​This week’s Team Building tip is “What’s your best work?”. As you think about everything you have accomplished in the last few months (or the last year or two), what is your best work?

• What are the things that you are really proud of?
• In your work, what can you to do cultivate, or ask for, more work opportunities like this?
• How did this task use your skills?
• What did it do to accelerate your learning and growth?
• What made it so fulfilling?
• Are there elements of that project which can be isolated and magnified in future projects?
• Helping people and teams connect with their best work, boosts engagement and commitment to task. This helps foster a culture of growth and higher levels of trust.
• What can you do to facilitate experiences so that people can bring their best self to work?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

What can you do to play to your strengths?

This week’s Team building Tip asks you to reflect on the question “What can you do to play to your strengths?”.

A few weeks ago I delivered a keynote on mentoring and talked about how important it is to leverage our strengths regularly. As I asked the people I was speaking to about how well they knew their strengths, not many hands went up. It was interesting, because one of the areas I see teams get so much traction around is in the area of strengths. Learning about your own, and then thinking about how that helps (and hinders!) team effort.

Gallup has done an immense amount of research in this area, and strengths resources abound. From Gallup’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 to the Positive Psychology VIA Strengths survey, there is lots to explore and be in dialogue around.
As you think about your work – what is easy for you? Where are you able to lean into your natural capacity? Is it in building relationships? Thinking? Getting things done?

• How can your team leverage your natural talents more?
• What can you offer to your team?
  

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

This week’s Team Building Tip brings us to #209 of the series. Aligned with our shift to a focus on year-end, this week’s question to surface with the team is the question:
What needs to get completed by year end?
As you think about year end, here are 14 common year-end activities you will want to budget time and space for:

1. Reporting
2. Financials
3. Projects
4. Planning for new projects
5. Meeting with stakeholders (internal and external)
6. Communication planning for next year
7. Team development
8. Performance Reviews
9. Coaching Conversations
10. Learning for 2018
11. Learning for 2019 (individual and team level)
12. Peer Meetings
13. Meeting with our bosses
14. Meeting with other key internal partners

What else would you add to the list?
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Enjoy!
Jennifer

Welcome to the month of November where our focus turns to more topics around teamwork and leadership. This month we’ll be looking at:

• Planning for Key Activities for Your Team at Year End
• Five things to make sure you get in the calendar now for 2019
• Skill Development for 2019 for you as a leader and your team
• Five key elements for virtual and remote team members
• Prepping for Year End Events

Later this month we’ll start to revisit some of the Top 10's for the year – ranging from key books, to focus areas for teams, to needs for virtual teams.

For now, it’s Thursday, and let’s get to our 208th Team Building Tip. Today’s question is:

From the 30,000 foot view, what’s important?
 
Consider what’s important for you as a team from the macro-level. As you look out from this vantage point you may want to consider:

• What’s REALLY working?
• How do key items (successes, failures, opportunities, initiatives) fit together?
• What are the things we need to be aware of?
• What lies ahead on the horizon?

In today’s business context it is very easy to get pulled into the minutia and really be in the weeds. With the business context of volatility, and change, being able to get up out of the weeds can be really important.
What do you notice as you move to the 30,000 foot view?

Best,
​Jennifer

What is everyone on the team committed to?
This week’s team building tip is the question “What is everyone on the team committed to?”. What are the things that teams will “go to bat” for. What are the non-negotiables?
Commitment across a team is essential for getting results. Teams are often as strong as their weakest link. What can you do to explore what commitments means for you on your team?

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) 
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

What team practices are supporting relationships?
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From the realm of high performance we know that teams which excel have strong relationships. Part of this is making sure we have strong team practices – that could include Monday morning meetings, a mini-team event each month, a Thursday night social or a quarterly team development activity.

Consider your team right now and think about what is needed on the part of the team. What will help the team connect, have fun and get to know each other? Having fun as a team is important as it can help people relax and bring themselves more naturally into their work. If they are not able to bring their natural self to the workplace, disconnect may happen between how they work at home and how they work at work.

