Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

TEAMS365 #2458 – 5 Tips to Better Video Meetings

9/22/2020

#1 – Start with the end in mind. As Stephen Covey wrote years ago “start with the end in mind”. Being clear on what you want people to LEAVE the meeting with, is core to identifying topics which need to be covered, what those topics will focus on, as well as what’s critical for success.

#2 – Have shared agreements about being on-camera and using (or not using) mute. There are several different types of meetings we may host and being clear on what the level of interaction is, is key. Because one Zoom room (or Teams room) looks like another, clarify what people can expect.

#3 – Consider activating video backgrounds. If people’s systems are fast enough, consider the video backgrounds which will work to block out extraneous backgrounds. While green screens can ensure that the background doesn’t make you lose your fingers, or that the glasses on the top of your head don’t fade out, you can also get small portable green screens which fit on the back of your chair.

#4 – Use all the tools available. If you have to determine the focus of your conversation, consider how a poll or annotation might support you. If you have a large group, use breakouts to move into smaller discussion pods.

#5 – Track agreements as you go. Whether one person acts as a rapporteur (note taker) OR you capture things on the screen, capture agreements as you go. Note also that there are now several apps which integrate into the virtual space for transcription – such as the Otter.ai integration with Zoom and other elements.

Finally, as a bonus, consider your lighting. Being able to be seen automatically builds trust. Make sure that your lighting source is in front of you – windows work well.

What is going to help your next video meeting stand out?

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 #2442 – Weekly Review :Virtual meetings, Systems Check and Monthly Kick off

9/6/2020

Welcome to the week in review. This week we covered the following posts:

Saturday’s Weekly Journaling Prompt
Friday’s Flashback Friday
Thursday’s Team Building Question inviting you to do a systems check
Wednesday’s focus on 6 Areas To Consider With Your Virtual Meetings and 8 Questions To Always Ask. Read it here.
Tuesday’s Monthly Kick Off and Review
Monday’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip

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 #2438 –6 Tips for Better Video Meetings – And 8 Questions To Ask Every Time

9/2/2020

Inefficient meetings have simply transposed themselves over to the virtual space in recent months. Before you step into what is often the busiest part of the year (post-Labor Day!), consider these 10 tips for better video meetings.

#1 – Consider your audio – How clear is it? Are you using a good microphone? Is there any background noise?

#2 – Consider your lighting – When lighting is behind you your face may be shaded. It’s important to get lighting right so that you can be seen. Visual cues are key in the virtual space. Being able to read someone’s face is essential for building (and maintaining) trust. The best lighting is often created when a window is just in front of you, with muted light (I use a sunshade in my office to keep the light a little more diffuse).

#3 – Consider what visual cues will be useful – What are the elements you want to include in your meeting? What could be provided in a visual way?

#4 – What is your call to action – i.e. what do you want people to do afterwards? Make it as clear and focused as possible.

#5 – Always include a dial in number in case people have challenges accessing the call via their computer or app.

#6 – Keep to time – Don’t wait or everyone to show up because you don’t know if they will. Likewise, make sure you wrap up on time as well!

In addition to these 6 tips, always be asking the 8 Essential Virtual Meeting Questions I share in my book, Effective Virtual Conversations. The questions are:

What’s the purpose?
What takeaways do we want?
Who needs to be on the call?
What preparation is needed for us to be most effective in the meeting?
What pace do we want in order to keep it engaging?
What will help keep the focus?
What’s absolutely essential? (versus what will be nice to cover or where can people go for more information around topics?)
What follow up might be required?

Let us know what your favorite meeting tips are by sharing them over at the Virtual and Remote Visionaries Hub. You can find it here.

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 #2426 – Stand Out Virtually! Recap

8/21/2020

A big thanks to those who joined me this week for the Stand Out Virtually challenge. Who had fun? Who is walking away with some practical tips you can put into practice RIGHT NOW?

