• Asking a question
• Getting people to annotate using pens, markers
• Asking people to comment in the chat box
• Creating breakout groups. Just like in person events, many services allow you to use breakout groups. Whether you pair people automatically or manually these can provide for a deeper level of conversation. Consider what opportunities you can leverage with breakouts and also how much time is needed for people to have a good discussion. It can take people several minutes to set themselves up as they arrive in their virtual domain.
• Creating a pause where you get people to take notes or complete an activity in silence real time
• Introducing a different media – i.e. showing a video you have created, or introducing a cartoon

What approaches do you want to use to introduce different pace changes?”
 
Enjoy your weekend!
Jennifer

Tip #9 – 8 Essential Meeting Questions
 
"The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions." -Patrick Lencioni

We can spend upwards of 40% of our time in meetings. Spending time to get focused on what make meetings work well can mean the difference between things getting done and decisions made, versus a sense that things were not working well.

In Effective Virtual Conversations, I shared 8 Essential Meeting Questions to ask at the start or end of any meeting. These include:

1. What’s the purpose?
2. What takeaways do we want?
3. Who needs to be on the call?
4. What preparation is needed for us to be most effective in the meeting?
5. What pace to do we want in order to keep it engaging?
6. What will help keep the focus?
7. What’s absolutely essential? (What’s essential, versus what will be nice to cover? If you can’t cover it, where can people go for more information around topics?)
8. What follow up might be required?

(Reference: Jennifer Britton, Effective Virtual Conversations, pp 304, 2017)

Meetings don’t have to be an ineffective use of time. In fact, a verbal meeting or call (face to face, or one held virtually) can replace a series of less effective emails. 

Activity:
Consider the upcoming meetings you have. Work through the 8 Essential Meeting Questions. Note any changes you want to make.

• What is working well about the meetings you hold?
• Who do you need to be meeting more frequently with?
• What meetings need to be retooled?
• What followup would be more effective?
• Are you always clear on next steps?
• What meetings do you need to say NO to?

Track how much time you are spending in meetings on a regular basis. What changes would you like to make?

Conversation Sparkers:

• What changes do you want to make to your upcoming meeting?
• What changes do you want to ask your meeting participants to make?
• What is your commitment to making meetings more effective this year?

Enjoy your conversations!
Best wishes,
Jennifer

​As I’ve been leading different types of conversations in the last few weeks through small group coaching, leadership training and keynotes, I have noticed that the conversation and focus is changing for many team members and leaders right now. In addition to thinking about what needs to get done, I’m also hearing a lot of leaders (and their teams) starting to look at opportunities for the new year.
 
Given that every week I am talking across a range of leadership and teamwork topics, I hear a wide variety of different areas, and key themes.
If I had to identify five that I have been hearing a lot of opportunities  around for the new year it would be:
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Getting better at hosting meetings. Think about how much time you have spent in meetings this week? This month? How many were face to face? How many were virtual? How effective were they? What would have made them more effective? Spending time getting better at meetings?
Building in more time for strategic thinking and action. With technology has helped us get better at so many things, and does make it easier, distraction and focus are key elements for business success in an ever-changing environment.
Scheduling in time for what’s important – Making sure we have the important items in our calendar and can get them done when we have energy. Daniel Pink’s book WHEN takes us into the realm of WHEN it is important to get things done. Circadian rhythms have been researched for many decades now, and many of us may be aware of what time of day is really best to get certain tasks done in. With the shift to mobile and remote work, many of us now have more flexibility in terms of how we operate and when we schedule our tasks.
Getting better at knowing our strengths and styles – Some of my favorite days are spent with teams who are learning more about their strengths and styles, interfacing this with helping them understand more about team effectiveness. I am pleased to continue to be able to offer support for teams, groups and individuals around strengths and styles. Whether we are exploring the DiSC together or StrengthsFinder, these are powerful frameworks which help to support individuals “lean into” what they naturally do well during times of change and uncertainty.  Change and uncertainty is the new norm for so many workplaces today.
 
Where do you want to put attention around for 2019? I hope that you will grab 15 minutes right now to make some notes for yourself and/or to schedule it in for focus. As Drucker wrote “What doesn’t get scheduled, doesn’t get done”.
 
