Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

TEAMS365 #2376 –Team Building Tip 252

7/2/2020

Welcome back to another weekly installment of the Team Building Question.

This week is #252 in the series. Today’s prompt is:

What needs to go under the microscope?

In the spirit of the mid-year review we’ve just done, what do you notice about what needs attention?

What needs to be looked at more closely?

What needs to be examined more?

As you zoom in, what do you notice?

What are the conversations you need to have going forward as a team? With your stakeholders?

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Check out our Digital Resources to support you in your work and conversations

TEAMS365 #2369 – Team Building Tip 251: What could increase your range?

6/25/2020

This week’s Team Building Question asks you to consider “What could increase your range”? Individually? Collectively as a team?

Our range usually is the distance between the start and end of your comfort zone. Consider how this may have shifted in recent months. What in your comfort zone has shifted?

Our range is important as individuals as it allows us to continue reaching and growing.

Our range as a team is often the exponential amount of our capabilities and our collective comfort zone. This is important as it can help us as a team to continue stretching, growing, and also innovating.

What are the activities which could increase your range? Consider things like:

Job Shadowing – Seeing others in action (virtually or in-person) so you can learn about how they do things, how they approach tasks you are not familiar with
Mentoring – Working with someone more seasoned who can provide insights around HOW to do things
Learning – Taking formal or informal courses
Coaching – Working with a coach to explore alternative perspectives and ways of doing things, your mindset and/or belief systems. Contact me to set up a sample coaching conversation.

Enjoy your conversations and action!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time™ in the Remote Space
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

Check out our Digital Resources to support you in your work and conversations

TEAMS365 #2362 – Team Building Tip 250

6/18/2020

This week we hit the 250 mark of the weekly Thursday Team Building Tips. Which one has been your favorite?

Each week I have been providing you with a question to incorporate into your team meeting, to spark some new ideas. This week’s question is “What needs more percolation time?”.

As we’ve collectively seen in recent months, complex challenges when we are leading from a new paradigm often requires new ways of thinking. This may mean new concepts, new mental models, as well as new ways of doing things.
With this in mind, it may mean that things need to marinate, stew or percolate for longer.

The percolation time may feel very different than when thinking is fast, and action is fast.

What are the things you need to marinate on, or percolate on as a team? As an individual? What will help you NOT rush the process?

Enjoy today’s post and be sure to take some time to review some of the first 250 Team Building questions here.

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 Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar

PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here.

TEAMS365 #2355 – Team Building Tip 249

6/11/2020

“What we focus on, expands”. This is a phrase we commonly hear about. But what is it grounded in? The Science of Attention has been getting an increasing amount of focus in recent years.

Daniel Goleman’s book, Focus, addresses this topic. You can see what he says in this short 4 minute (approximately) video here.

The Reticular Articulating System (RAS for short) plays a key role in helping the brain determine what stimuli or input it pays attention to. In short, it determines where we focus.

Think about it. In any given moment, what are you paying attention to? What are you actually noticing? Is it the sound of outside noise, your beating heart, your keys on the keyboard, or the birds in the trees?

Here are a few different articles which explore the RAS and its function:

Today’s team building tip gets the team to explore the question “What are you putting your attention around?”.

Notice. What are you noticing?

What is not being focused on?

What implications does this have?

Enjoy your conversation!
Jennifer

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

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar

PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here.

TEAMS365 #2348 – Team Building Tip 248

6/4/2020

The concept of deliberative practice has gained popularity in recent years, featured in books such as Michael Bungay Stanier’s the Coaching Habit, or in James Clear’s article about Deliberative Practice here.

The notion of deliberative practice is grounded in sport. Just like becoming a pro tennis star or soccer team, it’s critical to get practice and feedback on your actions. With each feedback round we are able to adjust and tweak our skills.

As teams, it takes time and practice to excel. What do you need to do to practice? What are the things which are going to help you hone the skills you need?

What feedback loops exist? What are you able to do to cultivate both positive and constructive feedback?

Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer

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

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar

PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here.

TEAMS365 #2341 – Team Building Tip 246

5/28/2020

This week’s Weekly Team Building Tip is “Where would it be useful to sprint?”. While many things in the workplace today are a marathon, there’s value in moving things into a sprint mindset. When we embrace a sprint mindset that might include:

Condensing project time-frames to shorter windows
Focusing in on more rapid iteration and learning

In my own programming I host a quarterly program design sprint. In the span of 30 – 45 minutes it’s a series of rapid reflection and writing questions, designed to support people to GET IDEAS on PAPER without a lot of self-censure.

Having run these for about four years now, it’s always amazing to see what emerges in these short windows. A recent group member was inspired by what they were able to get out of their head and onto paper just last week. I’ve dedicated a notebook to these jottings so that I can go back in the future to find and build onto them.

Sprints don’t just appeal to short projects, but also longer projects. Take a look at the book Sprint, by Jake Knappfor more on this. He goes through the rapid prototyping that can occur over the course of five days.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

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

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar

PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here.

TEAMS365 #2334 - Team Building Tip 245: What’s the question you want to ask?

5/21/2020

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to think about the question – What questions do you need to ask? Thinking about the current opportunities and/or challenges right now, what will help you explore this in a different light? You may want to generate some new questions by asking new questions which will help you as a team:

Expand your thinking?
Create some new options?
Develop new possibilities?
Challenge the assumptions you are making?
Uncover something new?
Help you consider what you have not thought of yet?
Look at it from a different perspective?
Explore a deeper level of the challenge?
Look at it from the opposite angle?
Reverse engineer it?

What other type of questions might you explore?

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

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

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar

PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here.

TEAMS365 #2330 - Week in Review

5/17/2020

It’s Sunday and what are you going to do to relax, recharge and refocus? Sunday is one of my favorite days of the week and this year I’ve been taking time each Sunday to review my successes of the week before, carry over tasks and think about my strategy for the week ahead. I try to do this in about 15-20 minutes each week. If you have a copy of PlanDoTrack you may want to use the week in review to track this…

My hope is that you also will take time today to focus in on some of the blog posts from this last week. This week we explored:

Enjoy your Sunday, reflection and planning!

With best wishes,
Jennifer

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

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar

PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here.

TEAMS365 #2328 – FlashbackFriday – Remote Team Builder

5/15/2020

This week’s Friday Flashback takes a look back at a recent post focusing on building out your remote team toolbox. This has become an even more important topic than ever!

Here’s what I wrote:

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
SWOT: The trusty strategic planning tool

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. (with 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.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

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

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar

PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here.

TEAMS365 #2327 –Team Building Tip 244

5/14/2020

Welcome back to another Team Building Tip. This week we are at Tip #244. A few months ago, in early March, I released a new Remote Working Whitepaper. In it I share what I term the 7 Remote Enablers: 7 Things that help remote work flow. One of them is Clarity. Another is Communication. As a team, it’s often the things metaphorically “below the waterline” which aren’t visible or explicit.

Things that might require some clarification are:

The assumptions we’re making about the projects we are jointly working on – “I’m working on this…No you are.”
What are our roles and responsibilities?
Who needs to do what, when?
What am I reporting out to others?
What do we do if we have a disagreement?
If I have a problem, I should work through it versus if I have a problem, I should raise it for discussion.
Resourcing.
Authority – Who is able to do what?

It’s often the unspoken, or unclear, that creates confusion or even conflict.

As a team get into the practice of checking your assumptions and also seeing what needs to be made explicit.

Enjoy the conversations!
Jennifer

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

Get your Q2 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, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar

PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here.