It’s never been more important to be able to deliver engaging and impactful virtual conversations. It’s key for both business and results.

This week we’ve covered a range of essential virtual tips – from the 4 PERC ingredients needed in every call, to working with visuals, to boosting engagement.

What are the elements which you are going to put into practice?

I’ll be hosting another Stand Out Virtually challenge later this fall, this time focusing more on design. Be sure that you are on the mailing list! You can sign up here for this and other updates.

Interested in Virtual Calls in general? Join the LetsTalkVirtual Mailing list here.

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 #2423 – Stand Out Virtually with PERC

8/18/2020

As part of Day 1 of the Stand Out Virtually Challenge I am hosting this week, I covered 4 essential ingredients for any virtual call. Whether you are leading a webinar, group coaching session, virtual team meeting or presentation, we all can benefit from incorporating these four elements into our virtual and remote presentations:

P – Process - Process is key in the remote space. What’s the end result? What’s the sequence from one area to another? What is the call to action?

E – Engagement - What are the elements of engagement you want to incorporate?

R – Results - What are the results you are aiming for? What are the 2-3 bullet points you want people to leave with?

C – Connection - What are you doing to connect people to the material? To the context? To each other? To yourself?

Catch up on the recording from day 1 (it’s available until early afternoon today – Eastern/New York/Toronto). Can’t make the calls but want to benefit from the content? Purchase the recordings for the week for $47 US. You can sign up at here.

Wishing you 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 #2416 – Teams: You missing any of these core virtual meeting ingredients?

8/11/2020

A large part of my work for the five plus years has been in supporting organizations make the transition from in-person learning to online learning. This year has created a tidal wave for the need for engaging and interactive virtual meetings, learning and teamwork.

As I wrote in Effective Virtual Conversations

“Meetings can be an essential part of the communication needed for a high-performing team, and, unfortunately, they have gotten a bad rap due to poorly planned and poorly executed meetings. We know teams that excel usually have shared practices like meetings, which focus on building relationships and getting results.

With more than 35-50% of people’s time being spent in meetings each week, the question of “what could we do to make team meetings more effective?” is a strategic one.

As a team consider:

What are the top three reasons we should be holding meetings?
When is the best time to hold them?
What’s working with our meetings currently? What’s not?
What’s the one thing we could let go of doing in our meetings without having too much of an impact?
What is the one thing we wish we did more of?
What is the best way to communicate information in different topic areas?
What are the things we want to start doing as a team instead of meetings?

END OF EXCERPT - © Jennifer Britton, Effective Virtual Conversations, 2017, pp. 312

Catch up on other EVC Author Readings I hosted during April, May and June. You can find them here at the Effective Virtual Conversations blog site. You’ll be able to listen into Chapters 1 to 4 of the book as I read it in a daily 5-7 minute reading. Enjoy!

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 #2414 - Week in Review

8/9/2020

Welcome back to another Sunday week in review. This week we’ve explored:

Enjoy the review!
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 #2410 – Beat Zoom Fatigue With These Tips

8/5/2020

As someone who has worked virtually for the better part of multiple decades I too can suffer from “The Death By Conference Call” or what’s now being referred to as “Zoom Fatigue”. I’ve been so committed to helping others create more engaging calls for themselves that I even wrote a whole book on it - Effective Virtual Conversations. Pick up a copy here.

Having hosted my own calls on Zoom since 2016, I’ve always had a majority of people say that they love virtual calls with me. So, what’s different? INTERACTIVITY. ENGAGEMENT. Not talking AT people, but sparking a dialogue.
Dialogue comes from the Latin words “dialogus”, meaning discourse or conversation.

What are you doing to spark a conversation in the remote space on your zoom (or Teams, or Blue Jeans) calls?