With best wishes,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) 
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

This week’s Team Building Tip brings us to #209 of the series. Aligned with our shift to a focus on year-end, this week’s question to surface with the team is the question:
What needs to get completed by year end?
As you think about year end, here are 14 common year-end activities you will want to budget time and space for:

1. Reporting
2. Financials
3. Projects
4. Planning for new projects
5. Meeting with stakeholders (internal and external)
6. Communication planning for next year
7. Team development
8. Performance Reviews
9. Coaching Conversations
10. Learning for 2018
11. Learning for 2019 (individual and team level)
12. Peer Meetings
13. Meeting with our bosses
14. Meeting with other key internal partners

What else would you add to the list?
​
Enjoy!
Jennifer

As we step into November the wave of year-end activities, celebrations and push may be rearing it’s head. Today’s post is a reminder of five key things to get in your team calendar for 2019 right now. As we’ve explored here at the Teams365 blog over the last 5 years, certain skills are critical for success – teamwork skills, coaching, difficult conversations, team development and reflection time.
Five different things you may want to get into your calendars right now for the next year are:
 
Team meetings – Whether the entire team, or some of the team, attends, spending time on a regular basis to plan, and update, is key for alignment, communication and noticing what’s working and what’s not. Even if the team is remote, team meetings do need to happen on a regular basis.
For further ideas on team meetings, check out the post on 8 Questions to be asking before any team meeting.
 
Team development – Regular team development meetings are critical – not just for
 
Feedback conversations – Once a year performance reviews are being replaced in many organizations with ongoing feedback conversations. With this shift, it’s common for organizations to be experiencing:

1. A sense on the part of the leader that coaching and feedback conversations are happening more frequently than they really are. Block in time to your schedule for these key 1-1s, being clear on whether you are coaching or providing feedback.

2. Feedback and coaching are often getting blended together under the same umbrella. These are actually two separate activities and the danger of them being lumped together is that the staff member may not know what type of conversation they are part of.  Regardless off whether performance is good or not, it’s key to indicate when a performance conversation is a performance conversation. If changes are needed, this should be clear and non-negotiable.

On the other hand, coaching is voluntary initiative. The person being coached is the one “at choice” in terms of what they want to do. Coaching is about encouraging change. If a leader wants to prescribe change for the employee, coaching is not the right modality. That’s telling!

​Like other activities, it is important to get key 1-1 time and conversations into your calendar. What have you noticed about what’s worked in terms of time, availability and openness to these types of activities? Block out some time right now.

3. Mentoring – Mentoring is beneficial to us at all stages of our development. Having a variety of formal and informal mentoring relationships is key to ongoing career progression. Whether we are mentoring or being mentored, it’s common for both parties to benefit from a balanced mentoring relationship. Have you scheduled mentoring into your calendar for 2019?

4. Team development – Beyond team meetings, we all benefit from formal and informal team development opportunities. Some research, including the 2016 Culture Wizard Survey, found that only 22% of virtual and remote teams benefited from team development. What are the activities you have scheduled for 2019?  

5. Skill Development and ongoing learning – Whether we are a leader, or a team member, ongoing learning and skill development opportunities are key to keeping us equipped for the ongoing landscape of work. As I explored in Effective Virtual Conversations, the Virtual Learning Ecosystem today is vast. From attending MOOCS (Massive Online Open Courses) at Universities for Credit, to micro-learning modules, from webinars, to virtual team development, skills development and ongoing learning can take many forms.  
​
As a team have you discussed what skill development and ongoing learning each team member wants to undertake in the next year?
What doesn’t get scheduled, doesn’t get done. Be sure to block dedicated time in your calendar for these five activities during 2019.
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Best wishes,
Jennifer

What team practices are supporting relationships?
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From the realm of high performance we know that teams which excel have strong relationships. Part of this is making sure we have strong team practices – that could include Monday morning meetings, a mini-team event each month, a Thursday night social or a quarterly team development activity.

Consider your team right now and think about what is needed on the part of the team. What will help the team connect, have fun and get to know each other? Having fun as a team is important as it can help people relax and bring themselves more naturally into their work. If they are not able to bring their natural self to the workplace, disconnect may happen between how they work at home and how they work at work.

Here are seven different ways teams may be connecting with each other:

1. Daily huddles or quick status meetings (10-15 minutes) to keep projects on task.
2. Monday morning meetings – a meeting at the start of the week can support focus and alignment for the team, assisting with priorities and information sharing. Monday meetings may also flag issues that need to be addressed but haven’t been noted before.
3. Monthly project assessments – some teams may do a short monthly team meeting, highlighting key projects which need attention and/or doing a review. Some of the more common project questions are included under the next category of team debrief.
4. Team debriefs post major project (or mid-term). These may get the team to identify lessons learned, what’s working, what’s not and suggestions for the future.
5. A weekly or monthly social event around town. PingPong and darts are favorite options. Escape rooms and/or axe throwing are for teams who are more edgy (note: these options may not be applicable or appropriate for every team and their culture!).
6. Quarterly Booster Shots – Dedicating half a day or a full day to team development and/or learning. It could be undertaking an assessment together such as the Everything DiSC, or StrengthsFinder.
7. Key to making these valuable team practices, teams will want to consider the purpose and efficiency of each approach. Just because you do it, doesn’t mean it’s going well.
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What is the team finding valuable? What needs a change?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

