Focus Question: What’s been your greatest learning?

Description
And here we are. In the final week of the year. As you look back at 2020, what stands out, or maybe the better question is, what’s not been memorable, or record setting.

What a year! I hope that you have enjoyed our journey together and want to leave you with some reflection questions:
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The one thing I want to remember about this process is:

• I want to acknowledge _______ about myself:
• I am proud of:
• I have gotten clear on:
• I am going to celebrate my accomplishments by:
• Going forward, 1-3 themes which are important to me are:
• As I step into the new year I will…
• Take a look at the word cloud which captures some of our core themes for the year.

 
Enjoy the conversation and focus!

Activity
Review your notes from the year, highlighting for yourself key themes, learning and insights.
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Celebrate. Love. And Keep on Learning.

Thanks for joining us for this 52 week series. We hope that you will continue to stay tuned to the Remote Pathways podcast. Please take a minute to rate and review the podcast in your favorite podcast player!

Jennifer Britton 

Focus Question: What’s important to note about your work right now?

Description
This year we’ve taken a look at a wide variety of core topics for remote work – from delegation, to team development, feedback, to learning.

This week, and next, you will have an opportunity to take stock of where you have grown and shifted this year.

Growth doesn’t always happen on a straight path, and there may be many twists and turns along the way. This week take a look at the many milestones you have moved through. What are they?

Questions to consider:

• What were the major milestones throughout your year?
• What were your growth areas?
• What were the plateaus?
• What stands out for you?

Another key element of the year has been your vision. Have you gone back to review your vision?  If not, do that now. Notice:

• What was your vision at the start of the year?
• What major milestones did you meet or exceed?
• How did your vision shift?
• Even with a shift, how did it come to fruition?

You are invited to spend time creating your vision for the new year. Check it out.

Activity
 
Review your notes from the year, highlighting for yourself key themes, learning and accomplishment.

You may want to check out Jennifer’s recent year end video at her YouTube channel.

All the best,
Jennifer

Focus Question: What’s important about innovation for you right now?

Description
The world is a different place than it was at the start of the year, the decade, and even 90 days ago. This has implications for our planning and how we work.

Innovation has always been an important topic for teams, business owners and leaders in the virtual space, and today it's even more important.

What can we be doing to foster innovation for ourselves and others? In this month's post I thought it would be interesting to focus in on several different tools we can use to foster new ways of thinking.

There are several great resources for coaches to explore when looking to boost their toolkit around coaching for innovation including Coaching for Innovation: Tools and Techniques for Encouraging New Ideas in the Workplace – Cristina Bianchi and Maureen Steele. Check out their related website.

Activity
Innovation - Exercise #12 of The 40 Ways to Work with Visual Cards available at the Potentials Realized site.

Time needed: 10 - 30 minutes

Instructions:
Get group members to think about what they need to innovate around.
With this in mind, have them select a card which represents a new perspective on the situation. Alternatively, you could also randomly hand people a card.  If you are doing this virtually, provide the group with a series of photos they can choose from or show one.

Ask each participant to take a deep look at the photo (individually) and reflect on: In the context of innovation, what does this image invoke for you? What’s significant? If you were to apply this image to what you are innovating around, what would be possible?
After each person has done this, get each person to lay out their cards (or virtually share which one they selected). Depending on group size, either have people pair up, or have everyone look at each card. Give a few minutes to reflect on what innovation “Spark” is created by each card. Have people write this down.

In pairs, or in the small group give each person the opportunity to speak about what they are realizing about what’s next for them, or what’s new for them, around innovation based on the photos. If you are working with a team, you may simply have each team member select a photo of what innovation represents or means to them and have them share it.

Collectively ask the team to make up their own story or synthesis of all the cards.
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Questions around coaching for innovation:

1. What’s another way of looking at that?
2. What’s important about making a change?
3. What does innovation mean for us?
4. Who do we need to collaborate with for innovation?
5. What mindsets do we need to shift in order to innovate more effectively?
6. What will help us be successful?

Wish you the best,
​Jennifer

Focus Question: What strengths have your teams been leaning into this year?

Description
What are the strengths you can leverage?
 
Teams which get results are often complimentary in skills. What are the skills each team member brings to the table?
 
In times of disruption and/or change, it’s even more important for us to be focusing on our strengths. Strengths and what we are good are often the things that we tend to rely on, or lean into, first.

• As a team what do you notice about your strengths?
• The overlap between different members of the team?
• The gaps between different members of the team?

