This weeks’ Flashback Friday brings us back the January Productivity Tips. Series. During the first 19 days of the year I covered 19 different areas for boosting your productivity. Given that many of us will be stepping into what’s commonly known as “the second new year” or the back to school time of year, it might be useful to take a look at the 19 Productivity Tips for 2019.

In addition to posting these as blog posts, I also created two related resources:

• An eBook which you can pick up over at the Teams365 store.
• And a short on-demand video-based course which you can follow here.

As a reminder, here’s what I wrote in the 9th of the 19 tips around amping up your meetings. 

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 follow-up 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!
​Jennifer

Mentoring is a very popular modality for development. It no longer is considered a one-way conversation with the senior person sharing all the knowledge. In fact, “reverse mentoring” has really taken root, with the more senior person often benefiting as much from the conversation as the more junior person.

In today’s post I wanted to share several questions to consider if you are seeking out a mentor yourself. These can help to gain clarity in terms of what you are looking for, and help you focus the conversations you are going to have.

Mentors serve a variety of roles in today’s workplace, including being able to share insights about the practicalities of business/industry based on their experience. They may also be able to shed light on “how things are really done”, giving you insights you might not normally hear about through other channels.
Just like any other business relationship, supervision or coaching, the mentoring partnership is dependent on a good match and fit. Take some time as you go to seek out a mentor to make sure they are going to be your best fit.
Questions to consider when seeking out a mentor

• What is important for me to learn?
• Where do I want to grow?
• What am I looking for in a mentor?
• What are the skills and experiences I hope the mentor will bring?
• What can I bring to the mentoring relationship?
• What time am I earmarking for this?
• What are my goals?
• What topics do I want to explore?
• When/if things get tough, I will…

 
As you look to your responses to these questions, what do you notice?

Enjoy the conversations,
Jennifer

One of the biggest areas of time utilization that teams points to as not as effective as it can be is virtual meetings. In today’s post, I wanted to explore five key areas which can derail and demotivate teams. As someone who works with professionals who want to become more proficient in the virtual space, getting a handle on these five meeting pitfalls are key.
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#1 – Not prioritizing meetings.
Many times, virtual meetings are postponed because not everyone is going to be there. In fact, it may be more useful to start from the assumption that not everyone is going to be there, and people can catch up with a recording or the transcript. Regular team meetings and communication are important. They provide an important channel for sharing information, taking the pulse, and/or keeping the team connected.

#2 – Not putting everyone on the same platform.
One of the greatest challenges today is the blended meeting space, where you have some (or a bulk of people) calling in from one location, and others dialing in from separate locations. This can sometimes augment the disconnection across a team. Try putting all people on the virtual platform for a change and see what happens as you incorporate the different engagement strategies (see #5) and as you intentionally create dialogue and sharing across part of the team that may not normally be connected.

Putting everyone on the same platform is a great equalizer and if you are wanting to truly build a team, it means that common ground is needed.
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#3 – Not having a plan – 8 Meeting Questions.
A lot of meetings in both the virtual and in-person space are poorly organized. Before kicking off any meeting, be sure to check out the 8 Meeting Questions I share in Effective Virtual Conversations:

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)

#4 - Speaking at, rather than speaking with, the group.
It’s easy for people to slip into the trap of "speaking at” rather than “speaking with” virtual groups. The use of process is key for engagement, and it’s important that you let your group/team know about what they can expect in terms of input and interaction. Follow through with this and learn to be comfortable with “silence” and also handing the reins over to others.

Instead of opening the floor up to dead silence, let people know that you are first going to call on everyone in the team in a certain order – i.e. First name (forwards, backwards), East to West or West to East, Job Role, length of time with the organization...

Process creates clarity and it also creates safety.

