Category: Virtual Team Leadership

#TEAMS365 #1826 #PlanDoTrack – Video Montage Week 3

12/30/2018

One of the projects I enjoyed the most this fall, was kicking off the #90DaysPlanDoTrack daily series over at my Instagram feed. Instagram was a new platform for me this year and one that I have quickly fallen for, given the highly visual nature.

We’ve pulled together the highlights of each day to create a short video montage. Each one alone is a great question to reflect on. You can check out week 1 of the series here.

Here is the week 3 montage.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), Coaching Business Builder (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Now available – PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner - Order a copy today on Amazon

0 Comments

#TEAMS365 #1730 – Virtual Meeting Wrap Up Tool and Process

9/26/2018

0 Comments

Virtual meetings can be a drag! As I write in Effective Virtual Conversations, they don’t have to involve “Death by Conference Call”.

Four to five times a year I offer the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program, geared to provide leaders, trainers, facilitators and other professionals with tools to jazz up their virtual conversations – meetings, webinars and other virtual conversations.

It’s really important in virtual sessions to make things as visual, and visible, as possible. That’s why slides and photographs can be a great thing. While design and photography was probably not on your list of development activities as a leader, think about how photos and visuals shape:

The stories of the team
The memories of what you have achieved
The emotions created
Team identity
What photos, images and visuals are you using in your team communication? Is there an opportunity to do more, or incorporate more in these areas?

I wanted to share a quick framework you might consider using and adapting for your next team meeting.
One of the things which is important for leaders of all kinds, virtual leaders especially, is to check for understanding in terms of what people are “taking away” from a call. Team meetings are usually our only live touchpoint as virtual and remote teams. Leveraging these opportunities for feedback and learning are key.
As part of my work as a presenter, I often incorporate a slide that looks like this, at the end of the presentation:

The icons represent our focus and takeaways.
I always like to build in time to hear from each person around:

What are you next steps? (The feet icon)
What has your learning been? (The scissors)
What do you want to keep your eyes on (The magnifying glass)
What will you take forward (the briefcase)

It’s highly unlikely that we get to hear from everyone, however, I can share this on the screen and have everyone use “annotation” and include their name to indicate what their responses are. We can then take a screen grab and circulate it as key learning from the meeting.

Once people get into the practice of this, it only takes a few minutes, yet it serves as a very powerful reminder of what we covered, and also accountability tool that peers and leaders can follow up on.

How might you use something like this in your work and/or virtual conversations?

Enjoy,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Effective Virtual Conversations | Coaching Team Leaders
We provide team and leadership development support through coaching, consulting and training services
Author of several books including the 2018 Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner & Effective Virtual Conversations (2017)
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
(416)996-8326

0 Comments

#TEAMS365 #1728 Effective Virtual Conversations tip #63

9/24/2018

0 Comments

Welcome back to Monday’s EVC Tip - #63 in the series.

This week’s tip is all about getting you to think about matrix management. In the virtual space it is likely that your team members are part of multiple teams and may be reporting to several different leaders.

Remote team members may have a local leader or supervisor they see on a regular basis, and also a more remote team leader who actually works more closely with them on the macro level.

For example, maybe a person is part of a continent wide marketing team. This team is continent wide in focus, and because they are based in a more remote location, they report into a local office regularly. They are expected to work with both the local and regional leaders. Each team has different ways of working and different cultures. The regional marketing team is more laid back and creative, while the local team is detail oriented and fast paced. It can be a challenge for the employee to navigate both sets of working relationships, work cultures and leadership styles.

Key to this process is being intentional, and proactive, in discussing many of the issues that may emerge. If three-way meetings are possible – between the employee, the local leader and the regional subject leader, it can be useful to talk through how as a partnership you can be most effective in supporting the employee in getting the results needed for the organization.

Some key issues you will want to clarify early on in your communications within matrix relationships include:

Clarifying roles, responsibilities and reporting structures
Identifying overlaps and gaps
Clarifying goals and priorities (especially if there are different priorities)
Identifying resources available

You can read more about this on page 334 of Effective Virtual Conversations.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

0 Comments

#TEAMS365 #1721 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 62

9/17/2018

0 Comments

It’s Monday and time for another Effective Virtual Conversations Tip. This week’s tip takes us into the realm of Virtual Teams. The last section of Effective Virtual Conversations focuses on virtual team issues – developing your team, virtual team leadership and other related issues.

With the remote and virtual work space continuing to grow, getting clear on the way we want to foster virtual teams is critical

Central issues facing virtual teams include:

Building relationships
Building Trust
Creating connection amongst the team
Providing clarity
Being intentional

Let’s look at each one of these in turn, starting with trust given that people are unlikely to engage if the group does not trust each other. Trust in the virtual and remote space usually exists within the frame of the program. As such, it’s important to think about what you are doing to build trust, and what’s taking away trust.

Going hand in hand with trust is building relationships. Relationships in the virtual space are peer related.

In that light, putting an emphasis on creating connection amongst the team on a regular basis, formally and informally is key. It’s important to remember that as great as technology has become, it’s still hard to replace the intimacy of a face to face experience. With that in mind, is there a way to create a touch point once or twice a year.

Providing clarity around instructions, work flow, requirements is also key. Make sure that assumptions are not being made about project. It can help to focus on end results and be over communicating (without micro-managing). Consider how you want to check in that everyone has the same understanding, and is working from the information that they need.

Being intentional means many different things. In the virtual space it can mean being focused about what you are doing. While there is always a lot of “winging it”, being intentional with the important things can be important.
These five issues are important for the entire team – not just the relationship between the leader and the team. What can you be doing to focus on these issues?

