Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

TEAMS365 #2373 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 152

6/29/2020

It’s the start of another week and this week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip #152 is all about PAUSE. Where could you benefit from taking a bit more of a pause – figuratively and literally?

One of the challenges professionals have faced this year has been the lack of pause in their work. For many, shifting to the virtual and remote space involved a tsunami of flurry. For those of us who already worked in the remote space it also meant a flurry of people using the same technologies and often access points we do.

Many have complained about Zoom fatigue and how exhausting virtual calls can be. One reason may be that leaders of calls don’t always leave in a pause during their calls. Consider how you might incorporate one of these pauses in an upcoming call –

Giving people 2 minutes to capture and schedule their next steps after a call
Providing group members with the opportunity to pause and have a 5-10-minute conversation with others
Providing people with a quick opener or energizer at the start of the call, geared to get them thinking about what their own connection is to the issue. Note, this will likely lead to a better call quality overall!
Having a short co-working session with colleagues to boost focus and attention

What else might you be able to do to boost your time in having a pause?

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

Check out our Digital Resources to support you in your work and conversations

TEAMS365 #2361 – Inclusivity in Virtual Meetings: Bringing All Voices into the Virtual Room

6/17/2020

Inclusivity in the virtual space is an essential area to explore in virtual meeting spaces. What are we doing to ensure that we are bringing all voices into the room?

From time zone differences, to language differences, different technical backgrounds, and geographic differences, working in the virtual space often expands the diversity of those in the room. It’s not uncommon for most virtual conversations to vary on these different areas, along with many more – gender, race, sexual orientation, social identity, as well as the different thinking and learning styles, and ways we interact with the world.

For example, some of us need more time for reflection that others. Some of us may be learning by doing (kinesthetic) while others learn by hearing (auditory) or seeing (visual).

As a leader, facilitator or virtual host, what are you doing to ensure that you are incorporating a variety of techniques to bring all different voices in the room?

Consider these tips:

Mix it up to ensure that you are incorporating approaches for different learning styles. For those that like visuals and learn that way, what images (versus text) can you incorporate? Might you include a video?
For those that have a kinesthetic preference, what can you do to make the call more interactive and physically active? Can you incorporate annotation? What can you do to ensure that there might be some movement (safely!)?
For those that learn auditorily (by listening), what can you do to incorporate more opportunities for virtual breakouts, dialogue and small group sharing?

Another dynamic you will encounter is those who are possibly dialing in by phone, and those on the web that can see each other. Consider what you are doing to speak to group members from both locations. If people cannot see others (i.e. dialing in by phone), I will usually get them to go first, to connect them in more quickly.

Geographically, what’s important to consider? Are you moving West to East, East to West, South to North, and North to South?

If group members on the call speak different first languages, what can you do to incorporate more visuals, and/or written prompts so people who have stronger reading ability can follow that rather than spoken words?

What else is important to note?

Enjoy!
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.

TEAMS365 #2351 – Week in Review

6/7/2020

Welcome back to this week’s Week in Review. It’s been a full week here at the Teams365 blog.

Some of the posts we’ve explored this week are:

Enjoy your reflection!

Have a great rest of the weekend,
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.

TEAMS365 #2347 – Better Virtual Meetings

6/3/2020

How much time are you spending in meetings these days? One of the greater pain points right now is virtual meetings. It’s a topic I covered in the April 2020 Effective Virtual Conversations newsletter. I thought it might be useful to share the 6 things you can put into practice right now to make your virtual meetings more effective:

Article: Better Meetings - 6 Things You Can Do Right Now
Unfortunately, bad meetings and bad meeting etiquette have followed most of us to the virtual space. Consider these five areas to make the most of your meeting.

Consider these areas:

#1 - What do people ABSOLUTELY have to do before they join the meeting? Be very clear with any pre-work, input or reading/viewing that needs to happen, including a TIME FRAME.

#2 - Who REALLY needs to be there? Many of us get pulled into meetings like a VORTEX. Who absolutely needs to be at the meeting to have input, make decisions etc?