#5 – Not using or underutilizing the tools available.
From recording the calls so you don’t have to spend weeks typing up the meeting notes, to using the different engagement functions virtual meetings CAN be interactive. Depending on what the purpose of the meeting is, consider how you might use:

• Polls – for voting or pulse check across the team
• Chat – To capture ideas, brainstorming, comments, and/or team agreements. Depending on the platform you use, you may be able to save the chat easily with your recording. This text file can then get sent to everyone.
• Use annotation to have people share their thoughts – agreements, priorities, what their strengths are. Annotation allows people to highlight and circle items on the screen
• Breakouts – probably one of the favorite transformers I see, breakouts allow people to move into their own private meeting space and have a smaller discussion. This can be invaluable if you are wanting to get the team’s input on things or boost motivation for change. If we are always feeling like we are TALKED at, rather than part of the conversation, it’s hard to have a good meeting.

As you go to organize your next meeting, what pitfalls do you want to keep an eye on? What changes do you want to make?

Best,
​Jennifer

As I have written in other Teams366 blog posts, shared team practices are critical for high performance. Shared team practices are the ways teams communicate with each other and share information and build trust and connection.

Shared team practices could include:

• Weekly team meetings
• A monthly pot-luck meal (virtual or in person)
• Getting together monthly to share information about programming and focus areas
• Informal and/formal peer learning events

One of the main vehicles teams use for communication is meetings. As many find, meetings may not be held most efficiently or effectively. Next week I’ll share more on meeting pitfalls.

In today’s post, I wanted to remind you of the 8 Essential Meeting Questions I share in Effective Virtual Conversations. These are questions you will want to get in the practice of asking before each conversation you have:

1. What’s the purpose?
2. What takeaways do we want?
3. Who needs to be on the calls?
4. What preparation is needed for us to be most effective in the meeting?
5. What pace do we want in order to keep it engaging?
6. What will help keep the focus?
7. What is absolutely essential (versus what will be a nice to cover) where people can go for more information?
8. What follow-up might be required?

(Source: Britton, Effective Virtual Conversations, page 304)

As you consider your meetings and/or team practices, what is important to note? To adjust as you step into September?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Following up to yesterday’s post on Creativity, today’s post gets you to consider creativity in your team context. Just as we saw in yesterday’s post, there are many things that boost creativity.

In addition to the articles I pointed to yesterday, let’s take a look at these seven elements mentioned in The Power of Idea’s article.

This article points to creativity being fostered by solitude and being supported by an environment of trying things out.

What are you doing to foster down time for team members and/or experimentation time. Companies like Google, have been pointed to for many years as being generous with the time allocated for employees to take on personal projects, as well as experimental ideas.
​
Questions you will want to explore as a team around this topic include:

• What does creativity mean to us as individuals on the team? As a team as a whole?
• What’s important about creativity in our work?
• What value does creativity provide, or what does it add to our mission and vision?
• If it is important, what can we do to build more creative time into our approaches?

This week as I have been writing these two posts I have found that I mentally have collapsed creativity with innovation. In fact, the posts were spurred by reading a book I had purchased thinking it was about coaching for creativity, when in fact it was about coaching for innovation.
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One thing to note is that creativity and innovation are two different things. I was curious what sort of research has been done on the link between creativity and innovation and so I went to look for some research. Here’s a study/meta-analysis done exploring the link between creativity and innovation. Sarooghi, Hessamoddin et al. “Examining the relationship between creativity and innovation: A meta-analysis of organizational, cultural, and environmental factors ☆.” (2015).

Take look at it here.

Wishing you the best,
​Jennifer

​As part of the summer series this month, today’s blog post shifts to a focus on creativity. As we unwind from the busy pace of the rest of the year, we may find that our creative juices start to flow. It’s often said that we need space and time to get our creative spirit awakened.

