This Friday I am reaching back to a 2018 post – Teams365 #1743 which includes different ways to be building out connection as a virtual team. For some teams today, the stakes are high in terms of keeping things going.

Here are some ideas to keep your team moving:

#TEAMS365 #1743 Creating Connection and Building Community - Virtually

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?
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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

​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!

​An increasing number of teams have been moving their work to the remote space in recent weeks. Focus and relationships are core to success. I thought it would be useful to reach back to a post from October on different ways you can connect your remote team. Take a look:
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This week we turn our attention to a post from last October around your Remote Team Toolkit:

TEAMS365 #2130 Remote Team Toolbox: Helping teams connect, get to know each other and focus

In yesterday’s post I covered a range of different team development tools which professionals in the remote space may want to build or further develop. This could include tools in the areas of supporting the team to connect with each other, get to know each other and focus in on the work and results you want.

Area A: Activities/Resources to help the team to get to know each other
What’s outside your window? – As I wrote in Effective Virtual Conversations, we often only see people in their screen but aren’t able to see what’s beyond the screen. Have people share what’s outside their window or call in from a different location so you can learn more about their context.

Earmark 3-5 minutes to a fun opener/icebreaker in your next team meeting so people can get to know each other better.

Area B: Tools to help with focus
Minimizing the impact of digital distraction is a key issue for teams today. See what I had to say about reducing digital distractions a short while ago here at the Teams365 blog. 

Several different tools which help team members focus in the virtual space include the:

• Urgent/Important Matrix
• Strategic Issues Mapping (link to past Teams365 posts)
• SWOT: The trusty strategic planning tool (link to past Teams365 post)

Area C: Helping teams connect
Helping teams connect with who is who and who is working on what is of critical importance to a remote team. It’s an area we often don’t think about on the surface, sometimes given the diversity of roles and locations. It can be very useful in the medium- and long-term to facilitate regular conversations with the team around who is doing what, and to also earmark time for the team to regularly connect and get to know each other. Discussion in this area might include:

• Undertaking inventory of projects people are working on so that lessons learned can be shared.
• Identifying key strengths and experience bases which exist in the team – there may even be a “go to” team resource person around different areas – i.e. technology questions, resource around different themes/focus areas you work on etc.
• Short team openers and closers such as BINGO. (where team members asked to find someone who – insert different categories like: “has visited 3 different continents, speaks multiple languages, is a twin” etc.)

For more on this topic check out the 20 Focus Areas for Virtual and Remote Team Development ebook which is available at the Potentials Realized site and provides you with facilitated instructions of 20 different activities you can facilitate with your team. Pick up a copy here.

If you have a copy of the Effective Virtual Conversations book, check out chapter 7 on Tools and Resources.

Wishing you 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!
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In my book, Effective Virtual Conversations, I share seven skills needed to make collaboration work well. These are particularly important in the remote and virtual space where collaborations need to be more intentional and are often characterized by touch points which are much more infrequent.
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The seven areas we want to be building skills and capacity around are:

• Trust
• Candor
• Connection
• Flexibility/Adaptability
• Self-Awareness
• Working Across Differences
• Relationship Development

(Page 385 – Effective Virtual Conversations, Britton, 2017)

What do all of these skills look like in your virtual work?

If you were to give each one of them a rating, what would they look like?

Having introduced these categories to hundreds in speaking engagements over the last few years, I often will poll the audiences I speak with about which ones are most important. By far, the one which most frequently gets raised is TRUST.

What does building trust look like in your virtual relationships?

It may include:

• Being present – and not looking like you are multi-tasking
• Being reliable – following through with promises made to send something out
• Participating in chat and/or annotation and/or verbally
• Showing up on camera (even if that’s uncomfortable)
• Asking questions out of curiosity

Consider recent calls you were on. What does building trust look like in your context?

For more on other topics check out:

• Differences When Working Remote
• Listen into Five Ways to Strengthen Team Relationships here

Remember that things are magnified in the remote space.
If you are collaborating remotely, consider how some of the 7 Enablers of Great Remote Work fit in, including:

•     Communication
•     Clarity 
•     Consistency

What’s going to support better conversations and results in the remote space?

Wishing you 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 posts focused primarily on remote work. It included posts on:

• Monday’s post on 8 Essential Meeting Questions
• Outreach and Building Relationships Virtually – Tuesday
• Boundaries in Remote Work – Wednesday
• Thursday’s post on Digital Detox
• Friday’s post on 7 Focus Areas for Remote Team Leaders
• Saturday’s post on LOVE

Enjoy your reading!
​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!

“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is a quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through the good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.” -Ann Landers

Welcome back to another Saturday weekly journaling prompt. This week’s prompt is simply the word LOVE.

Like past weeks, I hope that this week’s prompt provides you with the space to explore ideas such as:

• WHAT do you LOVE right now?
• What are your passions?
• If you were to create a top 10 list of the thins you LOVE this year, what would it include?
• WHO do you LOVE?
• How do you demonstrate LOVE?
• What do you LOVE about your business and what you do every day?
• If you run a business or lead a team, what do you LOVE?

I hope that you enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

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

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.
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 greatest remote myths is that “we are an island”. As a person operating the remote space, part time or full time, it can be critical to be building relationships virtually.

Today’s post explores the WHAT, WHY and HOW of building relationships virtually.  For those who are entrepreneurs, it can be important to boost visibility. It can be isolating to always be working on your won. Whether you attend a community call, a virtual networking session, or join a virtual co-working session, you are likely to connect in with people who are more like you.

Outreach may also occur through a professional association you are part of. What groups do you belong to? What events do they host? What are you able to focus on?