​This week’s Effective Virtual Conversation’s tip #66 brings us to tip #3 in the series of Virtual Team Success. This week’s tip gets you thinking about how you want to keep in touch. In today’s virtual space there are several vehicles teams can leverage for keeping in touch, as well as facilitating meetings and planning.
Let’s take a look at three of them:

Zoom – Great for streaming and meetings on the go, zoom provides multiple benefits – from the  ability to screen share to the ability to activate breakouts in meeting space. With the teams that I work with, many professionals like the flexibility of being able to call in via phone, connect via their desk top or lap top, as well as use the mobile app to connect via phone.

Skype – Skype for business is being leveraged by many organizations today. With the benefits of streaming and visuals, it provides a great option for meetings and presentations.

The final platform I wanted to mention today was that of Slack. Slack is a common go-to platform for real-time communication. 

When working with smaller teams around planning and projects you may also want to check out platforms including Trello and Asana.

What are some of your favorite virtual platforms? What do you use for meetings? Presentations? Project Management? Communication?

​Let us know by sharing in the comments.

Thanks!
Jennifer

In today’s business context, the ability to build strong relationships with our team, and our other stakeholders is critical.

A starting point to create connection and build community is to find common connection points. Whether finding common ground by discussing the shared results you have OR starting with finding a personal connection, building community is critical for information sharing, knowledge expansion and innovation. Most professionals don’t operate in silos, yet, when they are working remote or virtually, it’s common to feel “alone”, or operating in a vacuum. The ability to connect with others and build strong virtual relationships and networks is a core skill area for virtual professionals.

How do we go about creating connection and building community virtually?

Six areas to consider:
1. Find points of common connection – what is the common ground and purpose you have in your relationship?
2. What is critical for success for your work together? Discuss what is important from each perspective in terms of success. Note what is similar and different.
3. Understand how people prefer to communicate – Big picture? Details? Frequent updates or summary journals? Direct? Indirect?
4. On a macro-level, who is important for you to build relationships with? How do you do this? Is it by joining LinkedIn Groups? Connecting on other social networks? As you look to these larger communities, what are the core themes/areas people are exploring. What are the trends? What are the virtual meeting places?
5. Be clear on what you are after and what you are asking to connect around. Like any networking and community building it can be important to be clear and focused on WHY you are doing it. What is your end goal? Intention?
6. Create parameters around HOW you are going to do it is also important – Before it becomes an all-consuming activity, are you going to spend 10-15 minutes a day connecting on social media? Are you going to dedicate one-hour a month to reaching out and participating in a virtual community event? What’s going to avoid scope creep around time spent.

Best, 
Jennifer

Teams like to have fun! When the word team building comes to mind, Fun is often the first thing that does emerge. What are you doing to have fun on your team? Spending time together to get to know each other in a social context can be invaluable in creating stronger bonds. AND, it should be supported by a focus on what needs to get done as well.
Here are a couple of ideas on different team building processes:
 
 
Getting creative thinking happening:
Tool #8 - Word Grams – Creative Thinking
Word Grams were a popular approach in 1990s training, and a great energizer for training of all kinds. Research some word grams online and use them to warm up the space for creative thinking in your next team meeting. Here are some examples:
 
 
Creative Thinking is important today given the complexities that exist, the need to think “outside of the box” and the need for innovation.
 
Tool #9 – Working Around Decisions
Team members and leaders face decisions every day.
A 2015 article indicates that we make 35,000 decisions a day, including 227 on food alone. Read it here.
Helping team members make better decisions is critical for team alignment and success.
Across the span of a day, we may be making decisions around resourcing, priorities, relationships, and what gets our attention.
What are the tools and processes you want to build skills in with your team? Consider the Decision Matrix. Steven Covey’s Urgent/Important matrix is probably one of the most familiar, and popular ones that exist. There are many others so do some research around tools you can bring in to  help team members make better decisions.
Check out this article from Concordia University on the 7 Steps of the Decision Making Process, which also includes a focus on some of the challenges we can have with decision making. Read it here.
 
What is important for your team to take action on right now? Let us know using the comments below.

Warm regards,
Jennifer