What a week it’s been! We’ve covered the terrain of Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt of which elements are important, to Friday’s post on 10 things to fit in before the end of the year.

Other posts this week have included:

• Monday’s focus on Stand Out Virtually’s Principle – Be Consistent
• Tuesday’s focus on Building Connection in Your Remote Team
• Wednesday’s focus on Celebrating the First Year of the Remote Pathways podcast
• Thursday’s focus on the Team Building Question of What Do We Want to Fit into the Last Mile of the Year?

Enjoy the reflection and catching up!
​Jennifer

Next week signals of our first year of the Remote Pathways podcast. When my co-host Michelle Mullins and I started this journey a year ago of exploring the people, pathways and processes to remote work, we would have had no idea how the year would be placing such an emphasis on remote wok.

We’ve released 24 great episodes exploring the terrain of the remote workspace. From entrepreneurial pursuits to project managers, sales professionals, to virtual facilitators, the landscape of remote work is vast. We have also focused on helping people explore some of the key areas that help people thrive, for example, our episodes with:

• Theresa McCleod and the Enneagram – Episode 14 
• Conflict Management and our guest Gayle Oudeh – Episode 13 
• Kristin Winkle-Beck and her discussion with us around Pivoting to Virtual
• Or Jennifer’ Grote’s presentations on Strengths (episode 10) or Wellness in the Remote Space (episode 24)
  

Check out some of my other favorite episodes:

• Remote Working Myths – Episode 19 
• Every Remote Professional is a Leader and Needs Leadership Skills – Episode 17 

 
We are looking forward to having you join us for season 2!
Enjoy your conversations,

One of the challenges of today’s remote team is that of connection which has implications for results and relationships. When people don’t feel connected it has impact on productivity, teamwork and also results.

What are the ways you are connecting your team?

Many teams these days are incorporating some, or all, of these:

• Weekly or daily huddles (as time zones permit)
• Virtual Co-Working Sessions (Check out The Remote Pathways podcast episode on Co-working 
• Peer partners who meet around key accountability measures

What are the things you are doing to help people feel connected and aligned with your purpose?

What are the best vehicles for you as a team to stay connected?

For more on the topic of building trust and connection, check out these other Teams365 blog posts:

• Teams365 #679 – Four Ways to Build Trust with Your Team 
• Teams365 #1168 - Five Ways to Build Trust in Your Virtual Team 

Enjoy your conversations!
​Jennifer

Welcome back to this week’s week in review. This week we explored:

• Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt – “I’ve stretched by..”
• Friday’s Flashback’s focus on skills needed for remote work
• Thursday’s Team Building Question getting you to think about feedback
• Wednesday’s From the Vault Exploring 10 things remote teams need
• Tuesday’s post on Remote Teamwork
• Monday’s focus on Screenshots as this week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip

 
It’s also the first day of the month so time for monthly review questions and setting up for the new month:

1. What were your successes and accomplishments this past month? So far this year?
2. What are you most proud of?
3. What are your key priorities for November?
4. What needs to get completed by the end of the month, no matter what?
5. ​By the end of November, what are the top 3 goals you want to have accomplished? What will success look like around each of these? What do you need in order to be successful? What support do you need to make this happen?
6. What key relationships have helped you so far this year? Which ones need more attention?
7. What has helped your successes? What has hindered?
8. What does your team need to be acknowledged for?
9. What are you going to do to acknowledge and celebrate your hard work?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Jennifer

It’s Friday which means it’s time to take a look back at an older blog post. Today’s post brings us back to a post from 2018 - #1533: Empathy and Building Connection in Virtual Teams. I think it’s just as relevant today as it was when it was first published. What do you think?
 
One of the skills which is important to develop in the virtual world today is empathy. One of the challenges is that we don't get to see beyond the screen.  What are some ways we can be building more empathy and understanding with other virtual team members?

​What comes to mind in terms of ways you can boost more connection and understanding amongst team members?

​Empathy is a skill set critical for teamwork and leadership. In fact, I probably could do a series of post on this topic.  In today's post I want to zoom into the question of "what are some practical ways to build more empathy across virtual teams, while also boosting connection?". 

​There have been some great writings by others on the topic of empathy. Consider these articles -Empathy in Leadership - 10 Reasons Why It Matters by Tanveer Naseer. Read it here.
​Matthew Taylor's Empathy in Leadership: Coaching Leaders to Manage Their Stories. Read it here.
Center for Creative Leadership: Empathy in the Workplace. Find this here.

