​Given our quickly shifting focus to the holidays and year end, I thought it would be appropriate to shift our attention back to a Linked In article I wrote and post I shared this time last year – Teams365 #1389.

This "It’s that time of year for parties, year-end team retreats and other events. Are you maximizing the amount of time and impact of these team events?

Having supported year-end programming for teams and organizations for many years I thought it would be useful to share four focus areas you may want to consider as you start preparing, planning and perhaps facilitating your year-end processes.

Number One — What’s the purpose? If you had to distill down the top two or three takeaways from the retreat process or that off site, what is it? The purpose of our year-end function can impact the structure and activities undertaken in the program.

Is the purpose of your year-end event:

• to build connection?
• to share important information?
• do some goal planning?
• to build understanding across the silos, that may exist within your organization?

I’d encourage you to think about the top two or three purposes of the upcoming program and link to consideration #2.

Number Two — What is the connection to the business? Think about what is the connection to the business. It’s still very common in today’s world for people to just go through the motions of a traditional annual year end party and /or event. 
Are you really maximizing that investment of bringing people together?
Could you build into that luncheon a half-day session before or after, to do some work with your staff teams to support their development, to help them look at their skills and strengths and styles and also to share with them, you know, and help them connect to the link with your business.
What opportunities do you have already formalized for bringing people together at year-end? What changes or additions do you want to make?

Number Three — Do you want to do it all alone? Many organizations today have a committee and amongst that committee membership, there may be some members who would be very comfortable in facilitating your year-end team or organizational process.
So, think about who might be best equipped to do the work? Is it you, members of that committee or maybe you are interested in bringing in an external facilitator?
One of the things we do, is either we come in and facilitate or develop activities which you can facilitate yourself.
Think about how you might be able to leverage the resources you have and or bring in some special guest speakers or external resources to contribute to the environment that you want to create.

Number Four — How are you going to take this forward? One of the biggest challenges that we see in learning and development today is this continued lack of transferability to the work place.
This was what drew me to focus more on the area of Coaching which places an ongoing emphasis on accountability and transferability to the workplace.
One the things I like to encourage organizations that I partner with to always thinking about is – How will you sustain the conversation? How will you take this forward into your work?
Hopefully any year-end retreat process or year-end meeting will have an action step and a very formalized action planning stage. Remember to build in time in the new year to revisit your commitments and accountabilities.

Here’s a quick recap:
Number One - Think about the purpose. What are the top three or four reasons or things that you want people to take away?
Number Two - What’s the link of the year-end program to the business? Is it just to have fun or something else?
Number Three - As your approaching your year-end processes, is this something you want to do or do you want to bring in a facilitator? A third option perhaps is to have something designed for you, so you can facilitate it yourself.
And finally, Number Four. What are the takeaways? How will people sustain the conversation? When will you check in on your actions and commitments?
I hope that you’re finding these ideas valuable, practical, and of course, implementable."
What are you looking forward to creating for your team in terms of year end planning and reflection?

Take a look at some of the other year end posts here. 

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
Join Jennifer for a year-end virtual planning retreat in the PlanDoTrack Series!
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
YouTube – Teams365 Leadership Channel
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

As we start creeping to the close of the year, pressure ramps up to “Get it done!”. There may not seem to be enough hours in the day, or even the rest of the year, to get EVERY. THING. DONE!

Today’s post gets you thinking about a number of “year-end productivity hacks” which bring us back to some of the tried and true prioritization tools:

#1 – Understanding your Pareto Ratio – The 80/20 rule asserts that we get 80% of our results from 20% of our efforts. While it may not be truly 80% it can be very useful to think about the areas that provide the most impact in your work, and the results you are aiming towards.
It can be very useful to understand where we get our impact, particularly at crunch time, so that we know what to say yes to, and what we want to say no to.
 
#2 – Going back to Covey’s Urgent/Important Framework – I have written about how a five day training around Steven Covey’s work as a younger manager more than 15 years ago, still influences my thinking about time management. If you haven’t read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, do it now! With the volume of distractions at a peak (from social media, to tech, to diffuse focus):

• What’s really important to be focusing on now?
• What’s important in the mid-term so that you are setting yourself up for success in the new year?
• What are distractions and time wasters?
  

#3 – What can you delegate and defer?
Delegation continues to be a stretch area for most professionals today. Many times we feel we can’t delegate or we have no one to delegate to? What are the tasks that only you can do? What are the tasks that could be chunked down/broken down, so others might be able to complete?
For more on delegation – check out this LinkedIn article “Your Key To Success: Effective Delegation” I wrote on delegation.

