Teams365 Blog - Potentials Realized

#TEAMS365 #1980 – Weekly Journaling Prompt #52: AT your Best....

6/2/2019

It’s time for another weekly journaling prompt. These are geared to get you to build in a pause point every week and think about what is important to you.

This week the question is “at my best I am….”

In past posts I've shared the benefits of journaling. You can read that post here.

One of the activities I take a lot of teams through is this reflectin of who they are when they are at their best. Reconnecting with what's worked, and who we are when we are leveraging our skills and strengths can create a strong pivot.

Today I hope you will find some time to create a few minutes to capture reflections of times when you were at your best.

Enjoy your writing!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development.
Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

#TEAMS365 #1976 – Teamwork in Uncertainty – Synergy

5/29/2019

In keeping aligned with this month’s focus on Teamwork in Uncertainty, today’s blog post gets you thinking about how you can leverage synergy across your team.

When situations are complex and uncertain, it may be difficult to bring all the skills required for success. Therefore, being able to focus in on leveraging the skills that are available to you as a group or team can help maximize your skill base as well as what is available to you.

As I wrote in yesterdays’ post, knowing our strengths is important on the individual and team levels.

In synergy, we are looking at how 1+1 equals more than 2.

If you have completed some strengths-based work, some additional questions to explore as a team are:

What the core strengths we bring as a collective?
What can we harness as a team?
Where might we be over-developed?
What is missing?
Where are the gaps?
When we think about current projects what strengths would benefit them?
Who is best suited to support which project?
What else is important to note?

In situations of uncertainty, it can be important to consider risk, and also contingencies. Given that contexts may be changing rapidly leading from strengths allows us to do things quicker and with less energy expended, freeing up focus and energy for other items.

What’s is important to note around synergy?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development.
Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

#TEAMS365 #1975 – Teamwork in Uncertainty – Strengths and Go-To’s

5/28/2019

In our last Teamwork in Uncertainty post of the month we’re going to explore a favorite topic here at the Teams365 blog – Strengths. As I have shared in many other posts, strengths have a variety of benefits, from strengthening productivity to creating more engagement in the workplace.

In times of uncertainty the only thing we may be able to rely on are our strengths – our own and others. When we are tasked with new activities and tasks it can be useful to explore who on the team might have brought a similar experience. What are the strengths that can support you as a team?

As I share in PlanDoTrack, there are several key questions you will want to explore on the individual level. Check out the sections on strengths in Sections 1 and 4 of PlanDoTrack.

Some of the more common frameworks include:

Utilizing Gallup’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 - Purchase a copy of the book for each team member and have them bring their reports to an upcoming team meeting.
Incorporating the VIA Character Survey – This comes from the Positive Psychology realm and provides another doorway into exploring strengths. The nice thing about this assessment is that it is free.

As with any assessment, it’s important to reinforce a few things:

This may provide a snapshot in time and can be dependent on a variety of factors.
Take what is valuable from the information. Assessments are intended to provide insights, not a box.
Exploring strengths and styles helps us understand ourselves better. Under times of stress and pressure, some of these styles and strengths become magnified. When magnified, some of our strengths become a liability. For example., if one of my strengths is getting results, this is good. However, in times of pressure I may become dogmatic in getting results, pushing harder than needed and burning myself, and others, out. Success in today’s workplace requires a focus on both RESULTS and RELATIONSHIPS.
Look at both the individual view of things and the collective view. The power of bringing most assessments (not all, but many) into the team context is to provide a snapshot across the team, helping them see the collective. It also provides an opportunity for everyone to have a collective framework for exploration and dialogue.

Questions to consider:

What are the discussions you want to have around strengths?
What’s important about exploring this topic individually and collectively?
What do you notice about the collective strengths of the team?
Where are there gaps? What might you do about this?
What will be valuable for you as a team to explore around strengths?

Are you looking to do more work with your team around strengths? Contact me to discuss our team day sessions for teams around strengths.

Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development.
Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

#TEAMS365 #1943 – Friday April 26: Flashback Friday – Roles in the team

4/26/2019

This week’s Flashback Friday brings us back to the topic of roles in a team. One area that doesn’t always get explored but can create a number of challenges is team roles.

