Focus and attention are key parts of business success today. It can be very easy to get off track, or down the rabbit hole of distractions. Focus has become an area that is getting explored in greater depth these days.

It’s not always just about whether you are focusing or not, but it is also the question of “What are you focusing on?”. Are you focusing on the things that are immediate and urgent, or are you working on those issues which may be what Chip Heath calls “upstream”? The more proactive, systemic issues, which I would call proactive or strategic. In another week I’ll be leading some strategic thinking training and what we know about strategic thinking is that it’s part creative, and a large part proactive. It can incorporate, WHAT IF, as well as WHAT THEN.

Professionally, I entered the workforce in the early 1990s and was privileged in my work in the non-profit world to be exposed to a lot of strategic thinkers and planners.  This shaped a large part of my work as a leader and facilitator in the global sphere during the 90s and early 2000s. Some of my frontline work was in economies moving through significant transition and change. I had not realized until recently that some of these older stalwarts of strategic thinking had transitioned out of the workspace (which makes sense as I think of age).

We know that in disruption it’s as important to be agile as it is to have an anchoring vision and strategy. What are you aiming towards? How are you holding the tension of strategic thinking along with agile approaches? I do believe there can be an AND. What about you?

Enjoy your focus this week on the main question of “What will help with focus?” as well as “And what do you want to focus on?” or “What’s important to focus on?”.

All the 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 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.
Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!
​

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you thinking about our second remote work enabler. You can find the first remote work enabler here. 

The second remote work enabler is to create boundaries. Boundaries are key in the remote space in order to focus.

What is key is being efficient in managing boundaries, especially if you are part of a matrix team and/or working across many sites. There can also be a challenge of ensuring that there is a good balance or integration of your work and life, especially when you collaborate and work with others in different time zones. This balance may look different that what a 9-5 job could look like, perhaps having you start work at 5 and run to 3 with breaks in between to get to the gym, or for a swim (as I do!).

What are the things that help you focus in your work as a remote worker? What boundaries might you need to integrate into your work?

Best,
​Jennifer

Welcome to the Teams365 blog for February 2020! This month we turn our attention to relationships, partnering, teamwork and collaboration. While teamwork is always a central focus for us here at the blog, this month we’ll be exploring the wider waters of collaboration and relationships. Whether you work in-person, or remote, business success is contingent on relationships. As I like to say, “Remote does not mean disconnected”.

Yesterday afternoon I hosted my regular virtual Month End Planning and Review session. If you enjoy these posts and want to join us for a live co-working session, join me at the end of every month for a one-hour virtual monthly planning and review session. Imagine what 60 minutes of focused time on your monthly accomplishments and planning for the next month could do.

Learn more about this program, and upcoming dates, and SCHEDULE it in to join us for the next one later this month.

Given that we are starting a new month, it’s time to take stock around your last month – I hope that you will take 10-15 minutes today to review and reflect on these questions.

Looking to last month:

1. What were your major accomplishments?
2. What progress did you make towards your annual goals?
3. What was your biggest learning?
4. What surprized you?
5. What skills and strengths did you leverage?
6. What habits did you develop?
7. What helped you be successful?
8. What do you need to leave behind?

Looking ahead to February:

1. What are your top 3 priorities?
2. What do you want to make sure you focus on?
3. What do you need to say no to?
4. What relationships are important to foster?
5. What habits are important to create or maintain?
6. What’s going to be a stretch?
7. What’s the one thing you might shy away from? What will help you achieve this?
8. What will help you be accountable to your goals and plans?
9. What’s your contingency plan?

Enjoy your reflection and planning!
​Jennifer

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

Get your 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.
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

One of the themes I’ve been talking a lot about in recent months as we moved into year end, and now are in the start of the year is that Metrics Matter. On an individual level in our own planning, it can be very useful to note things like:

• Key achievements
• Time spent on different activities (work, meetings, troubleshooting, coaching, learning, etc.)
• The things you actually accomplish in any given day

On a team level, starting the year with a conversation around metrics, achievements and goals can be really important. As part of the start of year kick off you may want to:

• Note key metrics (where you are now, where you want to go by end of the year, and what your check in touchpoints are)
• Note key goals
• Identify aspirations and intentions – as I mentioned in an earlier blog post this year, aspirations and intentions are often wider in focus and help to anchor things.

What are the other items you want to note?

All the best, 
​Jennifer 

As we move into 2020, it’s easy to get swept up into the “doing” of work right away. Before the year gets further ahead, take a few minutes to be sure that you get these items scheduled in…

#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?

As you think about this year, what is going to support you best?

Best wishes, 
​Jennifer

This weekend’s Weekly Journaling Prompt gets you to think about the question – “I’d put the following in my time capsule”. Just the other day my son was talking about how it’s only 4 more years until he can open the time capsule he created back in grade 2…. he’s excited to see what he put in there and can’t remember all the items.

What are artifacts of your year this year? What would you want to bottle up and save away? What DO you want to capture so that you can remember?

This weekend’s WJP is a great one as we go to wind down the year. If you haven’t taken a few minutes to review your year, be sure to now – you can follow along a 30-minute reflection 2020 planning session I hosted last month. View it here.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, get your 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.

Well another month has slipped by and it’s time to focus in on how this last month went. How did the “last mile” of November fare for you? What are you needing to carry forward to the new month?