#4 – What is absolutely essential?
Sometimes we really need to get ruthless with  our time, asking “what’s absolutely essential?”. As we get into crunch time, what are the things we need to move to the finish line this year, no matter what? What are the elements that can carry over? What elements need to be put on hold?
 
For more on these prioritization tools, take a look at what I wrote in Teams365 #951 on prioritization.

​It may seem early to some, but before we know it, the end of the year will be here! If you are a business owner or team leader, already you may have your year-end celebrations well in place. If you don’t, it’s not too late! Here’s a post I wrote back in 2015 on 10 different things you might want to build in time for at year end. Here’s what I wrote in Teams365 #703.

Today's post gets you to think further about year end activities and possible retreat ideas for your team. While not everyone will be able to take a day away from the office, even spreading some of these activities over a couple of weeks, or the next month or two, gets you thinking about and in dialogue about important issues.

Here are ten things to be sparking focus and conversation around with your team:

1. Creating a Year in Summary - Using photos or words  how would you describe the highlights of the last year
2. Strengths based work using either StrengthsFinder or VIA Strengths
3. Goal setting for the new year - overall goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals. Looking at how individual, team and organizational goals overlap
4. Creating an action plan for the new year
5. Creating a Vision for the new year
6. Vision Modelling - using tin foil, plastercine or paper mache, coming up with a model for your vision that you as a team can look at regularly
7. Coming up with a theme for the year
8. Taking time to acknowledge each other
9. Celebrating your successes from the year -  a lunch out (or in) or a night out bowling or playing ping pong (yes teams can have fun together!)
10. Setting an intention for the year

What other activities might you undertake to wrap up the year together?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

In today’s busy world, it’s very common to get on the treadmill of doing, without taking time to stop, and reflect on what’s working and what’s not. While we might not have a full day to dedicate to planning regularly “micro-bursts” of 5-15 minutes regularly can make a difference.
Peter Drucker wrote “ Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action”  Peter Drucker
Over the last 8 days we have explored:
Take stock of your achievements and successes from the year that was – Day 1. Read it here.
Create a clear and compelling vision of your year – Day 2. Read it here
Be specific with your goals – Day 3. Read it here.
Identify and focus on priorities first – Day 4. Read it here.
Create habits and practices that will support you in what you want to achieve – Day 5. Read it here.
Be ruthless with your time and scheduling – Day 6
Develop a community of support around you – Day 7
In the same vein, building in time to celebrate is 
Consider these questions for today’s prompts:
1.       As you think back to the last 8 days, what have you achieved?
2.       What needs a change from the original goals you mapped out last week?
3.       What momentum have you created for yourself? 
4.       What are you most surprised about?
5.       What have you learned about yourself, your vision and your goals?
6.       What have you noticed about your pace of action and reflection (i.e. when do you do this best – early morning? Late at night? In chunks?) 
7.       What time do you want to build in to make planning, and “quiet reflection” a regular part of your world?
8.         What will you do to celebrate your movement forward?
9.       Complete this sentence, by the end of January I will have…..
10.     By the end of the year I will have….
Thank you for joining me as we kick off January 2018. I will be scheduling in a quarterly virtual retreat throughout the year and hope that you may join me to reflect, take stock and most importantly take action!
Stay tuned for the monthly planning resource templates I am sharing (first one here – the Quarterly Plan)

Earlier this week I started the Kickstart Your 2018 – 8 Sets of Questions for 2018. I hope that you will check out day 1 and 2 here.

In kickstarting your year, you will want to make sure that you are as specific with your goals as possible.

Did you know:
​More than 
​About 44% of American's will set goals for the year? (
92% of new years resolutions will fail by January 15th?
One of the most often goal setting studies quoted from Harvard, really did not take place at all?
Dominican university Dr. Matthews was able to replicate the same study and found that three factors helped with goal success:
accountability,
commitment,
and writing down one’s goals
 
Goals, along with writing them down, accountability (ongoing check points) and commiting to what you want to achieve are  all foundational parts of the coaching process and strategies which myself, and other business coaches, use with our coaching clients.

View Dr. Matthew’s goals study report here and link through to the summary – https://www.dominican.edu/dominicannews/study-highlights-strategies-for-achieving-goals

As part of today’s Kickstart Your 2018 – 8 in 18, today’s focus and reflection questions get you to think about your goals, and more importantly getting more specific about them.