Here’s what I wrote about Team Roles in Teams365 #1527:

“An important part of the team building process is exploring and clarifying team roles. There are several great frameworks by researchers around the different roles team members play. For example, you may want to explore the writings and frameworks of Belbin.

In my work as a team coach I like to build on the knowledge of the team itself, getting them to generate their own framework, and naming the different roles they play in their team. It’s common to hear terms like: Project Coordinator, Social Conveyor, Initiator, Implementer, Fact Checker, Devil’s Advocate. Each role serves a valuable purpose.

What are the roles which exist in your team?

Why is this topic important?

Exploring team roles is important for a variety of reasons. First, conflict often emerges when teams do not have clarity on their roles as a team.

Next, role overlap may lead to duplication, and role division may lead to huge gaps that exist.

Another layer which is extremely important as a team is to ensure that others understand what roles you inhabit, and what is enjoyable or not. It’s also important to remember that members of a group can get into “role fatigue” when they have to inhabit that role for a long time. The writing of Marita Fridjohn and Ann Rod explores this topic, along with other many useful team topics.

Here are some questions to prompt a discussion you can undertake as a team:

What are the roles which exist within the team?
Who inhabits the different roles?
What is the greatest value that role serves for this team?
How might that role get over-magnified or over-inhabited?
What roles need to be clarified for the team?
What roles are missing? What’s needed?
Which roles are overlapping? What impact does this have?"

I hope that you will spend some time this week exploring these questions as a team, along with the questions of:

What role fatigue is happening?
What roles are no longer serving others?

Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.

#TEAMS365 #1941 Four Teamwork Essentials for 2019

4/24/2019

As we move into the last week of the month of April, many teams are staring to kick it into high gear. With summer vacations starting in a few weeks or months, now is the time teams really need to get results. What are the core things teams want to keep an eye on this year?

Efficient meetings. We know that teams need updates and meetings abound. Are they the most effective? I have shared my top 8 Essential Meeting Questions from Effective Virtual Conversations several times, and they warrant inclusion again. Meetings are a huge time expenditure and getting them right is so important.

How to have conflict, constructively and respectfully. Being able to have conflict and work across differences constructively and respectfully is really important. Teams thrive when there is a difference of opinion and different insights; however, not every team is encouraged to, or can, work through differences.

Harnessing strengths and styles. One of the greatest challenges in teams is finding the balance between individualism and collective alignment. This is going to be different for each team, with some teams on the end of the spectrum where there “is no I in team” and it’s all about the collective system, and there will be other team experiences (especially remote and virtual teams) where it is more about the individual person.

Open feedback loops. Regular and frequent feedback and communication is imperative in a business context which is changing rapidly. How is information shared across the team? Open communication and feedback loops are critical for success. What are the mechanisms people have to offer feedback? Where is feedback not getting through? Where is genuine feedback NOT being offered? Why? What’s the cost of this – short term and long term?

What are the core issues you are noticing in your teams right now?

What focus and conversations are needed?

Wishing you the best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.

#TEAMS365 #1935 – Team Building Tip 232

4/18/2019

This week’s Thursday Team Building Tip gets you as a team to consider the question: "_____ is strengthening our results."

As you consider your results so far this year, what has helped you. Consider:

Resourcing – Human Resources/People, Materials, Budget
Processes
Practices - coming together for meetings which have been made more efficient with the 8 Meeting Questions
Alignment

What else?

Given these items, what can you be doing to leverage them more?

Enjoy your conversation,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.

#TEAMS365 #1929 – FlashBack Friday – Trust and Connection

4/12/2019

This week at the blog we’ve been exploring the topics of trust and connection. As part of this week’s Flashback Friday, let’s reach back to Teams365 #610 where I explored Four Ways to Boost Trust. Here’s what I wrote:

As we explored earlier this week, trust is a key issue for teams today. Today’s blog post looks at four ways to build trust in your team:

1. Connection - We feel supported when we feel valued, known and heard. Connection is a critical factor for high performing teams. Teams who feel connected with each other have often invested time in getting to know one another, and schedule time for regular connections. Perhaps a 2 pm daily meeting is the norm, or a Monday morning huddle kicks off your week. Consider what will boost connection amongst your team members.

2. Clarity - Clarity is key in creating trust. When we know what is expected of us, it is easier to follow-through and know how we are doing. Creating shared, and clear expectations of each other is important, as is having clarity around roles.