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

This year we get an extra day. Every four years a leap year occurs. February 29th was actually the birthday of one of my grandmothers. She was born in 1904. As a little girl, I thought it would be so neat to be born on leap year. What do you want to dedicate the extra time to today?

Given it’s a special day, I thought it would be interesting to look back at some of my favorite series over the last four years since we last had a leap year day.

If you haven’t had a chance to take a look at these past posts, do take a look at the following:

• 20 Activities for Virtual and Remote Teams, such as #11 on Conflict Management – read it here.
• Remote Work Myths – Read one of the more recent ones here – Remote Does Not Equal Disconnected
• Weekly Journaling Prompts each Saturday – View the 80 plus in the series here.
• Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversations tips - check them out here.

These tips map to my 2017 book – Effective Virtual Conversations. If you are needing to shift your workspace to the remote or virtual domain, this might be a great book to pick up. It covers some of the foundations of holding more effective virtual meetings, learning and team sessions.
 
Given that’s it’s the last day of February I thought it would be interesting to highlight some of our focus areas this month. What was to focus more on Collaboration and Relationships at the top of the month, became much more focused on one of our specialty areas – remote working – given the significant impact health events have had this month.

You’ll want to check out some of the posts including:
Teams365 2227 – Ingredients for Making Remote Relationships Work
Teams365 Tip 274 - Calibrate
Teams365 2241 –Differences when working remote: part 1
Teams365 2242 – More Differences when working remote
Teams365 2235 – Remote Work Myth – Remote Does Not Equal Disconnected
Teams365 2243: February 20 – Remote Work Enabler #2 – Boundaries
Teams365 2240 - Effective Virtual Conversations Tip – Matrix Tip – What’s the priority?

​Enjoy your exploration and have a great Leap Year Day!
Jennifer

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

For most of us in today’s world we work through a variety of relationships. Even if we work remote, it’s likely that we are part of a number of collaborations. Usually we think about what we can get from others. In today’s weekly journaling prompt, it flips it around to get you to think about the question “I have supported…..”.

Questions you might want to think about today are:
Who have you supported?
How have you supported?
What has your support meant?
What was possible because of your support?

Each Saturday I provide a different Weekly Journaling Prompt, getting you to think about, and write about, a different question.

What’s important for you to note today about support?

Enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

As a speaker I am often asked to speak about remote work. In my presentations I like to share a little more about the pitfalls and opportunities around remote work. I also like to explore some of the myths which exist around remote work. One of the favorite ones I like to talk about is the myth that remote does not equal disconnected.

We might fall into the trap of thinking that those that work remote are more distant and even disconnected. In fact, remote working success requires that we are tied onto others and working in tandem.

Three skill sets are required for remote working success today – curiosity, connection and looking beyond the screen. Let’s look at each in turn:

Curiosity
Being curious and open to learning is a key part of remote working success. Part of adopting curiosity as a mindset is remaining open to not knowing the complete picture. When we “think we know” what the context and world of our remote working colleagues is, we may start making assumptions that are unfounded.

Part of developing more curiosity in our remote work involves LISTENING more, asking more questions and being open to learn. It also involves being open to being challenged on your own biases.

• What are the things you want to learn more about?
• What are the things you want to ask more questions about?
• What don’t you know?

Connection
Connection is part of the 5 Cs I often talk about in my presentations. Connection with those you work with takes place on multiple levels -

#1 - Making a strong connection with the people you work with. We know that relationships can play as important a role as driving for results. What are you doing to get to know the people you work with? Their preferences around work, communication, decision making etc.?

#2 - Connecting your work with others on the remote team. How does everyone’s work fit together? What elements impact and connect in with each other? There is a fallacy that we work isolation, when in fact for many remote projects the pieces do fit together. Spend some time mapping out the way your work connects.

#3 - What is the connection between your values and behaviors? Our behaviors are magnified in the remote space. What do people see when they are with you? Are your values being clearly communicated? What needs an adjustment?

Looking Beyond The Screen
In order to create remote working success and relationships, it’s important that we look beyond the screen. Our window to remote work is often the frame of the screen we see. What is outside of the screen? What’s important to note about the context in which people are operating? While it may seem disconnected from your work, in fact, it’s often an integral part.
In order to look beyond the screen, consider:

• Having a dialogue (two-way conversation) about how you see your work fitting together and synergizing
• How your work does, or does not align
• What your priorities are
• What are the events that are happening outside your window that are having an impact immediately and strategically?

 
Remote does not mean disconnected. What is the reframe you want to undertake?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

It’s time for another Monday Effective Virtual Conversations Tip, with this week getting you to think about, and ask your remote work colleagues about, What’s Outside your Window?

The landscape of work today is amazing. From those who WFA – Work From Anywhere, to those who go to a traditional office with walls, to those who go to an office but are in a hotelling space. The “What’s Outside your Window” may take people to a window that looks outside, or a window that looks out of their conference room.

In the digital space we only have a very small window into the world of our colleagues. Helping to expand that window is key in terms of getting a sense of their context, as well as the reality of the workspace.

When I published Effective Virtual Conversations back in 2017, I had been using this quick introductory exercise of asking “What’s outside your window?” for several years. Now many more years later upon asking group after group, I’m still amazed by how this simple question creates new connections and a new energy to our remote work.

Recently I’ve had people join us from planes, and trains, and of course their office. Technology has made mobile conversations part of the everyday experience for some, and for others still something that is “out there”. Regardless of where you are, my guess is we have a type of support that could help you further augment your conversations. Consider joining me for the next Virtual Facilitation Essentials program, which kicks off in about 10 days (and starts with new groups every few months). We’ll be taking a deeper look at some of the “Bells and Whistles” you can be incorporating into your work.
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Enjoy!