Last week I shared a post on cultivating curiosity. As a former team leader myself, working in highly volatile and changeable environments, cultivating curiosity was an important area to support my own team in. Given that many were responding to post-disaster contexts and needing to look at how to do their work in a highly changing environment, it was not business as usual. What many leaders don’t realize today is that “business as usual” may not longer be present in many industries.

As a leadership practitioner, author, coach and trainer, I’m regularly in conversation with leaders and teams around how important the skill of curiosity is. Yet, there are still many naysayers – from leaders and team members.

So, what does the research say?
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I took a look at some of the more recent research in the area of curiosity and came across a great set of articles from Harvard Business Review - September 2018. In that edition, they cited the research and article written by Francesca Gino who has studied the area of curiosity. Read her article and study here.

Out of those surveyed, 70% of employees indicted that they faced barriers to employing more curiosity.

She cites in her article “The Business Case for Curiosity” five ways to encourage more curiosity:

1. Hire for it.
2. Model it yourself – inquisitiveness.
3. Emphasize learning goals. Many leaders today focus solely on performance goals. While not abandoning performance goals, what can you do cultivate and allow for more of a focus on learning goals?
4. “Let employees explore and broaden interests”. As someone who was schooled as multi-disciplinarian, I have seen throughout my career how a broad knowledge base becomes an asset, rather than a liability in times of change and complexity.
5. She also encourages days where people explore the questions: Why? What if?  How might we do that?

Individually, each one of these suggestions could have a ripple effect on the way people work, without detracting from core functions.

What are the benefits to starting to integrate some of these approaches in your team meetings and ways of working?

Best,
​Jennifer

As we continue our exploration about teamwork in uncertainty, today’s post covers the ability to cultivate curiosity. Curiosity is a key skill helping us become comfortable with learning and not knowing. When we are stuck in an expert mindset, we may feel we “know everything”. There is a danger in this, specially when contexts change. Cultivating more curiosity for learning, exploration, trial and error, gives team members permission to try things out which may not work.

How do we cultivate curiosity?

Encourage people to ask questions like:

• What else? This question helps us see alternative paths and solutions.
• Why not? This question gives permission for us to explore another angle around things.

Encourage trial and error.

Get team members to explore what failure means and does not mean.

Provide opportunities for growing skills in new areas through job shadowing, mentoring and/or special projects.

Next week I’m going to turn my attention to what the research says about curiosity and teamwork, and why it is important to cultivate more curiosity in our staff right now.

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 an digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

It is time for video montage 17 from the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series. Take a look at it here.
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I also wanted to reach back to share a number of other posts on Teamwork in Complexity from last year’s blog posts. A reminder that this month I am focusing on Teamwork in Uncertainty – stay tuned for the new posts on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

Teams365 #1610: Teamwork Skills in Complexity – Prioritization – Read it here. 

Teams365 #1604: Teamwork Skills in Complexity – Problem Solving - Read it here.

Teams365 #1603: Interesting articles about teamwork and complexity - Read it here.

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 an digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.

This week’s Team Building Tip gets you to think about the question “Distractions we need to minimize are…”

As we explored last week at the blog, distractions are rife within the virtual and remote work. From things that “need to get done” to requests from neighbours, to the ping of incessant email… What are the distractions that are pulling you off course?

Distractions may be interruptions, and as we know from the research of Dr Gloria Marks, it can take upwards of 22 minutes to get back on track after an interruption.

Distractions can be bigger than that as well – pieces of work which feel like work, but are they adding to the bottom line of the business? Are they making the impact and contribution you are looking for?

Exercise:
This week consider what are the distractions you are facing at the moment. To figure out if it’s a distraction consider if it’s:

• An interruption?
• A piece of work not linked to the main parts of your work?

Enjoy your reflections!
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.

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.

​I thought I would take a look back to the March 2014 posts to see what I was talking about five years ago here at the blog. What was interesting to me was that that month we were talking about team development and team formation, one of the key areas I continue to get questions around.
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I dedicated five posts in March 2014 to discussing Tuckman’s model of forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. This model to group and team formation has stood the tests of time, and is something that I continue to see in my work in person and virtually.