​I hope that you will find 15 minutes to reflect on these questions and write them down. First, take a look back at Day 1 and Day 2, and what you have laid out as part of your vision:
1.        What are top five goals for you in 2018? Write these down.
2.       Looking at each one at a time consider how they can be made SMART-E – Specific, Measurable, Acheivable, Realistic, Timebound and, of course, exciting. Take a few more minutes to break them down further.
One of the tools I like to use to capture my goals is a One Page Plan. Click here to download a One Page Plan Template from my newest book, Effective Virtual Conversations, where I share 18 different templates for you to use in your own work.
3.       Imagine the year overall, what will the way each goal connects with the others?
4.       Map out your timeline or what the journey is going to look like for you. You might make it a roadmap, a stream or other….(See my 2018 roadmap)
5.       What’s possible once you complete each goal?
6.       What resources do you need to be successful with each goal? Consider – people, money, equipment, knowledge, etc.
7.         What could get in the way?
8.         What have you done in the past that you could leverage or apply so that you are successful?
9.         What will you do to keep your goals visible? This could include writing them on a whiteboard, putting an alert on your phone, using an app. Check out Elise Morneau’s article on Best Goal Setting Apps, updated a few days ago at: https://www.lifewire.com/best-goal-setting-apps-3485941
10.    What checkpoints will you use the review and check in around the goals. When will this happen? How will you celebrate? Write these checkpoints in your calendar before you go any further!

That’s our ten questions for today….if you have an extra minute, flip through what you’ve noted for yourself over the last three days. What, if any, trends are you noticing?

Enjoy day 3 of the new year!

​Jennifer
_____________________________________________
A reminder of these two resources available to support you throughout 2018:
A couple of resources that are available to you in kickstarting your 2018. First, join our Get [  ] Done (you fill in the blank) list and receive a monthly planning template you can use in your own planning. Join the list here and download your first planning item – currently this month’s template of a Quarterly Plan.

Friday I am hosting the  Kickstart Your 2018 Virtual Business Planning Retreat. It will run on Friday January 5th from 10 – 4 pm ET on zoom. Kickstarting the year requires focus and action, and my business planning retreats are geared to get you into action. Each hour has a different theme and includes some group time at the start of the hour, followed by individual activities undertaken offline. Hourly themes include:
·         Creating or refining your 2018 Vision
·         Exploring your ecosystem of strengths, capabilities and values
·         Developing your 2018 Roadmap
·         Taking action on a key project
​
The program costs $97 US and includes the six hours of structured activities, group calls and a retreat workbook. Click here to learn more about the day and reserve your spot.

What's your plan for 2018? It's not too late to take a few minutes to make a note of your 2018 planning. For the last several years here at the Teams365 blog I have shared several questions to help you take stock of the year that was (see Teams365 #1458 on Thursday of this week for these questions), and questions to help you plan for the year ahead. Each time I add on a few more.

Here are some to get your juices, and plans, flowing:

• What are your top 5 goals for the new year – individually? Collectively?  Organizationally?
• What successes from 2017 can you build on?
  
• What is going to help you create momentum in the new year?
  
• Who can help you move your plans forward?
  
• What activities are core to the success of you and/or your team in 2018?
  
• What do you want the theme of the new year to be?
  
• What systems will be important for you to put in place or refine?
• What will help accelerate results?
• What will be key relationships to foster or focus on in 2018?
  
• What pauses do you want to build in for reflection and capturing lessons learned. Schedule these in your calendar now!   `
• When you look back on December 31, 2018 what do you hope the year will have brought to you?
  

For those that enjoy an audio version, check out the 2014 recording I did as part of the Inner Biz Virtual Retreat. You can listen in, and follow along, with this 10 minute recording. Enjoy!

Tomorrow I'll be taking a look back at some of the themes we covered this year at the Teams365 blog, and of course, on Monday we step into the new year! We'll start celebrating our 5th year of blogging here at the Teams365 blog. I can't wait. How about you?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

As part of the Flashback Friday series, where I take a look back at some of the almost 1500 past blog posts, I'm pulling out one of the first Teams365 #Flashback Friday posts from last December. I thought it would be appropriate given many of our focus this week on planning for the new year.

How are your plans coming? If you haven't seen yesterday's post, take a look at Teams365 #1458 - Questions to Take Stock of 2017, and stay tuned for Teams365 #1460 tomorrow when I share more than a dozen questions you can use to create, or refine, your 2018 plans.