 
Over an extended period of time, especially when under pressure or stress, we may tend to over leverage our strengths.
Consider dialogue around this question:

• Where, and how, the team is overleveraging their strengths?
• What impact is it having?

​Check out this great March 2020 podcast from Gallup .

Activity 

This week spark a dialogue around strengths. If you have done some strengths-based work (see the earlier focus in Week 8 of the Remote Pathways 52 weeks guide), spend time exploring it…

Possible avenues to explore are StrengthsFinder 2.0 OR VIA Strengths.

What do you notice about your strengths? What’s working? What blindspots have you created? What’s not working?
 
For more on this topic check out: Section 1 and 2 of Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Focus Question: What are the conversations which need to be had?

Description
From leading meetings, to giving presentations that break the mold of Zoom Fatigue, to undertaking strategic planning, in the remote space facilitation skills are critical.

Virtual Facilitation is a highly interactive approach to helping groups or teams in the online or digital space have the conversations they need to have. Facilitation is all about Dialogue, a two-way conversation.  How much space and time are you leaving for interaction in your virtual calls?

​Building out your toolkit in the area of virtual facilitation might include boosting your skills in:

• Asking questions – Meetings should be a conversation, not just being talked at.
• Using different tools and apps – From the Post-its of Mural, to the polling function of MentiMeter, masterful virtual facilitation is about bringing everyone’s voice into the room. What are the additional tools you want to incorporate?
• Using images to signal what you are trying to describe
• Storytelling – Virtual presentations and conversations take people on a journey. What’s the journey you want to take people on?
• Facilitation skills – Virtual facilitation is about facilitation. It’s about helping people make decisions, prioritize, come to consensus. This is what we focus on at the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program. It’s about helping a group get to the results they want in a way which might invoke discovery, exploration as well as debate, focus, and even abandoning ideas.

What are the things that are going to help your next virtual conversation stand out?

Activity
 
Consider what type of conversations you are engaging in. Are you creating space for pause, reflection, action and dialogues? What are the skills you need – is it more about developing a mastery of facilitation tools OR focusing more on your approach to leaving space for dialogue.
 
For more on this topic check out Jennifer’s book, Effective Virtual Conversations which explores principles and practices of virtual and online conversations across the ecosystem of virtual learning – from asynchronous approaches, webinars, coaching to team building.

All the best,
Jennifer

Focus Question: What’s important to note about your work right now?

Description
Now, more than ever, teams need opportunities to connect, learn and grow together.
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In earmarking Team Time, you will want to make sure that you are creating a sacred time for the team to connect for getting clarity on the RESULTS they want and the RELATIONSHIPS which are important.

What are you looking to create in your team time?

Teams need a number of ingredients which we explored earlier this year in the Six Factors of High Performing Teams. A reminder that these six factors are:

• Shared mission and vision
• Shared goals
• Shared performance measures
• Clear roles
• Shared team practices
• And shared commitment

Teams excel when they have time formally and informally to get to know each other. While you might have lots of formal meetings, what informal opportunities do you provide to help team members to get to know each other?
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Have you considered virtual co-working as a way for people to get to know each other?
It’s important for teams to engage in ongoing learning. What are the types of learning experiences you have earmarked, both formally and informally? 

Activity
Review where you are as a team.
Consider what team development activities you have planned.

For more on this topic check out: Episode 15 (Team Effectiveness) and Episode 20 (Virtual Co-working) of the Remote Pathways podcast and the associated download. You’ll find it here.
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Also check out Chapters 10 and 11 of Effective Virtual Conversations, Jennifer Britton’s 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations, which focuses on Virtual Team Development and Virtual team Learning

Focus Question: What does experimentation mean for you? Look like in your work?

Description
Experimentation is key for business leaders and teams today. Many times, the context is changing so quickly that we don’t have time to complete an entire roll-out before having to make a final decision. That can lead to a mindset of experimentation, where it is encouraged to try things out, see what works and what doesn’t.

In supporting experimentation in our team, we want to:
• Encourage and reward trial and error
• Create safety around not getting “things right”
• Provide team members with time and resources to experiment, beyond their everyday team responsibilities
• Facilitate an evaluation of projects or “Experiments” that are completed or are even at the midpoint
Questions we may ask at project reviews include:

Practically, incorporating more experimentation may look like:
• Putting shorter time windows on projects, with quicker checkpoints to see what is working, and what is not
• Moving projects out of design phase and into beta more quickly so that pilots can be rolled out and/or early adopters can take the program for a test drive
• Looking at testing a couple of different strategies at the same time, with the notion that they may not be as fully developed as they have been in the past. Early results may inform what gets further developed and/or followed
(Originally published as https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-1597-teamwork-skills-in-complex-times-experimentation and https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-1583-in-focus-experimentation)

Activity
What are the experiments you want to undertake right now around your work? Where could more experimentation benefit you (and the team) with innovation or focus?
 
