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’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: What does accountability mean for you?
 
Description
Another contribution that coaching can make to the remote space is the hard focus on accountability around goals.

A coach is often engaged to support a person to achieve their goals quicker, faster or better.

A key line of sight in coaching is around ACCOUNTABILITY or as Sir John Whitmore, one of the coaching grandparents wrote, “What are you going to DO? By WHEN? And HOW will I KNOW?”
 
These questions may be even more relevant today in the remote space.

• What are you doing to TRACK key goals and progress towards the goals?
• What accountability conversations are you having around WHAT steps have been taken?
• What’s been achieved?

 
Team meetings as well as individual coaching sessions between the leader and team members, or amongst peers may be a key part of the accountability conversation.

Consider using some of these frameworks to track accountabilities:
 
The Red, Yellow and Green Light Framework – on weekly basis team members can report out (verbally, visually or in writing) where each of their major tasks are. This can help to quickly pinpoint areas which urgently need attention (RED), need a focus (YELLOW) or are doing OK.
 
One on One Conversations and the One Page Plan
 
Accountability Buddies in the team who meet on a regular basis to connect and focus on what’s important
 
What else is important to note around accountability and the sharing of progress?

Activity
What are the 1-2 goals you want to be held accountable to right now?
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Complete, or update, your ONE PAGE PLAN if you have not yet done so. You’ll find copies at the back of PlanDoTrack or Coaching Business Builder.

All the best,
Jennifer

Focus Question: What’s important to note about your work right now?
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Description
Every quarter, I’ll be including a pause point to undertake a quarterly checkpoint. In addition to weekly and monthly planning, it can be valuable to spend time doing some quarterly planning. Looking across your goals and achievements over a three-month period, can provide a different perspective.

Activity
Earmark 30 – 60 minutes to undertake your Q3 checkpoint for the last 3 months. If you prefer to do this in the company of others, consider joining me for a quarterly planning session.

Grab a pen and your planner or journal. You may wish to set a timer, giving yourself 3-5 minutes to reflect on and capture your thoughts around each of these questions.
Note the following:

• What have you accomplished?
• What are the things which are still needing to get done?
• What has been your key learning over time?

 
Over the last three months ask yourself:

• What are the patterns you are noticing?
• What has shifted?
• What has stayed the same?
• What are you surprized about?
• What are you doing to leverage your strengths?
• What strengths are becoming overmagnified?
• What habits are helping you? What habits do you want to put more attention around?

 
Note your programming and/or services deliver. Ask yourself:

• Where have you been spending your time?
• What have you done to prioritize? What’s working and what’s not?
• How much volume of work have you been completing?

 
For more on this topic check out:
PlanDoTrack – Quarterly Planning Section
Remote Pathways New Guide – Quarterly Checkpoint (Day 30)

Enjoy your reflections!
​Jennifer

Focus Question: What are you committed to as a team?

Description
What are you committed to, no matter what?
Teams are as strong as their weakest link. What are you committed to no matter what?

Focus Question:  What needs to be clearer for the team?

Description
Regardless, of whether we are face-to-face or working remote, teams are teams are teams.  Over the last few decades team effectiveness research continues to validate core elements which teams need in order to thrive. The ingredients come from the research of professionals including: Katzenbach and Smith (The Wisdom of Teams), Hackman and Wageman (A Theory of Team Coaching) and others.
 
Part of great leadership in complexity is about distilling things down to their core. When it comes to teamwork it can be beneficial to get back to the basics. When I work with teams, I like to share with them the following six elements which I call the Six Factors of High Performing Teams. These are six things that teams need in order to excel. 

​As you step into this week, as a team, take the pulse of where you are on a scale of 1 - 10 the second 3 areas needed for team effectiveness:
 
4. Shared performance goals
What are key goals for the team this year? What are key individual goals? How do your goals align? Overlap? 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 such as a Monday morning huddle, a Thursday night out or some other regular event. What practices support your relationships?
 
6. Clear Roles
How do our roles overlap, align and connect? What changes, if any, are needed this year around your roles giving your priorities?

Activity
Where are we in each of the Six Factors? What requires attention?
For more on this topic check out:
Teams365 Team Leader Breakfast Café Call on the Six Factors.

Best,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Co-host of the Remote Pathways Podcast
Potentials Realized – Coaching, Training and Consulting Services for remote teams, leaders and professionals 
 
Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode, where we explore the people, places and processes of exceptional remote work. You can listen to the latest episode here, or on your favorite podcast player.
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Focus Question: What gets you motivated as a remote worker?

Description
Motivation usually has several components – internal and external factors.  

Internal factors include our own preferences.  We do something because we love to do it or want to learn. External factors are when we do something because of an external impact – we are going to get rewarded, or praised, or even punished.

What drives you? Where do you get your motivation in work?

Regardless of the source, knowing what motivates us, and what doesn’t, is critical for remote workers. While we work autonomously, if we are not self-motivated, it can have an impact.

What are the elements which are going to keep you moving forward, and excited, with your work? What’s going to get you out of bed in the morning? What’s going to replace the water cooler talk?
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Self-motivation can be critical for remote workers given that we are working in isolation.

Activity
Take some time this week to think about the things that have helped you move projects across the finish line. From this list below, what were the factors which helped you?

Questions to consider:

• What are the flags which might signal that you are in lower levels of motivation?
• What are the elements which can signal that you are in flow – insert what you need for flow to occur?
• What inspires you?
• What helps you go “above and beyond”?
• When do you know that it’s time to stop?

 
For more on this:
Check out the Iceberg exercise in section 1 of PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder.
Be clear on what your motivators are. Inquire about others on your team.
Some additional resources around motivation include writing from authors including:
Maslow, Daniel Pink - Drive

Best wishes, 
​Jennifer

​Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Vision. You can listen to Episode 4 here, or on your favorite podcast player.

Description
As a remote worker we are left to our devices a significant amount of the time. While we have goals related to our work, it’s likely that we will also be setting goals related to our own focus as well.

​Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Vision. You can listen to Episode 4 here, or on your favorite podcast player.