Last winter I published a white paper entitled the “Remote Working Whitepaper”. It’s been downloaded hundreds of times that I can track. You can pick up a copy here.

In it, I share what I term the 7 C’s or Remote Enablers to Work. The first one is expectations – what are the agreements you are creating as a team? This might include:​

• Quality of work.
• Communication – how much, in what channels, how regularly?
• How often you meet.
• The process and structure of how you meet.
• What is applicable and appropriate to raise at meetings, and what should be funneled elsewhere?

Clarity around expectations creates alignment around goals. What are the conversations you want to have?

Best,
Jennifer

Virtual Collaboration is a core topic for all types of remote professionals. Whether we have to build something within our team, or expand our network, it’s key to build capacity to collaborate across distance and time. I address this topic in Chapter 12 of Effective Virtual Conversations. In a very practical way, you will want to consider the following areas for exploration:

#1 – Why are we collaborating? Many writers assert that it’s important not to collaborate just to collaborate. In fact, it’s key that we are clear on why we are collaborating. Is it because our skills are better when we fuse them together? It is because we bring a different insight into a core topic? Be clear on why you are collaborating.

#2 – What’s your core stance and common ground around the topic? What is the common stance you hold around the topic? Perhaps you are both passionate about educating around a topic. Perhaps you want to create a new approach to looking at an issue. Being clear on where you both align, and where you are different, is important.

#3 – What’s different between your work? Consider where your work is not only the same, but complimentary. Partnerships can get weakened if both partners are too similar. Consider exploring not only what’s the same, but also what’s different.

#4 – Consider what your end result is. Results in the remote space need to be specific? Clear? Focused? What are your end results? What are you looking to achieve?

#5 – Provide feedback. Feedback is critical to any partnership and collaborative experience. Be clear on what’s working. What’s not. What changes are needed and how things can proceed.

How often are you meeting? What type of feedback are you both providing and receiving?

Collaboration will continue to be a “pain point” for many professionals. What’s going to help your partnerships flourish in the remote space?
​
Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

#1 – Start with the end in mind. As Stephen Covey wrote years ago “start with the end in mind”. Being clear on what you want people to LEAVE the meeting with, is core to identifying topics which need to be covered, what those topics will focus on, as well as what’s critical for success.

#2 – Have shared agreements about being on-camera and using (or not using) mute. There are several different types of meetings we may host and being clear on what the level of interaction is, is key. Because one Zoom room (or Teams room) looks like another, clarify what people can expect.

#3 – Consider activating video backgrounds. If people’s systems are fast enough, consider the video backgrounds which will work to block out extraneous backgrounds. While green screens can ensure that the background doesn’t make you lose your fingers, or that the glasses on the top of your head don’t fade out,  you can also get small portable green screens which fit on the back of your chair.

#4 – Use all the tools available. If you have to determine the focus of your conversation, consider how a poll or annotation might support you. If you have a large group, use breakouts to move into smaller discussion pods.

#5 – Track agreements as you go. Whether one person acts as a rapporteur (note taker) OR you capture things on the screen, capture agreements as you go. Note also that there are now several apps which integrate into the virtual space for transcription – such as the Otter.ai integration with Zoom and other elements.

Finally, as a bonus, consider your lighting. Being able to be seen automatically builds trust. Make sure that your lighting source is in front of you – windows work well.

What is going to help your next video meeting stand out?

Enjoy!
Jennifer

It’s Monday and time for another Effective Virtual Conversations tip. This week’s tip is about follow-up. While virtual learning is often seen as a one-off event, reinforcing the learning with follow-up can support integration of knowledge to become learning.

Follow-up in the virtual space can take many forms including:

• Focus
• Framing
• Exponential growth

Are you taking the time to follow up? How has this impacted your learning?

All the best,
​Jennifer

This week’s blog posts have explored:

• Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt – What’s another way of looking at this?
• Friday’s Flashback to Teams365 #1577 – Rapid Change
• Thursday’s Team Building Question around What’s Getting in the Way?
• Wednesday’s part 2 post around the 8 Layers of Remote Work
• Tuesday’s part 1 post around the 8 Layers of Remote Work
• Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversations Post

Have a great weekend!
Jennifer

Earlier this month in the September 2020 Remote Pathways podcast community call, I shared the 8 Layers of Remote Work. These are nuanced areas which can be important to learn more about as it relates to your colleagues, stakeholders and work.

In yesterday’s Teams365 blog post, I covered the first four of eight layers of remote work – Digital, Decisions, Delegation and Distractions.