​As virtual teams, what are some ways we can build our skills in empathy while building connection:

​1. Provide opportunities for team members to get to know each other - online and offline. While some virtual teams will never meet, building in time for "getting to know" each other is critical. This could entail dedicating some time to sharing "What's outside your window?" or "…on your desk" as I describe in Chapter 7 of my new book Effective Virtual Conversations.

​2. Create formal learning partnerships with others on the team. Many virtual teams benefit from having peer partners to meet with on a regular basis. This helps us to learn more about each other, what projects we are working on. As we listen and learn more trust, connection and understanding is created.

​3. Be present and listen. We continue to see how important the ability to focus on virtual conversations is. Nothing will destroy trust and connection faster than hearing other person on the end of the phone or streaming typing away, writing an email while you are speaking together. What will it take to be present, focus, and deeply listen in your virtual conversations?

​4. Listen for the deeper layers - Typically in listening we may be staying at the surface. Hearing with one ear and thinking about what we are going to say back to the other person. In the deeper listening needed by virtual teams today, listen to what the person is saying. Notice the pace, pitch of the conversation. Notice what is the emotion behind the words? What is being said? 
​
​5. Take time to share more about your world, your work, your priorities. An important part of empathy is understanding. It's a two-way street - being open to share, and being receptive to listening. how much are you sharing about your world, your work and your priorities?

​There are multiple ways be can be focusing on the skills of empathy as we build connection on teams. What are some approaches you as a team want to focus on?

​With best wishes,
Jennifer

As an organization who has supported remote teams and leaders for more than fifteen years, we’ve had a lot of conversations around what makes remote work, work. This year has seen an increase in volume in the number of conversations we are having with teams around what they need, given that many are not “remote by choice” but “remote by chance”.

As you step into the last couple of months of the year, it’s likely that remote work, or hybrid work (part remote, part in-person) may be the norm. Be sure to:

Build in time for connecting in with others on the team and other key stakeholders - Connections are critical for remote professionals. We don’t operate in isolation. We need others to grow, get results and income.  What is important for you? What amount of time are you spending in CONVERSATION with others?

Build in time to acknowledge the efforts of others - What amount of time have you spent acknowledging the efforts of those on the team? Are you dedicating time in your meetings to focus on acknowledgements within your team? Have you “been catching people doing things right”?

Build in time for feedback - How much time has been spent this year on feedback across the team? One of the downsides to remote work, is that we don’t have the same opportunities to get feedback – both constructive and positive feedback.  Stay tuned for more on feedback during Thursday’s post.

Build in time for team development - Teams are the engines of many businesses and while teams have not been able to get together regularly, it’s key to provide teams with time to focus on what’s important for them.

Build in time for renewal – It’s been a long year, and many are feeling the impact of too much time on the screen. What are you doing to inject some fun and renewal?

What else is needed?
​
Enjoy your conversations!
Jennifer

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to consider the PITFALLS you may be facing – as a team or organization.

One of my current writing projects is the Daily Remote Guide. Recently we explored some of the pitfalls to remote work including:

• Different types of social Interaction than what we experienced in the in-person space - While we can’t meet at the water cooler, what is the virtual watercooler you have access to?
• Visibility - Several recent studies have found that many younger professionals are concerned about their visibility during this session. Out of Sight Does Not Mean Out of Mind. If you are concerned that no one knows what you do, consider how you can create more opportunities for sharing across the team?
• Many items get magnified - From glitches to where there are gaps, consider how things get magnified in the remote space.
• Collaboration - As I like to say, “no person is an island”. What’s going to help you collaborate across distance and space?
• Myths - Many of the myths around remote work have been busted in recent months. From previous myths such as “if people work from home they will just sit around in pajamas” to “we really can’t connect virtually”. What are the myths which exist in your organization or industry? What’s going to help to dispel them?

What is going to support you?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

This week’s Team Building Question is “what’s getting in the way?”. Success in today’s business context is about ongoing evaluation of what’s working and what’s not. What worked this time last year may not be the thing that works right now.

As you consider the question “What’s getting in the way?” consider what this might be as it relates to process, teamwork, communication, meetings, projects etc.

Taking a hard look regularly at what works, and what doesn’t will help you as a team keep moving and adapting.

As an old mentor of mine once said “In times of disruption, there can be no sacred cows”. This was a mantra I led by for many years, being involved in post-disaster rehabilitation and regrowth along with many other key programming areas including educational reform and environmental initiatives.