Consider these elements:

Use breakouts where possible, and limit breakouts to 5 or less. The smaller, usually the better. People love to connect with peers, share their ideas and hear their own voices. Consider how you will have people report back with their ideas.
Consider the multiple ways you are going to get people active during the calls. There are a variety of different ways from chat, to polls, to annotation. What’s going to help people interact and be in conversation, in multiple ways, on multiple channels?
Ditch the texty slides - - or at least intersperse them with rich graphics. Our brains process visuals quicker than text, so consider alternative ways to communicate your message
Consider the pre- and post- work (reading, videos etc) which can be done so that your time together is a conversation, not a presentation.
Engage at least every 7-10 minutes. This “7-10 minute pace switch” which I write about is key to keeping calls moving and people engaged. You can change the pace by asking a question and having people respond, doing a poll or having people annotate on the screen.

What are the things we can do? What are the changes you want to make to your work?

Want to learn more? Consider joining me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program to boost your skills and confidence in leading virtual calls. Learn more and register here.

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 #2408 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 161: Pulse Check

8/3/2020

How often are you taking the pulse in your virtual calls? Whether it’s a webinar or a group coaching process, taking the pulse regularly is key for both you as a facilitator/host and the group. Regular engagement moves us from a “Death by Conference Call” to something more interactive.

In today’s post I wanted to share several ideas of how you can take the pulse during calls – it’s platform agnostic and different platforms will have different options available. In no particular order here are some options:

Ask people to share in chat their biggest learning so far
Ask people in chat to give a thumbs up if they have received one thing that they can put into practice from the call
Have people rate their call experience so far on a 1-5 or 1-10 (yes, a little risky, and it’s going to help you in the long run!)
Using annotation have people indicate the most important topic you’ve covered
Using annotation, have people write out any questions they want covered in the last part
Using a poll (built in or in a platform like Mentimeter) have people indicate the most important point covered so far
Using emojis or reactions have people signal their learning

What do you want to incorporate into your work?

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 #2396 – Back to the Basics: Virtualize and Digitize

7/22/2020

This week’s back to the basics post takes us to an area you might not have considered “foundational” a few months ago, but may now. 2020 has been the year of this in a tremendous tsunami of professionals, businesses and organizations moving to the virtual and digital space. It’s been amazing to see different people and organizations pivot, joining us in innovation.

As many readers may know I’ve spent the bulk of my career since the early 1990s leading virtual teams and businesses. When I opened the doors of Potentials Realized (metaphorically, of course, as I’ve never had a brick and mortar location), I’ve always been fascinated to think about how I could adjust and evolve in-person events to the virtual space.

My driving force was not just a fatigue with travel, having spent most of the 1990s and early 2000s either flying around the world, or having the privilege for many years of adventure travel as part of my everyday body of work, but it also was in response to some vision loss I encountered in 2003 from an eye infection which quickly got out of control. While my vision was impacted, it’s been an ongoing driving force for my creativity and advocacy that virtual events can be just as interactive and impactful IF we incorporate great design. I’d invite you to take a look at the many, many posts here at the Teams365 blog which link into virtual conversations, or pick up a copy of two of my more recent books – The PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner for Virtual and Remote Professionals OR Effective Virtual Conversations.

Today we have the opportunity to continue to virtualize and digitize a lot of our work. Here are some of my favorite types of virtual events:

Core Elements when we think about virtualization include some of the many ideas I shared in my post yesterday – Stand Out Virtually. From clarity, to visuals, to leaving a pause, these are core elements.

Another foundational element of standing out and creating value is making sure that you engage. Engagement means involvement. It doesn’t mean just talking at people. Be sure to leave space for people to interact with others, or even interact with their own thoughts. If it’s a big call, what can people do to take a pause and note things down for themselves? Or share with another person in a breakout?

Some of the favorite virtual events I like to run are virtual business planning retreats, annual groups like the Learning Lab and Design Studio I host throughout the year and also Get it Done afternoons where we get our work done!

In times of physical distancing many are yearning for connection and collaboration. What can you do to create more connection in your next digital offering? In your next virtual conversation?

Please share with us what’s important for you to note!

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