Today’s post is going to explore the final four layers – Design, Dialogue, Do and Depth.

Let’s look at each one of these in turn:

Design – Design skills are increasingly needed by remote professionals of all kinds, given that the way we present our information and ideas may be even more visual and graphical. Likewise, in the remote space it may be likely that you are designing more meetings and programming and presentations. We will be looking at the elements of exceptional virtual design tomorrow, September 17, at the one-day Stand Out Virtually Studio Day Masterclass. Learn more and join us here. 

Dialogue – Talking at people is not communication. With collaboration being an essential, and overlooked, skillset in the remote space, dialogue is critical for success and partnering. The word Dialogue comes from the ancient Greek world of dialogus – which means two way. Dialogue is a two-way conversation. With many remote professionals feeling like they are constantly being communicated to, but not being talked with, fostering a culture of dialogue is critical. This may mean earmarking certain calls for discussion as well as focusing more on using breakouts and other key strategic areas.

Do – The 7th layer of remote work is simple. DO. Get things done. There’s not a lot of time or space for procrastination in the remote space. If you create and lead programs, what can you do to build in more time for people to get things DONE during your time together? Will they pay you to do things for them?

Depth – The final layer is Depth.  As broad as the remote working space is, it is important to have depth in terms of your relationships, levels of trust, connection and clarity around your goals and results. Spending time going deep around agreements, processes, and how you are going to operate is also important.

Be sure to check out the September 1st Remote Pathways Podcast Community Call – you can find it here.

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

The remote workspace is varied, and we don’t always see the context of our colleagues. For any of you who have a copy of my remote working whitepaper, you will know that in it I explore the 7 Enablers of Remote Work. You can read more about these 7 essential elements here.

Recently I have started sharing more about the layered nuances of remote work. Some of these are skills, some components that are standalone.

In today’s article I wanted to dig deeper into the 8 Layers of Remote Work, which interestingly turn out to be the 8 Ds.

Let’s look at each one of them in turn:

1. Digital
2. Decisions
3. Delegation
4. Distractions
5. Design
6. Dialogue
7. Do
8. Depth

The digital economy has existed for several decades, having been jettisoned into exponential growth this year as part of the 2020 pandemic. I recently came across an old edition of a book by Dan Tapscott who wrote the book Digital Economy back in 1995. I’m thinking I must have picked up the copy when I was a grad student. In one of next week’s blog posts, I’ll be going into the 12 hallmarks of a digital economy. The digital space is one of the important layers which is impacting business, teamwork and leadership. Whether all work is virtual, or some components have reverted to face-to-face, how are things different than at the start of the year (or decade)?

Decisions are the second layer of remote work. There is a cost to making decisions, and as we discussed earlier this week in the September Remote Pathways podcast community call (link to https://youtu.be/Fb_FQdR3Ifk ), decisions are a critical part of getting things done in the remote space. Given that we usually don’t operate in isolation, making decisions remotely may take more time.

Another significant shift that we’ve been seeing happen is people’s comfort in making decisions without having as full, or complete, information as they might have had in a face-to-face context.

Delegation is another critical component of remote work. The nuance with remote work is that we may need to be more proactive in delegating and may need to be more strategic in getting people to focus. For the foundations of Delegation check out this Linked In Pulse post I wrote a few years ago on delegation here.

Distractions is another key layer of remote work. In fact, distractions have the potential to really derail professionals of all kinds in the remote space, particularly if our motivation levels are low, or we are not motivated. What are the distractions you want to take note of? For more on digital distractions check out this recent Teams365 blog post - #1480 on Minimizing Distractions here. 

Tomorrow’s post is going to pick up with the last four of the 8 Layers of Remote Work. From these first four, what’s important to note?

All the best,
​Jennifer

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip is STORIES. Stories create an important part of any virtual conversation. It’s often through our stories that we bring examples and learning to life.

As a writer myself, I come from a long line of storytellers. My grandmother’s obituary referred to her as an oral historian, and earlier this year my cousins and I were taken back in time when we heard her voice sharing history as part of a library event. She lived a full life and passed away in 1998, at the age of 98.  We always remarked how cool it would be to be a century baby.

While I’ve published 5 non-fiction business books, it’s only been in recent years that I’ve dabbled in non-fiction writing. In fact, the Digital Dozen™ of the Remote Pathways series is part of a whole new series of adventures I explore in the virtual, remote and digital space. Stay tuned for more updates on these bodies of work….I hope to have one or more new books under this banner out in 2021. For now, you can listen into the Remote Pathways podcast here.