Here’s what I shared about the first stage of team formation in Teams365 #70:
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The first stage of team formation is the FORMING stage. Whether it's a new project team coming together, or a new leader joining the team, there are several characteristics common at the FORMING Stage:

1. Team is getting to know each other
2. Safety needs are high, trust levels are low or non-existent
3. Goals, vision and values are needing to be created

As a leader it is important to:
1. Clarify expectations you have.
2. Have the group or team create shared expectations of each other
3. Create opportunities for people to get to know each other
4. Ensure that safety needs are met.

What else is important at the forming stage? What have you noticed in past instances where teams are forming?
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Check out what happens in the storming, norming, performing and adjourning stages.
 
What are you noticing about where your group or team is right now? What are they yearning for?
 
Enjoy the conversations,
Jennifer

​Welcome to the month of March! This month we are focusing on teamwork, skills, foundations and what’s important in today’s virtual space.
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I write about virtual teamwork, virtual facilitation and collaboration in two of my more recent books – Effective Virtual Conversations which was released in 2017 and the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner (2019).

If you didn’t catch it, be sure to check out some of my earlier calls this year including:

• 5 Virtual Team Builders
• Collaborating in the Virtual Space – February’s Effective Virtual Conversations Call. 

If you didn’t hear, I’ve created an entire on-demand course around the 19 Productivity Tips series. It is now available as a video-based program, where each tip is accompanied by a short video with me, and a one to two-page worksheet/resource guide.

I will also be hosting two live calls a month which started mid-February, to answer questions and also share additional resources. These calls will also be uploaded to the program resource site.

It’s a great value and I hope you will find it beneficial and join us!

It’s the start of a new month, so here are this month’s planning questions-
Reflecting back on the month of February:

• What were my major achievements last month?
• What do I want to celebrate?
• As I consider my goals (and resolutions) I made at the start of the year, how am I doing with these on a scale of 1-10? Which ones are becoming new habits or something I can check off?
• Which goals need to be let go of or changed?
• What habits have supported me this month?
• As a leader, what have I noticed about my team?
• As a leader, what notes should I make about performance issues? (if I haven't done it already!)
• The thing that has helped me be most productive in February was ______
• The thing that has helped me be most successful in February was ______
• The thing that has helped me be happiest in February  ________
• How I’m doing with my theme of the year (how I am living it, embodying it).

Here are some questions you will want to consider as you step into the new month –
Looking ahead to March:
My priorities this month are:

• The one thing I want to make sure I get accomplished before the end of this quarter is….
• The one thing I want to check off before the end of winter is….
• The project(s) I want to get started...
• The project I most want to wrap up is...
• I want to leave ______ in the month of February.

Our team priorities this month are:
My top 3- 5 goals this month are ________.
My teams goals this month are ________.
I'll be really happy at the end of March when ________.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Last month I took at look at core teamwork skills, a critical area for success in any team. At this stage of the year, your budget allocation may still be available. With that in mind, I wanted to take us back to what I wrote only five weeks ago about key themes and ideas for your own team development. Here’s what I wrote in Teams365 1736.
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“This month we are going to focus on teamwork skills. Whether you work as an intact team, a project team or a remote team, teamwork skills are cross-cutting and help professionals at all stages of their careers do better work.
The context of teamwork has changed. In the past, teams were together for longer windows, with much more stability. Today most teams experience ongoing change and team composition. Researcher Amy Edmonston terms this “Teaming” and writes, “actively building and developing teams even as a project is in process, while realizing that a team's composition may change at any given moment.” (Teaming, Edmonston 2013)
She flags four behaviors as essential in the teaming context:

• Speaking Up
• Collaboration
• Experimentation
• Reflection

What are you doing to foster these areas?
The teamwork skills we are going to explore this month are:

• Trust
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Working Across Differences
• Relationship Management
• Conflict Management
• Emotional Intelligence
• Change Management
• Influence

For each of the areas we’ll explore what the skill is about, why it’s important. What some of the differences are in the different types of teams today. I’ll also point you back to some of the many posts I’ve already written on these topics.”
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If you weren’t with us last month, I hope you’ll  take some time this weekend to look at some of the blog posts I shared. You may also want to build in time to think about WHAT SKILLS your team could benefit from more resources, conversation and training around.
 