Here's what I shared last December about planning and resolutions....take heed.

"Today's post includes some of the questions I posed to you last year at this time as you got to thinking about your new year's resolutions and how to be more successful with them.

Here's what I wrote last year in Teams365 #729 (view the original post here)

"What are your new year's resolutions? Some common ones I've heard from team leaders in recent years have included:

* Spending more one-on-one time with team members
* Making meetings more efficient
* Getting a handle on email management and/or other office organizing issues
* Creating more defined boundaries with time on and time off of work
* Creating more defined boundaries around technology
*Becoming more efficient with time
* Getting more exercise (especially at lunch time to create  a break and thinking time!)

What are your new year's resolutions? Take a look at the statistics around new years resolutions which StatisticsBrain.com have shared here.

They note that 45% of American adults create new years resolutions with 8% being successful. That's a pretty low percentage. I've recently had dialogue with a number of team leaders I coach and support around thinkgs they may want to do to raise that amount and be more successful.

Here are four things you might want to consider in making your resolutions stick into 2016:

1. Be clear in articulating them. The StatisticsBrain.com article  notes that those who are explicit in making new years resolutions are 10x more successful in achieving their goal.

2. Write them down and make them visible. Many of us, myself included, set resolutions but don't make them visible. Post its, or a reminder on your phone can help to
What will help keep your goals visible?

3. Share goals and create some accountability partners around them - Share your goals with others and create some accountability partners who can cheer you on, or hold your feet to the fire (whatever is needed by you in that moment!). We know from lots of studies how important having an accountability partner really is
Who do you want to share your resolutions with? Who can be a support or accountability partner to you?

4. Be selective in the number of resolutions you choose. It's very easy to create a long laundry list of things you want to do AND the more we add to the list, the harder it may be to remember, or the more diffuse our efforts become. You may have one or two major goals in different areas of your life, OR a small handful across areas (such as finances, relationships, career/business, family, health etc)

Ultimately, what are the resolutions you want to focus on?

What's it going to take for you to be successful in moving the most important goal of yours forward for the new year? Who can support you with this?"

Have a wonderful last weekend of the year,
Jennifer

With the first part of the holidays behind us, it's now time to turn our attention to the end of the year. One of my favorite part of my work as a coach is creating a "pause" with the leaders and professionals I work with, to take a look back at what they have accomplished, and take a look at the year ahead. Today's focus is going to take us to looking back at the past year, and later this week we'll focus on looking ahead.
I hope that you will grab 15 minutes today or this week to reflect on these questions to take stock of the past year.

Grab a pen, a journal and one of your favorite snacks; Here are several questions to support you in taking a look back at the last year:
1. What's been your biggest success this year?
2. What are you most proud of accomplishing?
3. What were your greatest results?
4. What habits have most supported you this year? What new habits did you develop?
5. What three adjectives sum up the year for you?
6. What were the key relationships instrumental to your success and experience this year?
7. What were the key resources which helped you this year?
8. What has been your biggest, and most important, learning this year?
8. If you were to give this year a book title, or the name of a song, what would it be?
9. What do you want to make sure you keep doing in the new year? What do you want to stop doing?
10. What do you want to acknowledge yourself for?
11. What and how will you celebrate the successes of 2017? With whom?

Stay tuned for some more questions coming your way on Saturday, to take a look ahead at what you want to create.

Enjoy your Thursday
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Potentials Realized - Leadership and Team Development, Coaching, Retreats
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email us to find out how we can support you and your team in getting your best results through coaching, training or a retreat program
​Looking for more cool things to do with your team? Check out our Potentials Realized store for books, emanuals, and the Conversation Sparker Cards.
(416)996-TEAM (8326)

This week's Team Building Question #163 asks you to reflect on, and capture, what are you most proud of accomplishing this year?

In today's busy business context we are often running so fast that we do not take time to pause and celebrate our accomplishments.

Noting what you have achieved may help to:
Set a baseline for future progress
Help others to know what they can come to you about
Identify strengths and skills available
Pinpoint best practices which can be used on future projects

I hope that you will enjoy your conversation and find that it's a rich discussion for you as a team.

If you have not yet checked out one of the Annual Team Reflection Videos (2 min), check out
Teams365 #1433: Team Planning Questions for the New Year here

or Teams365 #1426: Year End Team Reflection Questions here.

Best,
Jennifer