3. Communication - Communication is the foundation of connection and clarity. Consider how the team wants to communicate with each other, and what in fact is most effective.

4. Knowledge/Competence - Many trust models talk about the importance of skills and knowledge, or what they call competence, in building trust. If we know that others have the skills and knowledge to have our backs, we can rest easier that things will get done.

What else do you see as other factors building trust?

As you think about your work and team practices right now, what are you doing to boost:

Connection
Clarity
Communication
Knowledge and Competence

Let us know and share your comments below!

Enjoy your weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.

#TEAMS365 #1928 – Team Building Tip 231

4/11/2019

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to consider the question: “_____ is strengthening our relationships”.

Teams which excel are great at getting results AS WELL AS having strong relationships. On the relationship front we want to hone areas such as:

Knowing each other
Understanding each other’s strengths and styles
Being able to understand what supports vs. what triggers others
Providing feedback and communication
Being able to work across differences, and difficult issues
Team Spirit (having a sense of team identity – see yesterday’s post on this)

As a team this week consider the things you are doing to strengthen your relationships. This might include practices such as:

taking a coffee break together each week,
ensuring that team meetings happen on a regular basis for virtual teams,
spotlighting the work and background of one of the team members each month in an internal email and/or newsletter,
connecting peers in peer pairings to get to know each other, and their work.

What are the things you are doing as a team to strengthen relationships?

Hope that you are enjoying your mid-week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.

#TEAMS365 #1926 – Building Trust and Connection as a Team

4/9/2019

A few weeks ago, I was speaking to a large group of professionals active in the area of team development. We found ourselves getting into the heart of a key topic for leaders, team members and team developers alike – Building Trust and Connection as a Team. What are the different ways you are building trust, and also eroding it?

Trust and connection are essential for team success. This is especially true in virtual and remote contexts. When trust levels are low, we may see behaviors such as:

Territorialism – Mine vs. Yours. Us vs. them. Headquarters vs. Remote Workers
Stereotyping
Lack of accountability
Lack of ownership
Blaming

None of these are productive or positive. Over time these behaviors lead to toxicity and conflict, threatening the fabric of your talent.

What are the things we can do to build trust and connection across the team?

A few years ago, I created a short video which I’ve shown to multiple groups. It focuses on 9 behaviors we can practice as a team to boost trust and connection. I originally wrote about them in Teams365.

These behaviors are:

Walk the Talk
Fairness
Build on Strengths
Take Ownership (For What Works and What Doesn't)
Fairness
Transparency
Creating Connections
Clear Expectations and Communication
Regular one-on-ones/communication

As you read through these ask yourself, where are you on a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being low and 10 being high):

If this is a topic of importance to you and your team, consider exploring this additional Teams365 post about Trust and Connection:
Teams365 1184: Team Building Tip #129

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.

#TEAMS365 #1912 – Appreciations in a Virtual Team

3/26/2019

Teams excel when they have a clear focus on results, and the resources and tools to accomplish them, and when they are also focused on relationships.

This month I have been sharing different activities virtual and remote teams may consider integrating into their work. If you didn’t take a look at last week’s post on Creating Virtual Team Culture, take a look at it now.

Today’s post invites you to consider integrating appreciations in your work as a virtual team. What are the pauses you have created so people can thank others and acknowledge them for their strengths?

Peer feedback is often found to be more valuable and impactful that feedback from a superior or other.

To facilitate this activity, make sure you have adequate time. It may take 15 minutes or more. If you have a larger team (8 or more) have people work in triads (use breakouts for this if you are virtual – which is likely).

One at a time, have someone in the “appreciation seat”. Their colleagues are asked to share:

What is an example when I have seen you at your best this week/this month/this quarter?
I see one of your strengths as….
I appreciate….

This should then be rotated so each person gets a chance to receive feedback.
This exercise can also be added onto by discussion around additional questions such as:

One thing I wish you would do more of is….
I can rely on you for…
One request I have for you is….

This can provide space for more support and difficult conversations.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development).
Check out the new 19 Tips for Productivity On-Demand Course. If this is your year to get things moving, check it out now. Join Jenn for bi-weekly live group calls until July. $129 US. Learn more and enroll here.