This week I came across a note I had made myself late last year and never got posted. Having worked to support team leaders for a number of years, I often get asked, “what are some of the key conversations they are having with their teams right now”? Here are five areas team leaders today may be in conversation around:

#1 - Focus - With so much occurring in the workplace today – flavors of the month, shiny red objects, interruptions, course changes, external events, etc…helping our team members focus on what is important RIGHT NOW, today, can be an important message to keep reinforcing. Helping team members with prioritization skills and being able to continue to focus on what’s important without adding to the interruptions and divergence is also key. If you are operating in a team context, the impact of one team member slipping may have a domino effect. What are the things that are going to help with focus?

#2 - Connection - What are the things you can do to help people feel connected? Connected to others in the team? Connected to the resources they need? The information they need? What is important about this topic right now for the team?

#3 - Disruption and Change - Disruption and change is becoming more commonplace across industries. Global events can have local impact. Disruption in a related industry can have a trickle effect. What are you doing to help people understand how they react to change, and also build capability in the areas of strategic thinking and/or contingency planning? Having worked for many decades in the areas of strategic planning, critical thinking and contingency planning, I often take it for granted that people are using these tools. What’s important to explore and have conversation with your team?

#4 - Building Trust - As Stephen Covey wrote - and I paraphrase – “Trust is the currency of business”. What are you doing to build trust, and erode trust? In today’s fast, and sometimes remote, business context, we may only see people in “small windows” of time.  Comments, and reactions, may get magnified. Certain activities or patterns of behaviors might be perceived as the norm. What are you doing to build trust, particularly in terms of creating an environment where people can be heard, and listened to? Where follow through is modeled? Where communication fits the needs of the team? What behaviors are visible?

#5 – What can people on the team do to be able to do their best work? Finally, we know from strengths-based research that when people are able to do their best work and use their strengths, there’s greater productivity, engagement and quality of life. Check out Gallup’s Strengths Center for the latest research on this.

Asking the team what they can do to do their best work, as often as possible can be a great conversation. It may also open up a debate point of “Why can’t I do this all the time?”. While we may not be able to use strengths EVERY DAY and EVERY HOUR on every PROJECT, what can we do to magnify or expand this?
Enjoy the conversations and let us know what you are exploring in your team. 

Best,
​Jennifer

Creating connection across the team quickly is an important part of building the capacity of a remote team, especially when they only get to see each other infrequently.

Today’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip invites you to consider using the question “What’s on your desk?”, to provide a wider perspective for the team to explore what is important and a priority for each team member. In the remote space, we may only see the backdrop to people’s workspace. What would it be like to have people pan real time their workspace, or share a photo of what’s physically on their desk? It might also be interesting to have people share the top 3 priorities for their week. This can help the team gain a new, and wider, appreciation of what’s important and happening in each person’s world. It can also help the team to make connections between their work and others that they may not have “SEEN” (no pun intended!) before.

What’s on your desk?
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What would a picture of your desk convey to others? ….here’s a shot of mine right now…

All the best, 
​Jennifer

Today’s Team Building Tip gets you to think about and be in dialogue around “What you are aiming for” as a team? Having a clear line of sight around your goals and targets is key, particularly when you are a remote team.

Have you, as a team, clearly identified the goals you are working towards? Have you identified HOW you want to work on them? Have you clearly articulated who on the team connects in with each goal? Have you identified what “success” will look like from each team member’s perspectives and how their contribution is needed for another?

Working with goals should be done in tandem with your vision. Vision helps us connect in with aspirations around a task. Our vision usually is grounded in emotion and other aspirational energy. With that, it can help to keep us motivated around goals, even when things aren’t working as planned. Connecting our goals into the bigger picture helps when things get bumpy, in terms of smoothing things out.

Goals, and Vision, are two topics we’ve covered recently at the Remote Pathways Podcast. Do check out Episodes 3 and 4 for more on goals and vision for remote teams. You will also want to download the associated episode resources which include a One Page Plan and a Vision Worksheet. You could use both of these resources at the team level.

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

One of the themes I’ve been talking a lot about in recent months as we moved into year end, and now are in the start of the year is that Metrics Matter. On an individual level in our own planning, it can be very useful to note things like:

• Key achievements
• Time spent on different activities (work, meetings, troubleshooting, coaching, learning, etc.)
• The things you actually accomplish in any given day

On a team level, starting the year with a conversation around metrics, achievements and goals can be really important. As part of the start of year kick off you may want to:

• Note key metrics (where you are now, where you want to go by end of the year, and what your check in touchpoints are)
• Note key goals
• Identify aspirations and intentions – as I mentioned in an earlier blog post this year, aspirations and intentions are often wider in focus and help to anchor things.

What are the other items you want to note?

All the best, 
​Jennifer 

It’s Boxing Day here in Canada which used to be THE busiest day of shopping of the year, before Black Friday entered the scene here about a decade ago (we celebrate Thanksgiving in mid-October with the harvest, but most have widely embraced Black Friday!)

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to think about:

WHAT you want to celebrate

And…
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HOW you want to celebrate.

We don’t always slow down and take a moment to STOP and PAUSE and think about all the good things that we (individually and collectively) have accomplished.

While a pause doesn’t have to be for a long period, it can be useful to mark major milestones so that we see where our journeys are taking us.

