​Happy April Fools Day! I always love April 1st as it marks the day I came back to live and re-establish myself in Canada. Back in 2004, I made the transition from my former world of global work with the United Nations and the international humanitarian sector and came back home. Six days later on April 7th, I registered my new business, Potentials Realized, and haven’t looked back.

A lot of people often ask me what led me to start this company. There were a number of factors which led me to establish Potentials Realized.

First, I had spent several years prior being asked by my employers to take on special projects and/or take on internal consulting roles. It validated at into the second decade of my career I was building a series of skills and areas of expertise that could be useful outside of my regular role.

A second major factor for me had also been the impact to my vision due to an eye infection I had sustained in 2003. That led to an effect on one of my eyes which still exists today. It’s one of the reasons why I established Potentials Realized as a virtual business – so I wouldn’t have to travel like I used to. Today so many of us are having to live and work virtually, especially with social isolation measures in place. I hope that you have been seeing some of the more creative ways we can continue to work and meet in the virtual space.

A final factor in terms of moving to being an entrepreneur was the belief that it was time to go out on my own and create the programming I had dreamed about. During the years I was flying around the world leading organizational retreats for groups large and small, I hoped that I would be able to create something similar under my own umbrella. One of the greatest things I have enjoyed is not having had to do the travel I used to – of how I can bring dozens of people together for great conversation and work in the remote space.

What is your beginning story?
 
As we step into the new month, what are your goals? What’s important to be focusing on?

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

Focus and attention are key parts of business success today. It can be very easy to get off track, or down the rabbit hole of distractions. Focus has become an area that is getting explored in greater depth these days.

It’s not always just about whether you are focusing or not, but it is also the question of “What are you focusing on?”. Are you focusing on the things that are immediate and urgent, or are you working on those issues which may be what Chip Heath calls “upstream”? The more proactive, systemic issues, which I would call proactive or strategic. In another week I’ll be leading some strategic thinking training and what we know about strategic thinking is that it’s part creative, and a large part proactive. It can incorporate, WHAT IF, as well as WHAT THEN.

Professionally, I entered the workforce in the early 1990s and was privileged in my work in the non-profit world to be exposed to a lot of strategic thinkers and planners.  This shaped a large part of my work as a leader and facilitator in the global sphere during the 90s and early 2000s. Some of my frontline work was in economies moving through significant transition and change. I had not realized until recently that some of these older stalwarts of strategic thinking had transitioned out of the workspace (which makes sense as I think of age).

We know that in disruption it’s as important to be agile as it is to have an anchoring vision and strategy. What are you aiming towards? How are you holding the tension of strategic thinking along with agile approaches? I do believe there can be an AND. What about you?

Enjoy your focus this week on the main question of “What will help with focus?” as well as “And what do you want to focus on?” or “What’s important to focus on?”.

All the best,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your 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.
Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!
​

This week’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip is a matrix working tip, getting you as a team, or partnership to explore the question “What’s the priority?”.

With matrix work and membership of multiple teams become the norm in today’s workspace, it can be important to focus on WHAT’S the PRIORITY?

Are you taking time as a team to discuss what your priorities are?

Are you holding three-way meetings so that team members can learn more about the bigger picture and landscape of the multiple teams they are part of?

As a leader, are you communicating the WHY, or what’s important about the bigger picture of work?

Prioritization is a critical skill set for most remote workers. It may also involve some negotiation when multiple priorities show up on our desk (think – almost every day!).

The challenge is that balancing multiple priorities for two parties who don’t usually connect. This is where getting into the practice of holding quarterly or regular meetings with the matrix teams or leaders can be of benefit. Widening the understanding of what people are working on, can help sensitize thinking, as well as help with weighing in on priorities.

A reminder of the different prioritization tools we might leverage –

• Covey’s Urgent/Important Matrix
• To Do and Not To Do List
• Strategic Issues Mapping

I’ve covered many of these tools in past Teams365 blog posts. Many of these tools can also be found in Section 4 of PlanDoTrack.

