Welcome back to Teams365 #150 – TRACK IT!

As many have seen in recent months, digital retention is different than analog retention. What we remember about what’s on the screen, may be very different than what we remember from what we write down. Noticing patterns and seeing trends is also really important in today’s world of disruption and change. Our memory does not always remember things as they are.

With that in mind, today’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip (which is #150 in the series – where has time gone!?), is all about TRACK IT!

Questions to consider as you think about TRACKING:

• What are the things you are tracking in your work?
• What are the tools and systems you are using to track things? Are you using a tracker? A dashboard or other?
• What are the elements which would be useful to track as an individual? On your team?

One of the tools I use consistently as a professional are the trackers I developed for my two workbook planners – PlanDoTrack (for virtual and remote professionals) and Coaching Business Builder (for coaches wanting to grow their businesses).

If you take a look at Section 5 check out these different trackers:

• The 31 Day Challenge: Really useful if you are tracking 31 days of consistent action
• The Monthly Content Journal: I usually use two of these each month. One to capture key activities from each day (looking back now in mid-June 2020 and having done this since January, I can see that in fact I have accomplished A LOT!). The second one I use to capture any new ideas I have during the day. This can include ideas around blog posts, program ideas, marketing and things to do with teams. What do you want to track?
• Daily Tracker Around Categories: The final type of tracker you might want to consider is a daily tracker, like the multicolored one you see in the graphic. This is useful for tracking activities and tasks. Maybe you have a goal of writing every day, or marketing, or outreach. Each one of these could have be tracked on a daily basis.

What do you want to track?

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. ​

Keeping the conversation going with virtual meetings in the remote space can take some concerted effort and is critical in terms of getting right. For many teams, it’s going to be a while longer before they are back face-to-face.
 
Next time you are going to lead a virtual meeting or facilitate a virtual webinar, consider these tips:
 

• Keep it varied. Keep the pace moving and adjust pace every 7- 10 minutes. This might involve polling people in a larger audience or focusing more on
• Use the tools available. There are usually many tools we can activate in the virtual space to engage others. From annotation, to breakouts, polling, to chat, what do you want to ensure you do to bring in everyone’s voices?
• Wrap it up before the top of the hour. Maybe even 5 – 10 minutes early. With back-to-back virtual meetings becoming the norm, what would it be like to adopt a 50- or 55-minute meeting length so people actually have time to move from one meeting to the next?
• Leave 30-60 seconds for people to note what they are going to do and schedule it in. How many times have you left one meeting, clear on what you had committed to doing, and then by the end of the next hour had forgotten what it was?

Always run through your pre-meeting checklist before you get going…. check out my past post around 8 Meeting Questions you always want to ask. You can read it here at the PlanDoTrack Blog.

What’s going to help make your next meet be most efficient?
​
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. ​

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. ​

I’ve recently started doing a daily tip on LinkedIn sharing a past Effective Virtual Conversations tip, OR a past Teams365 blog post.

Here are 5 posts you will want to check out:

1. Teams365 #2051 – Minimizing Digital Distractions: How is your focus being impacted in the virtual space? Check out this blog post for select tips on how to minimize some of the more common digital distractions.
2. Teams365 #1730 – Virtual Meeting Wrap up Tools and Processes: When we hang up on a virtual call it’s likely we are moving to a next one. What’s going to ensure that you wrap up and move on?
3. Teams365 #1855 – Engage Groups Regularly with Some of the Virtual Engagement Techniques I shared earlier this week on Tuesday in Teams365 2291.
4. Teams365 #2149 – Creating More Memorable Virtual Calls. This post provides some key focus areas for creating more memorable calls.
5. Teams365 #1035 – Create a Pause Point in Your Virtual Calls – Silence is often missing in the virtual space. What micro-pauses are you creating for people to stop and think during your calls?

All the 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
​

As a virtual business providing coaching and learning services to teams, organizations and individuals around the world, I’ve was an early adopter of Zoom almost five years ago. What I’ve learned from leading tens of thousands of hours of conversations on Zoom is that people want to have a conversation, not be talked at. This means that we need to learn how to use our virtual platforms more interactively.

Having worked in learning and leadership for many decades now, and having led teams globally, being ahead of the curve to figure out innovative ways we could “keep the conversation” rolling across teams, programs and countries has always had a very business focused end for me.

Today’s blog post goes behind the curtain to share three ways you might consider leveraging Zoom (or any other platforms you are using) to keep the conversation going. I write more about these in chapters 1, 2, 6 and 7 of Effective Virtual Conversations.

1. Consider using annotation. In annotation, there is a whole suite of tools for people to “pick up and use” – to mark on the screen, to share their insights via text, drawing and stamping. For larger groups this can be an important way to get the conversations flowing.

What might you do to leverage annotation?