Here’s an invitation for you today - I hope that you will take a few minutes today to mark down your key accomplishments this year and take a few minutes to share them with someone else. What’s possible for you now? If it’s hard to bring anything to mind, think about where you were a year ago. What’s different today? What’s shifted for you?
​
Enjoy!
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, 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.

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to consider the question “HOW do you want feedback?” As part of team days, I host for teams (virtually and in person) we usually wind up doing work around strengths or styles, helping team members understand the diverse needs and approaches on the team. From there, we usually start exploring what these differences mean in terms of communication, working style, approaches to conflict and also things that get under our skin, or triggers.

One of the areas where you may see significant differences is in the area of feedback – how we like to give it, and how we like to receive it. Feedback should be a two-way street.

This week’s Team Building Tip asks the question: “How do you want feedback?”
Options might include:

• Regular in batches or as things happen
• Focused on the big picture vs. Granular in detail
• Verbal only vs writing which you can review and then connect verbally to speak about

What are the ways you want to focus on feedback?

Feedback should also be a two-way street, and while asking the question to those we are supporting through feedback, you’ll want to consider asking “What type of feedback do you want as the receiver?”

Note that in many teams, feedback is not just between the leader and team members. There may be peer feedback cycles as well. The question how “How do you want feedback?” may be an interesting one to explore with the entire team.
​
Enjoy the conversations!
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, 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.

This week’s Team Building Tip should hopefully surface an interesting dialogue around communication and how people prefer to communicate.

One of the major areas of conflict for teams today can be the varied ways people want to communicate, and becoming entrenched in our own preferences, without embracing other ways of working.

On a team, it’s likely that you all will have different preferences around –

• Text vs. Chat
• Visual vs. Data
• Real-time vs. Recording
• Face-to-face vs. Virtual
• Big picture vs. Granular detail
• Focused on the present vs Focused on the future

This list could continue. As a team, it might be an interesting conversation to go around the table to discuss what:

• Different preferences exist along these continua listed above
• Focus areas
• What you as a team are doing in terms of varying approaches and meeting different people’s needs

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, 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.

​It’s Thursday and while some are celebrating Thanksgiving, many of us have a regular day of work. This week’s Team Building Tip is a “Remote Work Enabler”. Throughout the upcoming weeks I’ll be including a number of special items to keep in mind to help your remote team THRIVE, not just SURVIVE!

The first remote work enabler I wanted to point to was that of expectation. In a remote team, we may be part of multiple matrix relationships, which makes it even more important for us to be clear on our expectations about HOW THINGS ARE DONE.

Teams can benefit from taking time to create a WAYS OF WORKING, or Team Agreements about how they will operate together.

What are the team expectations around?:

• Showing up for meetings
• Focus at meetings
• Being prepared
• Being punctual
• Quality of work
• Surfacing issues
• Addressing difficult conversations
• How you interact with each other
• Share information
• Connect with others outside of the organization
• Participate in ongoing learning

Each one of these could spark a conversation around multiple factors.

When expectations are not clear we run the risk of doing things differently, having varied output, and most importantly, creating assumptions that might not be founded. These can have the most detrimental impact in the long run.
As a team, what do expectations do you want to make clear?

Best wishes, 
​Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, 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.

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to consider the question – “What’s getting in the way?” As a team, what are the things which have obstructed you from what’s really important?

It’s at this time of year that we may become really clear about the SHINY RED OBJECTS which have become an alluring focus but may not have translated to business results. OR WAIT? Have they?

It can be important to think about activities not only from an immediate impact, but also in terms of the longer-term activities and seed-planting work which needs to go into bigger projects. For those reading the Teams 365 blog who are solopreneurs you will probably know what I mean. Many times, we take on creative projects which may not be revenue generating but actually are key in moving the business forward. The challenge is to make sure that there is a good balance between those activities which need to happen NOW and generate revenue, as well as those activities which are key to business growth but may only pay off in the long run.

This week consider the question – What’s getting in the way? Is it a closed road, or an important detour?

What do you need to say YES to? NO to?

Best wishes, 
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, 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.
​

This week’s Team Building Tip is a systems check. Systems are key in the remote and virtual workspace. They are the things that keep us doing things in a consistent manner, creating a seamless experience for our team members and customers. Consider a team that is spread across Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris and Shanghai. We want to ensure that a customer will have a similar experience across the different areas.

In my PlanDoTrack Workbook Planner and the Coaching Business Builder Workbook Planner, I explore five systems which can help remote workers and solopreneurs.

They are:

1. Financial systems - Invoicing, Accounts Payable, Cash Flow, Accounts Receivable etc
2. Client systems - Welcome Kits, other supports
3. Onboarding systems - Questionnaires, Agreements, Welcome Letters
4. Marketing - Websites, Social Media Feeds, Frequently Asked Questions
5. Content - Do you know what you have created? Do you have an accessible listing of what there is?
6. Sales - What do you notice about sales? What can generate more? What follow-up do you have with those you have sold to?

 

• What is the current state of these five areas? What could use attention?
• What systems do you as a team have in place? What needs focus?
• What new systems could benefit the team?

All the best,
​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.
For those looking for tips, tools and ideas about remote work and support for your remote teams, be sure to check out these tags and resources. ​