​As part of our wind down for the year, I wanted to post several very practical and tactical resource posts. Posts around books, apps and other resources  I have seen teams and leaders leaning into this year.
As a writer and avid reader, I am starting first with books as I am usually on the search at the library and bookstore for different offerings. Here are ten that I’ve found myself recommending a lot!
Emotional Intelligence – The EQ Leader – Howard Stern. Emotional Intelligence continues with its popularity for good reason. These are the skills we need to succeed in an ever changing world – relationship building, self-management, understanding others and ourselves. Earlier this year I picked up  a copy of the EQ Leader and have found it an invaluable read.
The Coaching Habit – Michael Bungay Stanier – I love the way Michael’s book breaks down coaching into bite sized pieces for professionals of all kinds. A definite great read!
Thanks for the Feedback – Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen – Feedback seems to be an ongoing thorn for leaders, teams and anyone who is in relationship with others (i.e. ALL OF US!). This is a great book which gets you thinking about what feedback can look and sound like.
For those that do like to plan – take a look at the Bullet Journal  - Ryder Carroll.  I’ve been a convert of the Bujo  (short form for Bullet Journal) Movement for several years now, finding that the blank planning spaces create a pause in my otherwise busy day. While I use a variety of different planning resources including my own upcoming Plan.Do.Track, I always have my trust Bullet Journal nearby which houses some of the Meta Learning and Themes of the Year.
Amy Edmondson –  Extreme Teaming. I’ve continued to recommend the writing and research of Amy Edmondson for many reasons to teams this year. Her research has focused on both the notion of psychological safety, as well as the concept of teaming, which captures the active evolution of teams today. Any of Amy’s books are a great read and an important primer for teams in understanding what she calls the 4 pillars of teaming – Speaking up, Collaboration, Experimentation and Reflection.
What are the books you have been recommending to others this year?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

This week’s Sunday post takes us back to a 2014 post around focus when I shared a quote from Daniel Goleman’s book on Focus.

In it, he writes the following:
"For leaders to get results, they need all three kinds of focus. Inner focus attunes us to our intuitions, guiding values and better decisions. Other focus smooths out our connections to the people in our lives. an outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world. A leader tuned out of his internal world will be rudderless; one blind to the world of others will be clueless; those indifferent to the larger support within which they operate will be blindsided".  (Goleman: Focus, pp 48)
 
In today’s VUCA world, taking time to focus is critical. Planning is still key, even if it becomes more of a contingency planning process. As someone who led in very uncertain contexts in my former life with my work in the humanitarian sector, when things are complex, planning becomes even more important. Unlike a traditional a to b to c to d model, contingency planning takes us through that and also gets us thinking into a cubed (A3).

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Many of you would have noticed Friday's video returning to the 2017 Fall Video where I share a number of questions geared to get you thinking about what you want to create in this season.

Earlier this week, I updated the list and shared it on another blog I write at. These questions are slightly different so I thought that it would be good to post them here in a  new 2018 Fall Questions video.

As we step into fall 2018 this weekend, I hope that you will grab a pen and your journal and take stock for a few minutes.

If you have enjoyed this, and are on Instagram, do follow my 90 Days Plan.Do.Track series at my @CoachingBizBuilder Instagram feed. For the 90 days of fall I will be posing a new question related to business every day. You can follow here at @CoachingBizBuilder Instagram.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Month end reflections and planning for the month ahead.

Earlier today I hosted one of my monthly virtual month end planning hacks. These one hour sessions take professionals through a series of reflective prompts, using the tools I have developed for my newest planner, called the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner. It’s been so well embraced that I am working on editions for other professionals – remote workers, and leaders. Check out the Coaching Business Building Workbook and Planner here.

If you’ve been following the Teams365 blog for any time, you know that I include month end reflection questions and planning prompts for the month ahead. Here are yours for this month:

1. As you reflect on August, what have been your successes and accomplishments?
2. As you reflect on the summer, what have been your successes and accomplishments?
3. What are you most proud of?
4. What successes this month do you want to duplicate?
5. What top 3 learning have you head that you want to carry forward?
6. What key relationships have helped you so far this year? Which ones need more attention?
7. What has helped your successes?
8. What has hindered or gotten in the way?
9. What does your team need to be acknowledged for?
   
   As you look to September, consider these questions:
10. What are your key priorities for September?
    
11. What are the key goals?
12. What are the major priorities?
13. What will you need to place attention on?
14. What changes do you want to make in September?
15. What habits do you want to leverage
16. When will you check in to explore your progress, and make changes?
17. What resources do you want to tap into?
18. Who can help you be successful this month?