2. Use breakouts. Just as the name suggestions – breakouts help us move from a larger group to sets of smaller groups. Anecdotally, the larger a group becomes the more apt people are to become a “social loafer” and let others do the work. As group size grows, it’s also more likely that people will feel less comfortable with connecting and sharing their insights. Just as you might ask people to turn to their neighbor and have a conversation, virtual breakouts allow you to do this as well.

Breakouts are powerful at any time, particularly when group members want to know more about each other.

What might you do to leverage the power of breakouts?

3. Incorporate polls. Polls are built into most virtual platforms or you can leverage lots of other polling software like Mentimeter or Kahoot. Also great for larger groups, polls help you take a temperature of the room, seeing what is important for the group that you are working with. Polls are much easier to track on a meta-level for super-large groups. You’ll find that in larger groups chat flows too fast to really follow at a granular detail.

Polls often, but not always, need to be created prior to the event although some will let you create in the moment. This is also where a producer or co-facilitator can be useful to have on board and work with.

What might you do to incorporate a poll into your upcoming session?

Curious about what these interactive tools look like in action? Check out the Virtual Lunch and Learn Calls I hosted in March to provide some immediate complimentary support to the wider community.

Curious about how to do this? Join me for an upcoming one-day Virtual Facilitation Essentials program. It’s a primer in the skills required to lead exceptional virtual calls. Learn more about this program and find out when our next program is here. 

Wishing you all the 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
​

As many of you know, remote work has been the context of my professional life for the last thirty years, even before the Internet. Throughout the last three decades I’ve seen, and supported, thousands of professionals and teams in making the shift to remote work. With this in mind, I created a new whitepaper called the Remote Working Whitepaper – When You Need To Get Up To Speed Quickly.

Little did I know a few weeks ago when I finished writing this, and actually scheduled the post, that we'd be in a moment like this, where people all over the world are having to work remote.

It’s a very practical guide to support you and other team members in getting moving effectively in the remote space. The Guide covers these sections:

• Context and Benefits of Remote Work
• Pitfalls to Remote Work
• Remote, Virtual or Mobile?
• Who’s working in the remote space? The Digital Dozen
• What’s different in the remote space?
• 7 Remote Work Enablers
• What’s needed for success in the remote space?
• Making the Shift To Working Remote
• Making Remote Work, Work for You
• What Organizations Can Do to Support the Shift To Remote Work
• Five Digital Tools for Remote Workers
• Core Skills for Any Remote Worker
• In the Spotlight: Communication In the Remote Space
• Remote Work Myths

Teams and individual remote workers like solopreneurs will find the white paper of interest.

Pick up a copy here.

Many past organizational clients have been reaching out to me in the last few days looking for support around their shift to remote work.
Different supports we offer for remote work includes:

• Virtual Team Sessions
  
• Virtual Planning sessions
• Virtual Strategic Planning Sessions for organizations
• Virtual facilitation skills training - gain skills in leading virtual conversations
• Leading virtual sessions for their organizations and teams to help with the transition to working remote.
  

If I, or my company, can be of service to you at this time, please reach out and contact me - phone # is below or please reach out by email. Don't feel like you need to go it alone.

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 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.
Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!
​

​An increasing number of teams have been moving their work to the remote space in recent weeks. Focus and relationships are core to success. I thought it would be useful to reach back to a post from October on different ways you can connect your remote team. Take a look:
​
This week we turn our attention to a post from last October around your Remote Team Toolkit:

TEAMS365 #2130 Remote Team Toolbox: Helping teams connect, get to know each other and focus

In yesterday’s post I covered a range of different team development tools which professionals in the remote space may want to build or further develop. This could include tools in the areas of supporting the team to connect with each other, get to know each other and focus in on the work and results you want.

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 (link to past Teams365 posts)
• SWOT: The trusty strategic planning tool (link to past Teams365 post)

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. (where 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.

Wishing you all the 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 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.
Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!
​

Over the last few years, there’s been a treasure trove of content built up here. As part of the Flashback Friday series, I like to go back and do a quick share of past posts. This week I am reaching back to a great post from 2017 on 7 Focus Areas for Team Leaders. Ask yourself how much this has changed in the last few years. My guess is they are all still relevant for your work:

Today's blog post focuses on 7 tools for leaders we have covered during 2017. As busy professionals, both team leaders and team members can benefit from having a robust toolkit of tools to pull from. Here are seven that we've focused on throughout the year:

1. Questions - Questions form the backbone to any great conversation. One of the Teams365 videos which has been viewed the most this year is the 20 Coaching Questions video I created from Teams365 #1277. You can view the video here. Subscribe to our Teams365 Leadership YouTube Channel to keep up-to-date with the weekly Teams365 videos I release each Sunday.

