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

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Today's Leadership Practice gets you thinking about meetings. It's estimated that some employees spend upwards of 40% of their time in meetings every week. how productive are your meetings? 
​
​In my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, I share the following 8 Essential Questions to Ask Before Every Meeting. Here they ware:

1.       What’s the purpose?
2.       What takeaways do we want?
3.       Who needs to be on the call?
4.       What preparation is needed for us to be most effective in the meeting?
5.       What pace to do we want in order to keep it engaging?
6.       What will help keep the focus?
7.       What is absolutely essential (versus what will be nice to cover or where can people go for more information around topics)?
8.       What follow-up might be required?
(Source: Britton, Effective Virtual Conversations, pp 304, 2017)

​What are the most important questions to be considering at your next meeting.

​One other activity which can make meetings more effective is to assign roles to help keep meetings on track. Consider getting someone to be a time keeper to keep the meeting moving, as well as a note taker. The note taker can be instrumental in making sure that decisions have been made and captured  around next steps, deadlines and who is going to follow up.

​For more on meetings, check out these past Teams365 posts.

​Have a great Wednesday,
Jennifer

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Many virtual calls lack the visual cues of face-to-face discussions. As such, our language, or word choice, can have even greater impact in the virtual world. 
​It is important to take the time to create more cues to clarify your message and also set the context. Some of the things we an do in virtual calls to make sure our message is  understood, and we are understanding others are:

• ​Make sure to use streaming services where you can. The added benefit of "seeing" the other person, helps to clarify tone, meaning and alignment of message.
• ​Check for understanding - check back to make sure you do understand what the message is.
• Create visual anchor points where possible - handouts, diagrams help to anchor the conversation.
  
• Check the assumptions you are making. Unspoken assumptions can be even more profound in virtual calls. Be sure to check the assumptions you are making.

Questions to consider:
​What visual anchor points can you create to communicate key messages?
​How, and when, will you check for understanding?
What assumptions are you making?

Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer


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Today's Saturday post takes us back to some of the many short audios I've covered over the past few years on a range of leadership and teamwork topics. I wanted to highlight 3 different ones today which I hope you might click on over to listen to:

​#Teams365 #1152:  5 Ingredients for Successful Collaboration (5 min). Listen to it here

#Teams365 #390: Hosting Effective Virtual Meetings (10 min)  Listen to it here. This is a pre-cursor to the topic of virtual meetings and other virtual conversations I will be highlighting in my upcoming book, Effective Virtual Conversations.

​#Teams365 #488: Three Problem Solving Tools (9 min). Three essential tools for project teams, agile teams or other teams who need quick identification of issues and subsequent action. Listen to it here.

Have a great weekend,
​Jennifer

In late July, my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, will be released. It's the culmination of tips and best practices for leading teams and conversations in the virtual space, a focus of mine since the 1990s, when I was leading teams across countries in South America connected only by radio.

Every Monday I'll be sharing a tip from Effective Virtual Conversations with the hope that it will be useful in your work.

Today's tip is "Setting Everyone Up for Success". Pre-planning in the virtual space can shift a call from being a time-waster to an expedited conversation.

Some things you might want to consider doing in setting your team or group up for success with your virtual call includes:
1. Thinking through any pre-work or pre-reading people should do before they join the call. This can be shared on your intranet, Slack drive or other file sharing service.
2. Having a clear agenda to follow that everyone has fed into. One of the traps of virtual meetings is that people are often bouncing from one meeting to the next. Being proactive with who needs to be on the call (think decision maker or information required) is important as it's often hard to pull a virtual colleague into a meeting last minute.
3. Keeping accountabilities visible. One of the challenges with today's digital world is that we don't always have the same immediate visual cues in front of us,  as we may have had with team work which was co-located. What are the things you can do to keep accountabilities visible for everyone in different locations? Is there a weekly dashboard you send out? A photo which can be put on as a screen saver? Something else to keep things visible.
4. Being vigilant with follow-up. Follow-up and circling back is even more important in the virtual space. What will help with follow-up for your team? What one on one conversations (voice and email) are important to have? What feedback and update mechanisms are in place so peers can also keep each other in the loop

As you consider "setting everyone up for success" what comes to mind for you?

Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer

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