Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

TEAMS365 #2547 - Week in Review

12/20/2020

Welcome back to another Sunday Week in Review. As we go to start winding down for the holidays, I’m going to take a look back at the varied posts from across the year and focus more on winding down for 2020. I hope that you will enjoy some time in the coming days with your family, and a bit of time to put a pause on the year that 2020 was.

It’s been a pleasure bringing daily blog posts forward to you since 2014. With this being the 7th of the blog writing has become a natural part of my weekly process. I hope that you will take moment to search out some of the topics which are important for you – whether it’s teamwork, leadership, Standing Out Virtually, plus lots of other posts. Do enjoy!

Here’s where we went this past week:

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
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

TEAMS365 #2541 – Stand Out Virtually Principle – Connect

12/14/2020

Welcome back to another Monday here at the Teams365 blog. For Stand Out Virtually Principle #4 we have CONNECT. Connection has been a central theme here at the Teams365 blog since I started writing the posts back in 2014. Never before has connection been so important.

Consider what’s important for you around connection in your work. A reminder of the blog post I shared on November 10th about the 5 Layers of Connection and the 12 different ways to incorporate it. Be sure to take a look at that post – here.

The five layers of connection are:

To you, the host
To each other
To the content you are offering
To the context in which you are having the conversation
To the technology

Best wishes,
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

TEAMS365 #2536 - Wednesday Wisdom for Remote Teams

12/9/2020

It’s Wednesday and we’re going to start going back to the basics for remote teams. Given that we are moving into the last few weeks of the month, it can be valuable to return to our look at the Remote Enablers.

If you picked up a copy of the Remote Working Whitepaper I authored earlier this year, you may be familiar with the 7 Remote Enablers:

Communication
Clarity
Collaboration
Connection
Consistency
Community
Culture

As a team, where are you on a scale of 1-10?

What’s important about each of these for you?

What are you doing to support work in all of those areas?

What are the areas which may be a little weaker or not being focused on?

What else is key to have dialogue around? Share elements of work around?

All the best,
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

TEAMS365 #2522 – Building Connection in Virtual Meetings

11/25/2020

Over the last few weeks, I have been undertaking a lot of speaking around virtual facilitation, as well as hosting a number of virtual groups, and virtual train-the-trainers. I’ve also been part of several online conferences, either as a participant, or as in the case of Running Remote, a community sponsor.

One of the key themes which has emerged is HOW do we BUILD connection across the virtual space?

When things are complex, it’s even more important to intentionally be building connections across a group.

Here are two ideas:

Have people introduce themselves by asking them to share something that they bring that’s unique to the group. After everyone has welcomed themselves, be sure to ask the group to consider the key themes which have emerged across the group.
Add a layer of BINGO to your next meeting – you can see it at play in our Remote Pathways Podcast call around Trust and Connection from May 2020. Check it out here.

Check out the November 17th blog post which includes links to the topic of trust and connection as well. You can read the November blog post here - TEAMS365 #2514 – Building Connection in Your Remote Team #remoteteams - POTENTIALS REALIZED

This is in addition to a couple of other ideas including:

Create a virtual co-working group of people inside, or outside of your organization, stating time to meet online.
Joining communities of like-minded people who are also exploring topic areas of similar interest.

Enjoy!
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

TEAMS365 #2514 – Building Connection in Your Remote Team

11/17/2020

One of the challenges of today’s remote team is that of connection which has implications for results and relationships. When people don’t feel connected it has impact on productivity, teamwork and also results.

What are the ways you are connecting your team?

Many teams these days are incorporating some, or all, of these:

Weekly or daily huddles (as time zones permit)
Virtual Co-Working Sessions (Check out The Remote Pathways podcast episode on Co-working
Peer partners who meet around key accountability measures

What are the things you are doing to help people feel connected and aligned with your purpose?

What are the best vehicles for you as a team to stay connected?

For more on the topic of building trust and connection, check out these other Teams365 blog posts:

Enjoy your conversations!
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

TEAMS365 #2510 – Flashback Friday – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #8

11/13/2020

It's the start of a new week and it's time for Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #8.

In Effective Virtual Conversations I write:
"We don't often pause or take time to go deeper into dialogue. When we fail to do this we lose the opportunity for individuals to explore the rich terrain of assumptions, beliefs and other areas." - pp 71, Effective Virtual Conversations

In many virtual events today - webinars, conference calls - silence and pause points are at a premium, and that's usually what people need. When we are working with virtual, or global teams, taking time to check our assumptions is critical. For example, we may all have a different set of assumptions on what success should look like, or assumptions around quality. Going hand-in-hand with this is the value in exploring, or being aware of, the different beliefs at play.