For more on this topic check out: Section 4 of PlanDoTrack for more on Experimentation.
Experimentation has also been one of the quarterly themes we’ve anchored into this year at the Remote Pathways podcast. Be sure to check out the Community Calls at the Remote Pathways Podcast.  You can find them at this YouTube Playlist - (Remote Pathways Podcast Community Call playlist)

All the best,
​Jennifer

Focus Question: Where are you focusing on?

Description
Focus is a multi-layered word in the remote space. Focus is not only about what we are choosing to look at, what also thinking about what helps us keep our focus.
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#1 – Where are you focusing?
Just as Goleman writes focus is important on three levels – inner focus, other focus and outer focus. Where are you putting your attention? All three areas are key for work in the remote space, and it can be easy to get pulled into certain areas, for example, an inner focus.
 
#2 – Building out your focus muscle
What are you doing to focus your attention? This may be about tuning out your distractions as well as those things that are not core.
Read through Week 43 on Keeping Things Simple and Week 42 on Minimizing Distractions.

Activity
# 1- Consider where are you focusing – inner focus, outer focus or other focus? Where are you not focusing? What’s the danger or trap of not focusing there?
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#2 – What is going to help you build your muscle for focus? What will help minimize distractions?

For more on this topic check out: The Teams365 Blog at Potentials Realized.com.

Best,
Jennifer

Focus Question: What does Keeping it simple mean for you?
 
Description
Simplification in the remote workspace is critical. When contexts vary across a team, time zones are different and cross-cultural elements get in the mix of everyday work, simplification and keeping things simple is essential for high performance and flow.

The notion of “keeping things simple” can flow across a business at all levels –
 
From program design, to customer messaging.
From keeping what you offer simple, to how you communicate and reinforce it. Simplification also relates to workflows and processes.
 
Simplification may also involve creating visuals around a topic to consolidate a lot of ideas into one graphic.
 
In the remote space the more complex a process, the more likely it is to break down. In the remote space, the more complex things are, the more likely there is going to be misunderstandings. These can lead to work breakdowns, lack of alignment, conflict, and many other things.
 
What’s important about keeping things simple in your work?

​Activity
Consider what keep it simple can mean in these different areas of your work:

For more on this topic check out: Effective Virtual Conversations 

Wishing you the best,
​Jennifer

Focus Question: What distractions are getting in your way?
 
Description
Distractions abound in today's workplace from:

• Open concept work areas where visual distractions abound
• Regular bings from email arrival, updates, Instant Messaging
• Being called into meetings which may not be necessary
• Too many open loops or projects on the go
• The blurring of work and professional roles

 
All three of these areas can be quickly assessed if you are committed to minimizing distractions for you and your team.
 
Some initial ideas to minimize distractions may include:
Creating "focused work" periods. Whether it's 30 or 60 minutes a day, focused times, which have no immediate distraction allow us to get things done. Many studies find that our immediate productivity can be boosted by giving projects time windows and a time frames. The Pomodoro technique is one example of accelerating productivity. It posits that focused activity for 25 minutes can be followed by a 5 minute break. Read more about the Pomodoro Technique from its' creator here.
 
Become ruthless with meetings. Moving the needle on meetings may be a goal for many teams today. If you have not yet downloaded a copy of my bookmark for my newest book - Effective Virtual Conversations - on making virtual meetings more effective, download it here. It includes 8 Questions you will want to ask yourself before every meeting.
An initial question to ask your self this year is "is a meeting the best way to communicate this information or is there a better way?
 
Closing email and other app windows at different parts of the day. While it may not always be possible to turn off email for extended periods, it is important to have blocks of time where we are able to focus solely on the task at hand. Providing small work areas for individual and/or groups to meet in for the important pieces of work are critical. It may take a few minutes to get into the flow of these projects, and scheduling in time on a regular basis to have focused work time, is useful in breaking the cycle of ongoing disruption.
 
Ask yourself if you need to interrupt someone before you immediately hit send on an email which could be delayed or bundled with some of the other questions you have.
 
Where does your team get distracted at present? What small, but consistent changes would make a difference to the way you are working?

Activity
Identify the distractions which exist in your world. What is important to take note of?

For more on this topic check out: Teams365 blog posts on the topic of Distractions. Check them out here. 

Best wishes,
​Jennifer