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

This week we round out our focus on core Team Essentials before turning our attention next month to collaboration, conversations and relationship building.
One of the core elements which team members may struggle with is feeling connected to others on the team. This gets even more augmented when working in the remote space, given that we don’t see each other. As I have shared in recent blog posts this month (ink), connection is key for getting results.

What are the ways we can boost a team’s sense of connection? First, consider what are the visual element which are bringing people together. As I wrote in yesterday’s Effective Virtual Conversations post, making things more visual and visible through the use of structures, images and icons can help create a sense of connection and identity.

Another key part of building connection is to ensure that people know who is on the team, and what roles they play. Do people understand how their work connects and impacts others on the team. This type of connection needs to be linked back to ensuring that there is a clear vision. This vision will help to anchor of what the team is working towards and what’s important to the team. Is your team connected to the same vision? Is everyone working to the same end point? Is it time to revisit this?

A third area is helping people connect with each other. Beyond our work, do people know each other and know a little bit more about who each person is as a human being. As we get to understand WHO is WHO on the team, we can develop a more solid working relationship, one that is not just transactional.  Providing time for each team member to share a little more about who they are, their strengths, what’s important to them, or even what’s beyond the screen can help to widen the lens and understanding of who is who on the team.

What can you do this week or month to expand connection across the team – visually, with vision and also as you expand the screen?

Enjoy the conversations!
​Jennifer

Today’s Team Building Tip gets you to think about and be in dialogue around “What you are aiming for” as a team? Having a clear line of sight around your goals and targets is key, particularly when you are a remote team.

Have you, as a team, clearly identified the goals you are working towards? Have you identified HOW you want to work on them? Have you clearly articulated who on the team connects in with each goal? Have you identified what “success” will look like from each team member’s perspectives and how their contribution is needed for another?

Working with goals should be done in tandem with your vision. Vision helps us connect in with aspirations around a task. Our vision usually is grounded in emotion and other aspirational energy. With that, it can help to keep us motivated around goals, even when things aren’t working as planned. Connecting our goals into the bigger picture helps when things get bumpy, in terms of smoothing things out.

Goals, and Vision, are two topics we’ve covered recently at the Remote Pathways Podcast. Do check out Episodes 3 and 4 for more on goals and vision for remote teams. You will also want to download the associated episode resources which include a One Page Plan and a Vision Worksheet. You could use both of these resources at the team level.

Enjoy the conversation!
Jennifer

One of the themes I’ve been talking a lot about in recent months as we moved into year end, and now are in the start of the year is that Metrics Matter. On an individual level in our own planning, it can be very useful to note things like:

• Key achievements
• Time spent on different activities (work, meetings, troubleshooting, coaching, learning, etc.)
• The things you actually accomplish in any given day

On a team level, starting the year with a conversation around metrics, achievements and goals can be really important. As part of the start of year kick off you may want to:

• Note key metrics (where you are now, where you want to go by end of the year, and what your check in touchpoints are)
• Note key goals
• Identify aspirations and intentions – as I mentioned in an earlier blog post this year, aspirations and intentions are often wider in focus and help to anchor things.

What are the other items you want to note?

All the best, 
​Jennifer 

Today’s Milestone post (#2200!) is all about accelerating your teamwork this year. While the context of teamwork has shifted dramatically, the fundamentals of great teamwork has remained the same. I thought that it would be great idea to revisit what I term the 6 Factors of High Performing Teams: six core ingredients for team success. (Six Factors of High Performing Teams – Copyright Jennifer Britton 2017 - 2020)

Regardless of if you are a remote team, or an intact team, taking time to focus on these elements will help you go faster in the medium- and long-term.  I write more on this in part 3 of Effective Virtual Conversations.