Enjoy!
Jennifer

0 Comments

#TEAMS365 #1714 – EVC Tip 61 - Virtual Team Leadership Skills

9/10/2018

0 Comments

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations tip, #61 in the series, brings us to the topic of virtual team leadership. In my book, Effective Virtual Conversations, I explore the many skills required by virtual team leaders and virtual team members alike. These include:
Working Across Differences
Intercultural know-how
Innovation
And Resilience and Agility
As we consider each of these skill areas, team members of all kinds require these skills in order to be effective. What are you doing to build the skills in the areas.
For more posts on these topics, check out my past posts on the topic.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

0 Comments

#Teams365 #1536: Five Mistakes Virtual Team LEaders Can Make: #FlashbackFriday

3/16/2018

0 Comments

Today's post takes us back to Teams365 #1177: Common Mistakes Made by Virtual Team Leaders. This month we're looking at some of the activities and conversations we want to expand with our team. It can be useful to look at the opposite - what we might not be focusing enough attention on, or doing poorly.

Here's what I wrote in Teams365 1177:
"Not enough 1-1s – As I have said many times being out of sight is not the same as being out of mind. not spending enough time in one on one ones can be detrimental to the levels of trust team members feel, the connection they feel with others, which will have an impact on levels of engagement. What is an appropriate frequency of meeting time with team members? What does it look like – phone calls, video streaming, onsite visits, or bringing staff into the office regularly?
Not learning on your feet – Part of being an effective virtual and remote team leader is your ability to be shifting, learning and adapting. Given that there is much less levels of control and greater span, the ability to learn on your feet and expecting this rather than feeling you will have all the answers, can make a big difference with team members
Not being clear with goals – Goals can be a little different with virtual and remote teams. Whether people are matrixed and reporting into different areas, or whether goals can become competitive, providing opportunities to be clear with goals is important.
Not helping people connect with the bigger picture – Because virtual and remote team members are working with different levels of autonomy and independently, helping team members connect with the bigger picture is essential. This could include helping them understand more about corporate and departmental goals, giving them more access to strategic or corporate plans, and making goals and achievements more visible. Making goals more visible might include making the reporting structures more shared and visually appealing, or mapping out team goals on a weekly basis or other.
Not providing team members with the necessary responsibility and authority – A final mistake virtual and remote team leaders can make is not providing the necessary responsibility and authority to their team members so they can make the decisions they need to autonomously".

As you consider these five mistakes, what are the ones you might be more apt to make? What can you do as a team, and leader, to avoid them?

Have a great end of week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

Looking for practical things to do with your virtual team? Refer to chapters 7, 10, 11 and 12 of my newest book. Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.

0 Comments

#Teams365 #1443: 20 Virtual and Remote TEamwork Activities in Review

12/13/2017

0 Comments

Back on September 20th I started a series of posts that took us through the fall - 20 Focus Areas for Virtual and Remote Teams, and activities you might consider using with your teams.

From vision work, to developing a team charter, building relationships and EI, to making matrix management work, I shared different activities you might bring into your next team meeting, as well as questions which might frame your next team conversation.

Over the last three months I've covered activities in these areas:

Who are we as a team? Check out Teams #1359: Who are we as a team?
Getting to know each other - team individuals
What's our vision?
Creating a team charter or team agreements
Team Roles
Goals - immediate work planning for the next month/quarter. Check out Teams365 #1380 on Goals.
Identifying Strategic Goals. Check out Teams365 #1386 around working with strategic goals.
Knowing our strengths (i.e. StrengthsFinder)
Knowing our styles (DiSC ) - this can impact communication, decision making
Difficult Conversations. Check out Teams365 #1394:
Conflict Management
Providing Feedback to Each Other
Other performance management issues
Time Management and Prioritizing
Matrix Management. Check out Teams365 #1421 around Matrix Management.
Work-life
Intercultural skills and knowledge
Project Management
Emotional Intelligence
Relationship Building

Check out all of the 20 Virtual and Remote Team Activities here.

As a former team leader myself I know that many times we are left with the task of developing our team members, and the 2016 Culture Wizard Survey found, only 22% of virtual teams receive any development support. Read their survey here. Are you one of those 22%?

Mid-summer my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, was released and it's started making its way into the hands of team leaders all over the world. Chapter 7 is dedicated to different activities you can use with teams. Please check those out.

During November I was able to draft the manuscript of another new book, this one which will be for virtual and remote team leaders, addressing the topic of skills, competencies and practices. It will also include 20 different tools for team leaders and their teams. Keep your eyes open for this new book from me in mid to late 2018!

I've highlighted a number of the activity posts here and hope that you will check out the posts, to build your baseline. Enjoy and let us know which ones you have tried.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

You can grab a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon. You can also purchase an autographed copy direct from our site

Looking to schedule some team development next year? Contact me to discuss whether the Everything DiSC or the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team as a starting point.

0 Comments

Teams365 Blog

#TEAMS365 #1826 #PlanDoTrack – Video Montage Week 3

#TEAMS365 #1730 – Virtual Meeting Wrap Up Tool and Process

#TEAMS365 #1728 Effective Virtual Conversations tip #63

#TEAMS365 #1721 – Effective Virtual Conversations Tip 62

#TEAMS365 #1714 – EVC Tip 61 - Virtual Team Leadership Skills

#Teams365 #1536: Five Mistakes Virtual Team LEaders Can Make: #FlashbackFriday

#Teams365 #1443: 20 Virtual and Remote TEamwork Activities in Review

Author

Available Effective Virtual Conversations

Upcoming Programs

Archives

Categories