Enjoy your weekend,
Jennifer

As we step into November the wave of year-end activities, celebrations and push may be rearing it’s head. Today’s post is a reminder of five key things to get in your team calendar for 2019 right now. As we’ve explored here at the Teams365 blog over the last 5 years, certain skills are critical for success – teamwork skills, coaching, difficult conversations, team development and reflection time.
Five different things you may want to get into your calendars right now for the next year are:
 
Team meetings – Whether the entire team, or some of the team, attends, spending time on a regular basis to plan, and update, is key for alignment, communication and noticing what’s working and what’s not. Even if the team is remote, team meetings do need to happen on a regular basis.
For further ideas on team meetings, check out the post on 8 Questions to be asking before any team meeting.
 
Team development – Regular team development meetings are critical – not just for
 
Feedback conversations – Once a year performance reviews are being replaced in many organizations with ongoing feedback conversations. With this shift, it’s common for organizations to be experiencing:

1. A sense on the part of the leader that coaching and feedback conversations are happening more frequently than they really are. Block in time to your schedule for these key 1-1s, being clear on whether you are coaching or providing feedback.

2. Feedback and coaching are often getting blended together under the same umbrella. These are actually two separate activities and the danger of them being lumped together is that the staff member may not know what type of conversation they are part of.  Regardless off whether performance is good or not, it’s key to indicate when a performance conversation is a performance conversation. If changes are needed, this should be clear and non-negotiable.

On the other hand, coaching is voluntary initiative. The person being coached is the one “at choice” in terms of what they want to do. Coaching is about encouraging change. If a leader wants to prescribe change for the employee, coaching is not the right modality. That’s telling!

​Like other activities, it is important to get key 1-1 time and conversations into your calendar. What have you noticed about what’s worked in terms of time, availability and openness to these types of activities? Block out some time right now.

3. Mentoring – Mentoring is beneficial to us at all stages of our development. Having a variety of formal and informal mentoring relationships is key to ongoing career progression. Whether we are mentoring or being mentored, it’s common for both parties to benefit from a balanced mentoring relationship. Have you scheduled mentoring into your calendar for 2019?

4. Team development – Beyond team meetings, we all benefit from formal and informal team development opportunities. Some research, including the 2016 Culture Wizard Survey, found that only 22% of virtual and remote teams benefited from team development. What are the activities you have scheduled for 2019?  

5. Skill Development and ongoing learning – Whether we are a leader, or a team member, ongoing learning and skill development opportunities are key to keeping us equipped for the ongoing landscape of work. As I explored in Effective Virtual Conversations, the Virtual Learning Ecosystem today is vast. From attending MOOCS (Massive Online Open Courses) at Universities for Credit, to micro-learning modules, from webinars, to virtual team development, skills development and ongoing learning can take many forms.  
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As a team have you discussed what skill development and ongoing learning each team member wants to undertake in the next year?
What doesn’t get scheduled, doesn’t get done. Be sure to block dedicated time in your calendar for these five activities during 2019.
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Best wishes,
Jennifer

The final team skill we are going to explore is the skill of influence. This is a core skill for remote professionals of all kinds today. Given that we are working across a web of relationships – upwards, downwards, and sideways – team members will need to develop skills in this area.
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When thinking about the skill of influence, it can be useful to consider:

• What are the relationships I am in that require I use the skill of influence? (This may be where you do not have a direct reporting relationship – think peers, other technical experts, other team members)
• What is the end result I am aiming for around the specific project/initiative?
• What is the common ground you are exploring?
• What is important about the end result for the other person?
• What could a win-win look like?
• What are the key areas you are considering?
• The skill of influence is critical for remote workers today. What would help you acquire further skills in this area?

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Best wishes,
Jennifer