​2. Techniques for leading more effective virtual conversations – One-on-ones, virtual meetings, and webinars. With the launch of my newest book this past summer, Effective Virtual Conversations, I started dedicating Monday's Teams365 blog posts to the topic of leading more effective virtual conversations. If you have not checked out the 26-ish weekly posts on these, please do so here.
​Whether it's using more breakouts or asking better questions, virtual meetings and webinars can break the mold of what I call "Death by Conference Call" - the multi-tasking, zoning out mindset. Be sure to also check out the related Community Calls I have hosted this fall as well.

​3. Tools for collaboration - Working across teams, and organizations, and industries is becoming much more the norm for most leaders and team members today. In February, I focused on the topic of Collaboration. Take a look at the top posts from February around the topic of collaboration.
 
4. Strategic planning - Whether strategic in your organization means 36 months or 10 years, planning sessions for teams continued to be very popular in 2017. You will want to check out several of the posts I have included around this topic here at the blog.

​5. Strengths-based teamwork - Almost every month this year I found myself facilitating strengths-based teamwork sessions with teams, both in person and virtually. Whether we explored StrengthsFinder 2.0 or used VIA Strengths, I found these conversations to be extremely vibrant and transformational for teams. Circling back with most of them months later, strengths-based approaches really stuck out for them, and were approaches they could integrate into their everyday work. Contact me to discuss how we can bring a strengths-based teamwork session to your team this next year.
  
6. Feedback - Another area I found most of my team support boiled down to this year was around the areas of feedback. Check out the Teams365 posts on the topic of feedback here. 

7. Difficult Conversations - Going hand in hand with feedback was the topic of having more difficult, or courageous, conversations during 2017. Check out the Teams365 posts here on this topic.

What are the areas you have been focusing on?

All the best,
Jennifer

​As an increasing number of people are moving to remote working conditions, what are the things you can do to set yourself up for remote working success?

​Let’s take a look back at Teams365 #2066. Here’s what I wrote in that post from earlier last year:

A tipping point around remote work seems to be starting to occur - with more and more organizations realizing that a key part of the talent equation is more flexible working arrangements. With large and small companies embracing remote work arrangements, we are seeing very compelling research and data around how remote work can support employee engagement and productivity. Read about what Craig Thornton of Telus shared recently about how remote work benefits both employer and employee.

This was a focus of my 2017 writing in my book Effective Virtual Conversations and continues to be a significant part of the work I am focusing on with teams and organizations today.

As someone who has supported remote workers and teams for several decades now, it’s great to see the tide turn again back to putting the flexibility in workers’ hands.

Today’s post and tomorrow’s post will explore what organizations and teams will want to do in setting themselves up for remote work success this fall.

Today’s post looks at it from the macro, organizational level. Tomorrow’s post will look at it from the employee’s perspective.
​
Four things organizations will want to ensure they do, are:

1. Specify expectations around work output and quality. What gets measured in any work space should be the work output. Unfortunately, what often gets equated with success is how much time goes into making something happen. In the remote space, the success unit is OUTPUT.

Therefore, consider questions such as: What will success look like with work output for each employee? What are the expectations in terms of work, use of materials, security etc.?

2. Provide connection with the office and other team members. Collaboration is just as important – and sometimes even more so – in the remote space. Be sure to spend time focusing in on orienting people across the organization and provide virtual events so people can get together. Invest in remote team development. How are you connecting people formally and informally?

Beyond meetings, are there virtual events people can join – lunch and learns; co-working opportunities etc.?

3. Adopt the mantra that “out of sight does not mean out of mind”. One of the pitfalls to the transition to a remote work environment is that people can feel that they are not connected. Out of sight does not mean out of mind. Look at how you communicate and value connection and teamwork. Think about how communication and meetings can become more intentional and focused. Think about how you are bringing people together and connecting them with the communication which is needed.

4. Provide the tools and resources to make this happen. The transition to working remote arrangements takes time. It also requires a mind shift in many instances. What tools and resources are needed? What changes in the way you work is required?

For more tips on working remote be sure to check out my 2017 book Effective Virtual Conversations. Part 1 focuses on the ecosystem of the virtual space where conversations take place (from education to coaching to teams), Part 2 explores HOW you can work more effectively (meetings, program design etc.), and Part 3 focuses on virtual leadership, and virtual teams in the remote space.

What can you be doing to set yourself up for remote working success?

Best wishes, 
​Jennifer

In yesterday’s post I covered a range of different team development tools which professionals in the remote space may want to build or further develop. This could include tools in the areas of supporting the team to connect with each other, get to know each other and focus in on the work and results you want.

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 (link to past Teams365 posts)
• SWOT: The trusty strategic planning tool (link to past Teams365 post )

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.
​
Have a great Wednesday,
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. ​