As a team, have you taken time to clarify and agree upon these areas?
(as built upon from Teams365 #1920)

1. Shared purpose or mission (Your WHY)
   What is your purpose? Your mission? Why do you exist? Does everyone hold the same understanding? What does this mean practically for your work? What priorities does your purpose or mission naturally create? What are people doing to keep the vision and priorities VISIBLE?
   
   2. Shared behavioral norms
   How do you do things? What is acceptable and unacceptable on the team? What behaviors and habits exist? Which ones are supportive of exceptional performance? Which ones aren't? Is it time to revisit your shared agreements or TEAM charter and how you operate?
   
   3. Shared commitment
   What are team members committed to? What will you get done, no matter what? Is there anything that needs to be dropped off the list? How do members of the team have each other’s backs?
   
   4. Shared performance goals
   What are key goals for the team this year? What are key individual goals? How do your goals align across the team? Overlap?  What needs to get done by one team member and then passed on to another? What is contingent upon another task completion? What does success look like for each member? For the entire team? Does everyone have an understanding of the key goals of others on the team and how they feed into them?
   
   5. Shared team practices
   Teams that work together effectively share common practices which support both a focus on RESULTS and also a focus on RELATIONSHIPS. This might include team practices such as a Monday morning huddle, a Thursday night out or a daily check in at 3 pm ET for a team that needs to get things “out the door” by 5. What practices support your relationships? Your results?
   
   6. Clear Roles
   How do our roles overlap, align and connect? On the team, what are people’s strengths? Who is good at initiating things? Completing things? Checking for quality? Innovating things? What changes, if any, are needed this year around your roles giving your priorities?

As a team what’s important to note? What areas need further clarification?

All the best,
Jennifer

As we step into 2020, I wanted to give you an opportunity to focus in on your goals for the year. Many like to list out their goals in a variety of ways.

From creating a goal or vision board which sits in your office to creating a One Page Plan (hear me talk about this more in the recent Remote Pathways podcast and download a copy of your own), keeping your goals visible can be an important part of success.

At the same time goals can become de-motivational, especially if we create too many or if we create goals that are not achievable.

In my writing I like to talk about goals that are not only SMART, but SMART-E.
​
As a reminder these are:
S - Specific - What specifically do you want to achieve? What will it look like?
M - Measurable - How can you track progress?
A - Achievable - With some stretch are these achievable?
R - Realistic - Again, with stretch are these in range?
T - Timebound - What's the timeframe on this - next week, end of June, early 2021?
E - And most of all, are these goals Exciting? If they are not exciting, chances are they might got get done, or may get done only to get them checked off.
 
What are your top 3-5 SMART-E Goals for 2020?  Take a few minutes to work on them and be sure to check out the recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode 3 to check out the One Page Plan Worksheet. You can find it here.

Enjoy your reflection and be sure to share with us your goals over at the Conversation Sparker Zone! If you haven’t joined us there before, you can join the main Conversation Sparker Zone community here. 

And the Remote Pathways Sparker Zone here. (note this group is more focused on remote work)

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Welcome to 2020 – Setting Annual and Decade Long Vision, Intentions and Goals and a new calendar to follow!

Welcome to 2020! Today is an opportunity to turn over not only a new page of a new year, but a new chapter of a new decade.

For some, it’s incredible to have a blank canvas. For others, it may create some doubt and hesitancy. A lot of my work and writing is grounded in the notion of daily steps create their own momentum. As Lao Tsu once wrote – “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”.

Today is a new day, new year and new decade. What’s the journey you want to take?

If this is the first time you’ve stumbled upon the Teams365 blog, welcome! If you’ve been with me since I started this experiment in daily blogging back on January 1st, 2014, welcome back for another year. I’m excited to see what themes and topics we explore this year.

Over the last six years of blogging daily, I’ve amassed quite a bit of content. Rather than having it get buried, this year there’s a new monthly calendar you can follow. I’ve curated some of my favorite posts from here at the Teams365 blog and you can follow them along! Click here to download the January 2020 Teams365 calendar.

Today’s post provides you with an opportunity to create not only an annual vision and set of intentions, and goals for what you want to create this year, but also for the upcoming year.