Here are seven different ways teams may be connecting with each other:

1. Daily huddles or quick status meetings (10-15 minutes) to keep projects on task.
2. Monday morning meetings – a meeting at the start of the week can support focus and alignment for the team, assisting with priorities and information sharing. Monday meetings may also flag issues that need to be addressed but haven’t been noted before.
3. Monthly project assessments – some teams may do a short monthly team meeting, highlighting key projects which need attention and/or doing a review. Some of the more common project questions are included under the next category of team debrief.
4. Team debriefs post major project (or mid-term). These may get the team to identify lessons learned, what’s working, what’s not and suggestions for the future.
5. A weekly or monthly social event around town. PingPong and darts are favorite options. Escape rooms and/or axe throwing are for teams who are more edgy (note: these options may not be applicable or appropriate for every team and their culture!).
6. Quarterly Booster Shots – Dedicating half a day or a full day to team development and/or learning. It could be undertaking an assessment together such as the Everything DiSC, or StrengthsFinder.
7. Key to making these valuable team practices, teams will want to consider the purpose and efficiency of each approach. Just because you do it, doesn’t mean it’s going well.
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What is the team finding valuable? What needs a change?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

This week’s Team Building Tip #205 in the series, gets you to think and be in discussion about the question “What team practices are supporting results?”.
Whether it’s a Monday morning huddle, a Thursday after work social event, or a mid-week lunch and learn, what are the activities (and meetings) which are helping the team get the results they need?

Regular communication in ways that work for the team, along with clarity around goals and objectives, helps team members align and understand how their work connects with each other. Team practices are especially important for virtual teams, particularly our “out of sight, out of mind” mindset. Virtual teams may want to be even more intentional in their focus on building in regular times to meet, socialize, connect and share information.

Think about what you are doing as a team.What’s working? What’s not?
What events are you holding to focus on results and goals? On relationships? On having fun?
 
Let us know what you are doing by using the comment link below.

Best wishes!
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations |  Coaching Team Leaders  
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) 
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

#204 – Is everyone clear what exceptional team performance looks like?
Today we are at Team Building Tip #204, getting you as a team to explore the question “Is everyone clear what exceptional team performance looks like?”.
In today’s team context, where virtual teams sound, and people may not have the luxury of operating together, and seeing work outputs visually, spending time as a team to clearly define what “Exceptional Team performance” and results looks like is key.

One of the tools I share in my latest book, the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner, is that of the IS/IS NOT Table.  When assigning tasks, or talking about performance, are we getting really specific and granular about what the end results IS and IS NOT? Making a list of these two in contrast, can help to tease out some of the unspoken expectations.

Another great way to prompt this conversation about what exceptional team performance looks like is by having some discussion around your “PEAK EXPERIENCE”. Have your team discuss and share times when you were at your best, and have done your best work. Share details about WHAT you did (Behaviors), HOW you did it (Practices), and the Characteristics of the Work and Your Relationships.
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Revisiting these questions regularly can help with alignment and propelling the team through the murky waters of performance.
Let us know what you as a team have done to ensure that everyone is clear about what exceptional team performance looks like.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

​It is Thursday and time for another Team Building Tip. Today we are at Team Building Tip #202. This week’s question gets you to consider the question “What are the different roles team members are playing?”.

In a team roles are critical in helping the team excel and get results. Different team members may also be better suited to fulfil different roles, based on their strengths and natural talents. Consider these issues:

What are the different roles needed for the team to excel? Consider project initiator, social coordinator, Devils Advocate, Get it Done Person.
One of the better know role frameworks as it relates to team development is Belbin’s Team Roles. Read more about their nine team roles here.
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Issues to consider with roles:

• What are the roles different people are inhabiting?
• How are the different roles helping the team?
• What is needed by the team right now?
• Is anyone getting entrenched in the roles they are filling?
• Are roles creating more silos than connection?
• As you look ahead to future work, what roles are going to be required?

Take a look at other posts related to Roles by exploring these posts here. 

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

What is the team doing to clarify their vision?
We know that having a clear, and shared, vision across a team helps with alignment, creating a strong culture and focusing results. This week’s Team Building Tip brings you back into connection with the topic of vision.
As a team this week, you may want to ask yourselves the question:
 
What is the team doing to clarify their vision?
This might involve:
Creating a structure around the vision – If the vision is in word format, putting pictures to it.
Updating the vision. If it’s been a while since you created your vision, spending some time updating it.
Creating a tag line or theme around it. Some visions can get very “wordy”. What is the tag line or theme which encompasses the vision? How can you distill down the core elements of the vision into shorter sound bites that invoke the feeling or core essence of what you are trying to communicate?
 
For more on the topic of working with vision, be sure to check out these Teams365 posts:
Teams365 #1709 ​
Teams365 #1684
Teams365 #1674
​Teams365 #1534

Have a great week!
Jennifer