As I thought about what would be useful to share in terms of stories as it relates to the virtual realm, I thought it would be useful to go back to the basics. What are the core elements of stories?

Your dictionary.com indicates that stories are comprised of these essential elements:

• Plot
• Character
• Setting
• Theme
• Point of View
• Tone

Check out their article here.
 
While you might not be writing an entire book, it can be useful to think about these elements in terms of:

• Plot – What are the main points and milestones you want to cover and reinforce?
• Character – Who are the players? Are there some concepts you can bring to life with real-time stories?
• Setting – What is the environment? What is the context? What’s important to note or focus on?
• Theme – What is the overarching theme of the presentation or conversation? There may be several happening at any time and pointing to these can help to “tie things together”.
• Point of View – What are the different perspectives at play?
• Tone – What is the tone? This is often communicated through the colors we use, the font and images. Recently in the Stand Out Virtually Challenge I hosted, a lot of coaches, leaders and presenters were intrigued by learning more about the use of color and thought about how more intentional they could be with images.

What is important for you to note in your upcoming presentations? You might consider working through each of these questions as you pull together your next virtual conversation. It’s even more important given that each one of our locations, and related context, is different.

Let us know what you are focusing on and what you are doing to connect in with these essential elements - plot, character, setting, theme, point of view, and tone. 

This is a topic we’ll be exploring later this week at the Stand Out Virtually one day Masterclass. Join us to deepen your skills and widen your toolbox around virtual conversations. Grab one of the remaining spots – we’ll be kicking off at 9:30 am ET on Thursday September 17th, wrapping up at 3:30 pm ET. My goal is for you to leave with a presentation or a module drafted out.

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

Happy Saturday! This week’s Weekly Journaling Prompt is “Collaboration Means”. As you get back to a fall routine (sort of…), what does collaboration mean for you? In fact, in the virtual space, collaboration is even more important and can be trickier. As I share in Chapter 12 of Effective Virtual Conversations,

“Knowing when to collaborate and when not to is an art form.”

• What does collaboration mean for you?
• Where will collaboration lead to a result where 1 + 1 does equal more than 2?
• What skill sets are important to add on to what you can provide?
• Where is partnering (another type of collaboration) key in your work?

Take a look at these past blog posts for more information:

• Audio – Five Ingredients for more Successful Collaboration 
• Six Barriers to Collaboration – Teams365 1165

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

#1 – Put A Frame Around It. As I shared in one of yesterday’s “Back to (Virtual) Work” Posts, Parkinson’s rule asserts that tasks expand to the amount of time we give them. It can be useful to “put a frame around” bigger projects by putting a framework around the start and end. What are those tasks you want to frame out?

#2 – Related To The First Area Is That Of Boundaries. Framing things out can also relate to boundaries. What are the boundaries you want to put in place? Boundaries can include having:

• Physical space earmarked for
• Boundaries around when you are on, and when you are off
• Boundaries around task time

What boundaries will help you focus?

#3 – Creating time for sprints. Getting things done in faster, deeper dive can be a different way of working. About 5 years ago, I started experimenting with using “sprints” in program design. I take professionals through a 45-minute series of reflective prompts, helping guide them into focus. What are the sprints you want to create around your work?

#4 – Think about meal preparation and batching cooking. It’s likely that your food prep and planning is much more organized than it was this time last year, but perhaps not. Spending time every week to not only plan, and shop, but also prepare, can make a big difference, freeing up valuable time. What are the kitchen implements you have, but haven’t used? This might be an Instant Pot or Slow Cooker. What can you do to incorporate one or two more set-it-and-forget-it meals? One of my favorite video sites is the Seven Sisters….Many of their creations are things we already have in the pantry and freezer.

#5 – Think about creating something different in your routine. Our brains crave, and remember, things that are NOVEL, DIFFERENT or SURPRISING. On a regular basis, what can you do to get out of your routine? Maybe it’s attending a call which helps you think about things in a different way. Maybe it’s about shaking up your routine (moving your workout to a different time of day). Maybe it’s about working from a different location. What can you to do jazz up your routine?
 
For more ideas and virtual productivity hacks, check out the PlanDoTrack Weekly Planning Hacks. You’ll find them here.

You might be interested in reading a recent post I wrote last month – Maintaining Productivity in the Remote Space

Best,
Jennifer