In this month’s last post of the month, it’s an opportunity to focus in on what you did accomplish and earmark items for the final month of the year. What do you want to and need to pay attention to as you move into the final month of the year?
​
Here’s several questions to get you thinking about this month end:

• What were my major achievements this month?
• What “last mile” activities did I get to complete? What’s still on the list to complete before year end?
• What do I want to celebrate?
• As I consider my goals (and resolutions) I made at the start of the year, how am I doing with these on a scale of 1-10? Which ones are becoming new habits or something I can check off?
• Which ones need to be let go of?
• As a leader, what have I noticed about my team this month?
• As a leader, what notes should I make about performance issues (if I haven't done it already!)
• The thing that has helped me be most productive this month has been ______
• The thing that has helped me be most successful this month has been ______
• The thing that has helped me be happiest this month has been ________
• The thing that has helped me be most healthy has been _______

As I think about the summer overall:

• My biggest accomplishment has been....
• My biggest learning has been....
• My ability to flourish has been supported by....
• I'm proud of....
• The one habit which has really helped me has been...
• I want to continue….

Looking ahead to the month of December:

1. My top 3 -5 goals this month are:
2. The things I absolutely want to finish are:
3. My priorities are:
4. Wild success at the end of the month will look like …. (Yes, this is one of my favorite questions which I ask each month in PlanDoTrack…)
5. The interruptions and disruptions I want to minimize are….
6. The habit I want to focus on is…
7. I want to take daily steps around…
8. I want to reach out to….
9. I want to say NO to…
10. I want to keep an eye on…
11. I’m excited about….

Enjoy the reflections!
​Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, get your 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.

As we arc towards the end of the year, it’s time to focus in on our 2020 vision. I’ve been enjoying hosting a number of events in the last few weeks around visioning for the new year, and new decade.

If you weren’t able to join us last week for the 2020 Vision session, please check out the recording here. You can download an associated worksheet here as well. The session will take about 30 minutes to go through.

Having a vision is important for a number of reasons. Our vision is important as it can help us to:

• Move through the ups and downs of everyday business. It can provide an anchor when things are turbulent.
• Stay focused and make decisions. It may make it easier to say yes to things that align with where we want to go and say no to things that are out of range.
• Pull us forward and motivate us when things are not working well.

Today’s post also serves as an opportunity to pause and take stock of where things are at. What are the things that need attention and need to get done before the end of the year? Is there anything you haven’t yet accomplished that you do want to put attention on?

As part of today’s post, be sure to grab a pen and participate in the 2020 Vision session I facilitated last week. You will find it here on YOUTUBE. Enjoy!

Best wishes, 
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, get your 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.

We’re about six weeks away from the end of the year, a time which I like to frame as the LAST MILE of the year. It’s at this point where we start getting really clear on what needs to get done, what needs to get carried forward and what needs to get delegated.

Today’s post is an encouragement to think about what you want to accomplish in the last six weeks of the month.  As we consider the last mile there may be many areas we want to consider including:

Projects:

• What are the projects which still need attention?
• What are the projects which need more resources to wrap up?
• What has moved out of scope and needs to be readjusted?

One-on-one time with your team:

• When was the last time you held 1-1's with your team?
• What are conversations which need to happen before year end?

Team Events:

• What team events need to happen before year end?
• What supports do they need individually? Collectively?

Planning and Performance Events:

• Have you already prepared your 2020 plans – at the organizational, team and individual levels?
• When did you last hold a performance conversation with each team member? Ask for feedback yourself?

Stakeholder Events:

• What stakeholders do you want to reach out to?
• What conversations and/or collaborations are important to have?
• What updates are important to provide?
• Who do you want to set meetings up with before year end, or at the start of the year?

Communication and Reporting

• What reports need to be completed?
• What information needs to be shred with others?
• What reports need an update?
• What tasks have you been putting off? What needs an update?

Other Items:

• What other items need to be wrapped up?
• What do you need to put in hold or closed off on?
• What are you going to do to capture lessons learned and lessons to carry forward?

The last couple of weeks of the year can feel like a whirlwind, and sometimes the important tasks get set aside and missed, including time set aside for the team. In one of my newsletters this month I included 8 different ways to wrap the year up with groups and teams – link to newsletter here. 

What daily steps do you want to take going forward to get important items focused on?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, get your 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.

Welcome to a new month here at the Teams365 blog. Our focus for the month of November is going to be on getting you prepared for year end, navigating disruption, and also continuing with our remote teamwork tips.

Today’s business context can be very volatile. With this in mind, we’re going to focus in on a number of key topics you have probably been hearing about:

• VUCA
• Focus
• Attention
• Systems

In addition to this, we’ll explore:

• Year End Vision
• Year End Team Acknowledgements
• Vision for 2020

It’s also the start of the month which means that it’s time to spend a few minutes reviewing October and doing some planning for the month of November.

As you think about October:

• What were your main accomplishments?
• What skills and strengths helped you?
• What distractions got in the way?
• What surprized you?
• How did you navigate the changes you were faced with?
• What projects, tasks and activities are going to carry forward?
• What Q4 goals have been achieved? What’s shifted already?
• What else is important to note?

As you look ahead to November:

• What are your top 3-5 priorities?
• What’s important to take action on and wrap up this month?
• What key activities are important to put boundaries around?
• What distractions do you want to minimize?
• What relationships are important to note?
• What habits to you want to count on?

What else?

If you have a copy of PlanDoTrack or Coaching Business Builder take note of the metrics you have been tracking in your Monthly Daily Trackers and be sure to complete the Month in Review as well as your Monthly To-Dos, and new month in review.

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development.
Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.
For those looking for tips, tools and ideas about remote work and support for your remote teams, be sure to check out these tags and resources. ​