#3 - Is a meeting REALLY what's needed? We often defer to large meetings as the best way. Could this be covered in a different way - i.e. a short video you put out if it's information, or something people can schedule and read.

#4 - Is it the best time of day? Consider your team and what they are juggling at the moment. The more traditional times of day (i.e. breakfast, lunch) may not necessarily be the best times for people to be meeting at the moment.

#5 - Be clear with next steps and accountabilities. Another big pitfall is not clearly confirming what agreements and accountabilities are. Have you confirmed and summarized what next steps are? Are you building in time at the start of the next meeting to check in or ensure that you have a running dashboard or reporting structure? This may be a role you want to assign in the meeting - not a note taker but a person who is noting accountabilities, action steps and who is doing it.

#6 - Leave time for the group to be able to note what steps they need to take and what's next for them. We've all been there - we move from one meeting to the next so, unless we leave a pause to note down next steps, accountabilities, we may forget when we next surface for a break.

#7 - Consider making a habit of wrapping up the meeting at the 50 minute mark or 25 minute mark so people can make it on time for their next meeting, with a little time to spare to shift gears and have a bio break.

For more on this topic, check out a recent article on Keeping Your Virtual Meetings on TRACK.

If you want to read the whole April 2020 newsletter, check it out here.

Want to receive it? Sign up here.

Enjoy!
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.

TEAMS365 #2346 –5 Types of Team Meetings to Incorporate Virtually This Month

6/2/2020

As remote work moves into month four for many teams, this is now the new way of doing things. Many companies, Twitter, Shopify, Facebook and others have indicated that remote work is going to be the forever way of doing things.
We’re also stepping into a new month, and at this point in time it can be useful to be strategic around boosting your team capability. As you step into this new month think about how many meetings you want to have and what type. While meeting fatigue is a real thing, it’s important to keep conversations going. What are the conversations you want to have?

Consider these five types of team meetings:

Status Meetings: Regular status updates are key to keeping a team aligned. In former days, reports would be circulated through the team. Today, online dashboards like Asana and Monday.com provide an opportunity for team members to keep things visible, projects moving and be continuously updated by those who may be working in different locations.
Planning Meetings: Planning is key for success in the remote space. What type of planning are you engaging with? Consider both immediate, medium and long term planning? Given our virtual nature, what’s going to keep this visible? What’s going to be help people focus?
Team Development Meetings: Understanding team capability and who is who on each team is critical for success. Team development meetings might be focused on rolling out:
- A remote team day focused on incorporating one of the many assessments we offer including StrengthsFinder 2.0, or Agile EQ. Remote Team Days also help teams clarify working processes and accountabilities, as well as helps team understand and assess along the core elements of remote teamwork. Contact us to discuss your needs for a remote team session. Our sessions are offered as 2 hour, half day and full day sessions – and yes, we can do a full day online! We specialize in Everything DiSC, Agile EQ, StrengthsFinder, Strengths-based leadership.
Creation Meetings: Creation meetings focus in on creating something real time. Sprints and hacks live in this space. Whether you are building tools and processes over a condensed time like one week, or have a special project dedicated each month, creation meetings help to focus on innovation and design.
Social Meetings: The quarantine became the part of many person’s lexicon in recent months, and while many teams used to head out for an after work social time, what could social look like for you? Might a trip to a virtual escape room promote some team development time? Note, my son recently hosted his 15th birthday online at a virtual escape room – they had a blast.

What are the types of meetings which you want to incorporate this month?

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.

TEAMS365 #2345 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 148

6/1/2020

Happy June and welcome back to another Monday Effective Virtual Conversations tip. This week we are at tip 148. The focus is this week is “What’s going to make your next virtual call memorable?” With people moving from back-to-back zoom calls, signaling that your call is going to be different is just as important as making your call different.

In my May 2020 Effective Virtual Conversations newsletter I cover five different ways to signal that your call is going to be different….

Here’s what I wrote:

With many in the virtual space becoming "zoom fatigued" and burnt out from virtual calls, it's never been more important for you to distinguish yourself as a masterful virtual facilitator, one who is cultivating dialogue, connection and providing the best experience for all involved.