What’s getting in the way of your success right now?
What are the roadblocks you are facing?


What can help you get over (or around those roadblocks)?

What resources do you need – people? Technology? Change of process? New information? Different skills or expertise?
​
What’s needed to make a change?

Enjoy the conversation,
Jennifer

I have been doing a lot of speaking this year around virtual conversations and digital transformation.  Whether I have been speaking about creating MEMORABLE virtual conversations, or HOW to digitize parts of your business, your learning or teamwork, 2020 is apt to go down as the year where the pivot to digital transformation got accelerated. Here’s what I wrote only a short 7 months ago in December 2019 on Digital Transformation in Teams365 #2178.

Take a read and think about what is important for you to note:

As an author and consultant, I often work with organizations and teams around the topic of digital transformation. As someone who has usually worked as an early adopter with technology, sometimes out of geographic necessity, digital transformation is an extension of the work I’ve been doing for several decades now.

You can hear more about the various pathways that bring us into remote and digital work at the new podcast I am hosting with colleague Michelle Mullins. Together we are exploring the people, pathways and processes that make up the remote workspace.

Digital transformation has been one part of this equation. From large banks, to healthcare, to education, the way we are connecting, conversing and doing our work is essential.

Many rural areas now have access to medical advisors that would not have been possible years ago. I remember vividly being part of some epiphany moments and paradigm shifters in 1998 (yes, that’s 1998) with a community deep in the interior of South America. A funding grant from the Canadian International Development Agency helped to fund solar panels, a satellite connection and special laptops to link that community with educational materials. When I arrived at the community to meet with my team who had been based there doing related work in primary health and infrastructure rehab, I was struck (as was often the case) with the very limited resources available for students. One notebook each, a small pencil and bare bookshelves. This pilot project was a bit of a game changer for that community, opening up the doorways to education for those children.

While not every project like this is a success, they radically change the paradigm of how we work, what’s available and then what’s possible.

This is also what’s happening in the era of digital transformation.

While we may not be comfortable in letting go of “how we’ve always done things” it’s important that we also look at the questions of:

• What can we do now?
• What’s now possible?
• What new connections are there?

VUCA, digital transformation, and AI (all 3 separate things) are showing up in some workplaces at the same time. It can be overwhelming for some and spark creativity for others.

Providing a space for people to connect and share their insights in a way where they can be heard.

As a team, over time, be sure to build in time to explore additional questions around:

• What changes do we need?
• What can be evolved? Repurposed?
• What new things do we need to create?
• What do we need to stop doing?
• What conversations are important for you to have as a team? What space and time do you need to earmark so these conversations are taking place?​

Interested in having a conversation about this? Need a facilitator or speaker to come in and discuss? Please reach out to me by email at info@potentialsrealized.com and let’s set up a time to talk.

Best wishes, 
​Jennifer

Welcome back to another Monday Effective Virtual Conversations tip. This week’s tip takes us back to a reminder of six elements I write about in part 3 of EVC which help remote teams thrive. I call these the Six Factors of High Performing Teams in my work. It’s a framework I have used for several years, especially when teams are looking to pinpoint some of the ‘levers’ they can use to make their teamwork better.

Together these six areas create a dynamic set of levers which can be focused on and adjusted. In my experience of working with teams, especially remote teams, it’s likely that some areas are doing well, and one or more need attention.

I’ve shared quite a bit about the Six Factors during  the seven years of the post several times, including this post back in 2014 – # 8 in this daily blog series.

As you read through these, consider what are the elements or levers your team could benefit from some attention around:

1. Shared purpose or mission - Your WHY? Why do you exist? How might this have changed? What are you doing to reconnect everyone into this on a regular basis?

2. Shared performance goals - What are the goals you are working on for Q2? How do they connect in with others?

3. Shared behavioral norms - What are the ways you do things? What makes your team unique in terms of how you do things? What’s acceptable and what’s not? Our norms define our culture and help to differentiate us.

4. Shared team practices - What are the things you are doing to keep things moving as a team? How have your meetings evolved? What are you doing to focus on both relationship development and results?

5. Shared commitment - What are you committed to, NO MATTER WHAT? How do you have each other’s backs?

6. Clear roles - What are the different roles required on the team to do your best work? Who is best suited to play what role?

How do you rate as a team on each of these six factors? You may want to rate them on a scale of 1-10 with one being low and 10 being high. Which areas do you need to work on or create together?

What are the levers which need attention? Where would you like to focus as a team, going forward?

Best,
Jennifer