I hope that you do take 10-15 minutes to grab a pen, and your journal to undertake this activity. If you have a copy of the Coaching Business Builder,  you will want to use the monthly planning pages to capture your ideas. Also take a look at your trackers and metrics. What do you notice?
​
Enjoy!
Jennifer

As some readers may know, earlier this month I released a workbook and planner called the Coaching Business Builder: Workbook and Planner. Part planner, part self-guided reflection journey, it’s geared to support coaches in exploring their own unique ecosystem, potentials and plans for their business. Plans are in the works for additional editions down the road for remote professionals and leaders.

In the workbook section, I touch on a variety of productivity tools, or hacks, to consider. These are things that I have seen transform the work of business owners and leaders I have both coached, and worked with over the years. As we gear up for back to work next week, I thought it would be useful to share with you four productivity hacks and frameworks I think might be useful for you. These include:
 
1. Schedule in time for your regular planning. Whether it’s daytime or night, the act of scheduling time to identify, note and focus on your own tasks which are upcoming can save a lot of time. An old project management adage has said that for every 10 minutes of planning you save 60 minutes  of unfocused effort.  Think about how having a list every day can help you navigate the changing waters of tasks and priorities, as they shift.When do you want to schedule in planning? Daily planning? Medium term planning? Long term planning?

2. Consider what time of day works well. One of the key learnings which still stands out for me almost 30 years after being an undergrad science student at McGill University, is the importance of our circadian rhythms. Research continues to show how we each have a different internal clock, helping, and hindering us to get things done at different times of the day. This concept has been revisited and revived recently with books such as Daniel Pink’s When, where he explores the concepts of larks and owls.
When are you are your peak (morning/night/another time)? What can you do to tweak your schedule to leverage those windows?

3. Build  in pockets to get things done without interruptions. Interruptions are everywhere in today’s working world – from the bings of emails, to phone calls, to people dropping in. Research by Gloria Marks and her team have discovered how every interruption has an extended impact. She has found that after an interruption it can take upwards of 25 minutes to get back on task. 23 minutes and 15 minutes to be exact.  Look at her research here. What can you be doing to build in pocket to get things done? Minimize interruptions?
Check out this article from Inc entitled “Six Tips to Maximize Productivity on Remote Working Days” from Inc here.

4. Finally, consider what the priorities are – yours, your bosses and/or your teams. Schedule in time for this in your calendar and get it done! Covey’s Urgent/Important Matrix constitutes to be a valuable framework to help us all take into account what is truly important and urgent. Check out a past blog post I have done on this here. What would you like to focus on this fall? Which one area would make the biggest impact on your work?

Enjoy,
Jennifer

PS – Looking for some time to plan? Consider joining me this Friday for the month end reflection and new month planning session I am going to host as one of my monthly Virtual Hacks. This is a 60 minute virtual planning session I host on zoom, using many of the templates I have created for the Coaching Business Builder. If you don’t have a copy of the book, pick up one. I also provide group members with digital copies of the relevant tools from the book. This one-hour session, and materials, costs $39 US
Click here to register and reserve your spot.

Wow! With about a week to go before Labor Day, we are into the homestretch for many. What has this season been like for you? What’s still on your summer bucket list?

It’s an opportunity to take a look back at your summer bucket list and think about what items are still there. What are the things you want to get done before summer comes to a close? What do you want to make sure you get done for fall?

Did you create a bucket list for yourself this summer?

Here’s a link to a great article by Elizabeth Scott entitled The Benefits of a Bucket List - https://www.verywellmind.com/benefits-of-a-bucket-list-3144998
Take a read through and consider what would be useful about creating a bucket list for fall or the longer term.

From speaking with many this month during the Planning Hacks I have been facilitating, I know many have added, and are taking action on their lists.
You’ll see a shot of some of my own summer 2018 bucket list items from the start of summer. Happy to report that many of them were checked off the list!
 
PS – Looking for some time to plan? Consider joining me this Friday for the month end reflection and new month planning session I am going to host as one of my monthly Virtual Hacks. This is a 60 minute virtual planning session I host on zoom, using many of the templates I have created for the Coaching Business Builder. If you don’t have a copy of the book, pick up one. I also provide group members with digital copies of the relevant tools from the book. This one-hour session, and materials, costs $39 US

Click here to register and reserve your spot.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

It’s Sunday and time for a new Teams365 video. This one brings to life one of the back to work videos – Teams365 #960. Take note of these four things as you get back to work this fall. Grab your planner, and enjoy!

​What’s going to help you be at the top of your game this fall?