I hope that you may grab a new notebook or journal and join me for these prompts today. You may even want to grab a timer and set it for 2 minutes.

#1 – As you look out across 2020 – what is it that you want to create, or embrace this year?
#2 – What is your theme for 2020?
#3 – What’s important to build time and space to focus on this year?
#4 – What are the top 3-5 goals for the year?
#5 – By December 31 2020, I want to…..
#6 – By December 31, 2029, I hope that…..
#7 – The one habit I want to focus on this year is….
#8 – Across this new decade I want to bring in….
#9 – As I get started every day, I want to remind myself….
#10 – My hope for myself (and my loved ones or team) is…
#11 – What do you want to do on a consistent basis?
#12 – What do you want to make sure you fit into the margins of your life this year? This decade?

Enjoy the reflection!

For more on setting a vision for yourself please check out this video I recorded a few weeks ago. If you have a vision already created, what are you going to do to review it on a regular basis, and use it as a touchstone?

All the best, 
​Jennifer

2019 has been a year of disruption on many fronts. Professionals of all kinds are no longer being buffeted by their leaders from the winds of change. Learning how to navigate disruption has become an imperative for all professionals.

I thought it would be fitting to reach back to a post from this past June on Navigating Disruption to help you think about the focus you want to take in continuing to cultivate these skills and mindsets in your work – here we go with a revisit of Teams365 #2003.
 
Here’s what I wrote in that blog post from June 2019 – Key Trends: Navigating Disruption
​
Disruption is part of the landscape of many industries and workplaces today. Whether things are changing dramatically due to technology or geopolitical impacts, change is pervasive for many.

While we can’t change the pace of change, we can adjust our approaches to it.

What do we do to continue to be effective and positive in times of change?

Three practical things we can do are:

Cultivate curiosity – While many leaders would assert “easier said than done”, cultivating curiosity is important for today’s business landscape. Cultivating curiosity can be an important skill to develop in team members AND embed in the culture of an organization.

For more on cultivating curiosity, check out this earlier Teams365 blog post I wrote on Cultivating Curiosity Teams365 #1955 and what the research says Teams365 1961 – Encouraging Curiosity.

Be clear on the big picture goals – Adopting a 30,000 foot view on work, life and context can also be a valuable strategy for buffeting against the shocks of change. While the meta-view (big picture view) is not one that everyone adopts easily, seeing the big picture helps with the micro-shocks we can feel on a regular basis when things change. This is why it’s really important to continue communicating and meeting during times of change. Helping share the big picture so people don’t find themselves in the “Weeds”, cut off from what’s happening in the bigger picture is critical.

Become comfortable with knowing when things are “good enough” to let go, and that learning may always be needed. The embracement of “growth mindset” on the part of organizations in support of their staff is encouraging. When we come from what Carol Dweck has coined “growth mindset” it gives permission for experimentation, learning, and not quite being ready “yet”.

Disruption may mean that reverse mentoring (junior to more senior professionals) is just as important as traditional mentoring (senior to more junior professionals). It also provides us with an opportunity to pause and see how we are adjusting to change. Are we as “good at change” as we thought we were?

A reminder that last month I focused on Teamwork in Uncertainty:

Teams365 #1955- Teamwork in Uncertainty: Cultivating Curiosity. View it here.

Teams365 #1954 – Managing Uncertainty – Building Trust and Connection on Your Team Virtually. All workplaces can benefit from this topic – it is one of the #1 questions we receive here at Potentials Realized. Check out the post here.
 
Teams365 #1962:  Teamwork in Uncertainty: Empowering your Team with the Space to Experiment. Read it here.
 
Teams365 #1968: Teamwork in Uncertainty: Pivot . Read it here. 
 
Teams365 #1969: Teamwork in Uncertainty: Comfort with the Unknown: Read it here.

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Writing 
Phone (416)996-8326
 
As we step into the end of the year, get your 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.