Creativity can take many forms and it can also be incorporated to our every day experience. Today’s post is an invitation for you to consider what creativity means for you, when it occurs and what it can look like more fully in your work.
There are some really good articles which give us a better understanding of creativity. Check out these articles:
​
7 Surprising Facts About Creativity According to Science from Fast Company 

Jillian Groening’s article: 52 Science-Based Facts About the Creative Mind

Here are a number of questions for you to consider as you think about creativity in your work:

1. What does creativity mean for me?
2. I’d like to ____ in order to bring more creativity into my work.
3. My favorite creative outlet as a younger person was….
4. The time of day I find I am most creative is…./the places I am most creative are….
5. The ingredients I need in order to be creative is…
6. I’d like to ___ in order to be more creative.

A few weeks ago I published a 30 minute call as part of my 2018 Coaching Business Builder workbook series entitled “Summer Projects for Coaches”. Even if you are not a coach, you may find that this resource is of interest to you.

Check it out at my YouTube channel.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you thinking about the questions “What questions do you need to ask?”. This is a valuable way to expand our thinking and get out of the rut of how we might be looking at things.

As you go about thinking of your most important questions, ask yourself the 5 W's + H.

1. Who?
2. What?
3. Where?
4. When?
5. Why?
6. How?

To expand your thinking this week, consider asking yourself questions along the lines of…

• Who is important?
• What is the one thing that might work best for you?
• What are the elements that could distract/detract?
• When do you want to focus more?
• Where do you need to look?
• What do you need to embrace?
• Where do you need to let go?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

A few weeks ago, I shared a post about potential different summer projects you might want to focus on. This is the one time of the year where we may have a bit more space to focus on projects that are “nice to do” rather than “have to do”. What are the summer projects you have in mind?
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In determining a possible summer creative project, you might want to focus on these questions:

• What’s the one thing you wish you had done/completed, but never have had time for?

• As you consider your career, what is the one area you wish you had more experience in, or knowledge of?
• As you consider your next step in your career, what is one thing that would help you expand your skills, or deepen them?
• What would be a fun project to work on this summer?
• What could be a legacy project to leave at your workplace? One of the projects I worked on in my last year of employment was a training guide for new staff who had to run their own training and onboarding programs for teams. Interestingly enough, it became a baseline for some of the work I have done in the last fifteen years of business. I was able to dedicate a little bit of time every week on that project, which like many things, does add up to something specific, when we are intentional and have a plan (see yesterday’s post around goal setting).

I hope that these questions will be useful as you start to consider what possible projects you could undertake.

The beauty of summer projects is that you likely have 7-8 weeks of work time to complete it. These are rarely projects that can be done in one sitting but are completed over time.

After identifying possible options, take some time breaking it down into more concrete milestones that you can aim for in shorter cycles. Be sure to schedule time in your calendar to work on this. As is commonly asserted “What doesn’t get scheduled, doesn’t get done”. Enjoy!

Enjoy the creative process,
Jennifer

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip asks you to consider the area of Goal Setting. Providing space for people to set and share their goals in the virtual space can be an important connector in the virtual space.

If group members are meeting over an extended time, it may be useful to have people share their progress using a:

• One Page Plan
• A Dashboard

Tracking goals can be a motivating process. To avoid it becoming a “check box activity” or goal fatigue, provide opportunities for people to connect into what’s important about the goal, or the overarching WHY.

In exploring the why you might ask questions like “What’s possible?”, “Three years from now, where do you want to be?”

Questions to consider:

• What are the key goals you are focusing on this month?
• How is progress towards these goals coming?
• What is the WHY behind the goal? What would you like to make sure you experience?
•  What do you want to do to keep your goals visible?
  

​Best wishes,
Jennifer

This week’s Weekly Journaling prompt gets you to explore the question “One thing I want to make sure I complete by the end of the year is….”

This is a great opportunity to pull out your goals for the year and to see where you are with the goals you have set out.

What is complete?

What is still in process?

What is the one thing you DEFINITELY want to make sure does get complete?

Enjoy your reflections this weekend, and if you haven’t done so, take a look at the Quarterly Reflection Prompts I shared back in March. It’s just the start of Q3 and some of these questions may be a great addition to your reflection.

Enjoy!
​Jennifer