Best,
Jennifer

Last week I hosted a gearing up for fall planning hack, during which time I led the group through a series of real-time planning activities over the course of a 45 minute window. With the launch of my latest resource the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner, I’ll be hosting more of these real-time virtual planning sessions for coaches and other planners. (On a side note, I’ll be releasing another edition of the Workbook and Planner later this year/early 2019 for Remote professionals and Leaders). I hope you may join me for one of the many upcoming virtual planning sessions.
For today’s post I thought it would be fitting to provide you with some planning prompts to think about the fall and all that you want to create. Here are some questions to guide you:

• As you look to fall, what is the environment you want to create in your work?
• What are the core goals and priorities?
• As you look to you main goals for fall,, how do they fit together?
• How do they interlink with others work?
• What do you need in order to be successful with these goals?
• Who can help you?
• What’s going to help you further grow as a professional?
• What stretch opportunities do you have to expand your thinking, and skills?
• What projects will help you grow?
• What collaborative conversations do you want to foster this fall? (Consider peer groups, mentors, time with your boss and team, other…)

I read an interesting article recently from the MIT Sloan Review by Linda Gratton on the Challenge of Scaling Soft Skills You can read it here. In it she mentions four skills which will be important for professionals of all kinds as the workplace continues to change - empathy, context sensing, collaboration, and creative thinking. What are you doing to enhance and grow in these areas?
Throughout my career, and in the work that I continue to do, I work regularly in support of fostering skills in empathy, collaboration and creative thinking. These will be needed by team members of all kinds. Some of the skills we learn in training, but many we learn by doing. What can you do to foster opportunities for team members to grow and expand in these areas?

Enjoy your Tuesday,
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 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) 
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

While we still have a few weeks to go towards Labor Day and what many consider the end of summer (although not the official end of summer), this is often the week where a lot of parents start gearing up for back to school and back to work routines. In light of this, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at one of my older posts – this one from 2016 in a September post entitled “Gearing up For Back to Work”.

Here’s what I wrote then:
 
“Across North America, many of us are celebrating Labor Day and gearing up for back to work and school. As you approach your work routines this fall here are a couple of things you might want to focus on:

1. Build in time for planning - It's easy to get on the fly wheel of doing, doing, doing which creates its' own momentum. Building in time for daily planning bursts can help create laser like focus.

​2. Create pockets of digital downtime - Research is starting to identify the dark side of on-going digital connectivity. We all need time to digitally disconnect. What pockets do you want to create for yourself of digital downtime? What conversations do you need to have in order to create these disconnection points?

​3. Consider what routines are going to support you to continue to be at your peak. with the somewhat slower summer schedule behind us and things usually going into overdrive in the fall, it can be very important to consider how you are going to run at your peak. What routines will help you be most successful? What activities are going to help you renew, blow off steam etc?

4. Consider what those around you need from you. Work is not the primary focus for many workers today, and it's important to consider the other roles we wear. Spouse, parent, caretaker, friend. What support are those around you looking for this fall? How you do ensure that there is time for their needs?

​This fall, what is one habit you want to make sure you are building? Perhaps it's getting to the gym on regular basis, getting out of the office at a certain time, or spending more time with loved ones. Make note of this and consider what is going to help you be successful in this domain.”
 
Questions:
What’s important for you this fall?
What’s going to support you in building habits which are supportive
What one item do you want to put attention around?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

In the next few weeks and month, many of us are getting back to our regular work routines. Whether our children are back to school, or our team at work is back to running at full speed, August and September often signal a “new working year”.

Earlier this month I launched a new business workbook and planner – the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner. While it’s geared for coaches, I am working on another edition for virtual and remote professionals in addition to leaders which should be out later this year.

As you step into your new routine this September there are five areas you may want to consider:

1. What are the key activities you need to direct attention around?

What are the core initiatives you need to keep your eyes on? Steven Covey made famous the phrase “big rocks” years ago. The notion is, if you fit these in first, there's more space to do what we now term "work in the margins". What are your "big rocks" this fall?

2. Keeping the home fires rolling.

Having stepped away from city life for a few months this past summer and working out of a much smaller cottage, I recognize the cost and time invested in some of the more mundane, but essential tasks, it requires to keep an almost 3,000 square foot home in order. From groceries, to meal prep, to home maintenance, what are the tasks that are needed to keep things rolling at home while you work at full-tilt? From online grocery ordering, to meals in a box, or one of our favorite – family meal prep at Supperworks – keeping the home fires burning is essential to many of us.

What are the core elements which are important to you?
 
3. Scheduling in time for your own self-care.

Whether it’s working out, or building in time to renew, we only have one body, and keeping it in top condition is essential. What are the key activities you want to leave time for this year?

4. Clearing the clutter.

While some say that a disheveled office is often seen as part of a creative mind, clearing the clutter can be essential for high performance. Can you take some time before September rolls around to do a purge of items, or clearing of an area which has been growing in size?
 
5. Reviewing, or making your plan, for the fall.

Earlier this week I hosted the first of a series of "back to fall" virtual planning workshops, in a condensed 45 minute hack format. i brought in several of the resources and planning tools from my latest book, Coaching Business Builder: Workbook and Planner.

An older project management adage asserts that 10 minutes of planning can save 20 minutes of unfocused effort. What are your plans for fall? Each month? Each week? Are you taking 5-10 minutes daily, or on a regular basis, to make a list of all the important items?

Best wishes,
Jennifer