What is the value of taking more of a pause in your virtual programming?
What will allow you go deeper into dialogue as a team or group?

Different ways you might consider creating a pause point for deeper reflection could be:
- pose a question to the group/team and have dialogue around it during your meeting;
- at the end of your weekly meeting pose a question for team members to reflect on. You can check in around this the next week at the start of your meeting;
- providing each person on the team with a journal to reflect in
- posting a daily/weekly reflection question on your Intranet, shared site or Slack

in order to move into these deeper layers it is important that there is trust on the team. Building trust and connection should be a primary focus for team leaders today. Take a look at what I have written about trust in past Teams365 posts.

What can you do to create more of a pause and opportunity to go into deeper conversation space?

With best wishes,
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

TEAMS365 #2507 – 12 Ways to More Connection in Your Zoom or Team’s Calls

11/10/2020

There are many different types of calls we have during the week, with most not having as much connection and dialogue as they could. The beauty of the virtual space is that conversations and connection can take place in a number of ways.

As I shared this summer in the Stand Out Virtually Challenge, we want to connect people on five levels:

To you, the host
To each other
To the content you are offering
To the context in which you are having the conversation
To the technology

Consider these 12 different possibilities for creating more connection:

Doing a pre-call with each participant to learn ore about them
Sharing a welcome video message instead of/or in tandem with a welcome email
Having group members share a welcome video introduction
Using Breakouts to connect people
Assigning an accountability partner or buddy during the process
Taking a poll to see where everyone is thinking around a topic
Using annotate to have people stamp where they are in agreement around a question or topic
Doing a scavenger hunt during the call
Using an icebreaker like BINGO during the call to find things in common
Using Kahoot to connect people into the content you covered
Using MentiMeter to take a poll
Using mural to help people connect and share ideas

What else can you do to incorporate more connection on the five levels?

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

TEAMS365 #2425 – Team Building Tip 259

8/20/2020

This week’s Team Building Tip asks the question – What would create more safety?

For team members to engage, or individuals to engage virtually, we need to ensure that there is safety. This is an essential ingredient for learning, results, relationships and performance.

Safety is created through many things –

From being clear on what people can expect
From being clear on outcomes
By inviting all voices into the room
By being clear what the boundaries are around the outcome
By clarifying roles

Safety is an important part of what I term “the triad of virtual calls”. This includes TRUST, SAFETY and CONNECTION. Be sure to check out other posts on this topic here.

As you surface this conversation, what do you notice?

Enjoy your conversations,
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

TEAMS365 #2418 – Team Building Tip 258

8/13/2020

This week’s Team Building Question may seem a bit provocative, and in the remote space, it’s critical that we ask it – What’s not being spoken about?

When trust levels are high the question “what’s not being spoken about” can open up the doorway for a great dialogue. When trust levels are low, this question might seem very provocative.

The answer to this question can shine the light on areas you need to explore as a team, or areas to keep in min.

Here are a few other questions to keep in mind this week:

What other areas haven’t you explored, or spoken about?
What is taboo in terms of looking at as a team?
What ideas are never surfaced?
What’s not safe about bringing up an alternative view?

Enjoy your conversation,
Jennifer

PS - Take a minute and be sure to join us over at the Virtual and Remote Visionaries Hub as well on Facebook. You can join us here.

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

TEAMS365 #2412 – Flashback Friday – Remote Pathways Podcast

8/7/2020

Welcome back to another Friday post. This week I’m highlighting not Teams365 blog posts, but recent podcast episodes you’ll find at the Remote Pathways podcast. Little did my co-host and I know last fall when we started this project, how widespread remote work would become. It’s a pleasure hosting this podcast. I hope you will subscribe!

I hope that you will check out some of our most recent episodes:

Remote Pathways podcast Episode #17 – Every remote worker needs leadership skills – As many organizations are finding, teamwork and leadership look different in the remote space. EVERYONE needs to have skills in the remote space. Check out Episode 17 here.
Remote Pathways Podcast Episode 16 – Entrepreneurship in the remote space with Kim Avery. Join us for a great conversation about entrepreneurship in episode 16. Listen in here.
Remote Pathways Podcast Episode 15 – Team Effectiveness in the Remote Space. What do teams need to excel in the remote space? Listen in to episode 15 here.
Remote Pathways podcast Episode 14 – The Enneagram with Teresa McCloy – listen in here.
Our most popular episode to date has been Trust and Connection in the Remote Space – a topic I cover in Chapter 2 of Effective Virtual Conversations. Check out the Trust and Connection episode here.

Have an idea for an episode or a guest you’d like to see join us? Let me know – drop me an email.

With best wishes,
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