With cynicism becoming more common place as some step into meetings, this month's call covers four things you can do quickly to signal that this just isn't "any zoom call”:

#1 - Talk about what people can expect in terms of process and interaction.
At the heart of setting the stage for a "different call" is creating clear expectations. Let people know what they can expect and how your call is going to be different. If it's going to be interactive, co-design agreements. Let people know what they can expect and how they may be able to pass if they don't have anything to add.

#2 - Connect people right away with their WIIFM. Connecting people early on with "What's in it for me?" boosts engagement and connectivity. If we don't see a connection with a topic, it's more likely that we will be unfocused or disengaged. Easy ways to connect people are to ask - What's your connection with this topic? or Who here ____ (fill in the blank)?

#3 - Make the start of the call different. Switch up the start. Consider incorporating video? Story? Breakout?

#4 - Make it visually rich. Icons are a favorite go-to for me, as is converting shorter blog posts into video. I often use Lumen5 to quickly convert content over. What content do you have that can get repurposed quickly?

#5 - Think about the right tool, for the right platform. What's the right tool for the right platform?

Check out the entire May EVC newsletter here.

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.

TEAMS365 #2344 – Week in Review

5/31/2020

Welcome back to another Sunday in Review! Here’s where we went this week:

What’s been your favorite read this week?

Have a great Sunday!
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.

TEAMS365 #2339 - Ways to Keep Your Virtual Meeting on the Flow

5/26/2020

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.

TEAMS365 #2338 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 146

5/25/2020

Over the last few months, we’ve had a tsunami of professionals joining us in the virtual and remote space. One thing that most have become aware of is that virtual conversations are not uniform across the virtual and remote space. In fact, in my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations, I share 9 different types of virtual conversations which vary across both level of formality and peer versus individual learning approaches.

In EVC, I differentiate between these nine different types of virtual conversations across the ecosystem:

Mentoring
Coaching
Peer Learning
Team Development
Goal Setting
Video Based Learning
Education – Webinars, Webcasts, Formal Learning, MOOCs
Meetings
E-Learning

What are the different types of virtual conversations you are engaging in? Are they synchronous – real time – or asynchronous – when the conversations take place at different times?

Chapter 4 of Effective Virtual Conversations dives more deeply into the different types of virtual conversations which exist.

Regardless of the type of conversation we are having, many of the same skills and practices underpin all of these. Last week I delivered a national webinar series for the Institute for Performance Learning and covered the 8 skill sets that underpin virtual conversations including:

Creating the Context
Communication
Process
Tools
Group Development
Ourselves as Facilitators
Technical
Design

(Copyright – 2017, Jennifer Britton, page 71)

What are the skills which are important for you to develop further to enhance your conversations?

For more on these skills, check out the Daily Reading Series I hosted during April and May of this year covering off chapters 1-3 of the book. You can listen in here at the Effective Virtual Conversations Blog.

Enjoy!
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.

TEAMS365 #2326 – Remote Team Development – Process Mapping

5/13/2020

As teams have settled into how to work best, it’s likely that while some tasks are getting completed, there may still be many areas which are not as effective. These may be tasks that aren’t getting completed as planned, things that are getting backlogged on a regular basis, or tasks where there is confusion as to who needs to do what.

One area which can be of benefit for teams to explore is the topic of process mapping. Process mapping is a visual way of mapping out what needs to get done, when, and by who.

If you were to meet in person, process mapping would have us map out the different tasks and activities, who needed to do them and when. An easy way to do this is by using post-its and having people identify what the activities are, then listing them out, and assigning task responsibilities and also timelines.

If you are doing this in the virtual space, you can also make sure that you share a whiteboard and have the team discuss and complete the different steps needed. I’ve taken a screenshot here of a task that was created around a report.

Note who needs to do what as well as the timelines required, plus the flow. This was made on zoom whiteboard using annotation.

While this may not be comprehensive it does help to identify resourcing, timelines, and where there may be gaps.

What do you notice?

How might this support you and your work and projects right now?

Enjoy!
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.