In a virtual team it is critical to build capacity given that people are working more autonomously. Time spent equipping team members with the tools to influence, be proactive and also communicate is key.
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This week I wanted to zoom into three skills related to coaching that may be valuable to your virtual or remote team. These skills are:

1. Goals
2. Listening
3. Questioning

I often am amazed at how many organizations have not invested time, or resources, into helping team members work around goals. While there are many frameworks including:

• SMART Goals
• CLEAR Goals – see John Whitmore’s Coaching for Performance writing
• WOOP Goals

I usually encourage organizations to consider what’s going to work best for you. A majority of clients I work with are aware of SMART Goals, which we morph into SMART – E Goals, E meaning Exciting. If our goals are not exciting or motivating, it’s unlikely that we will get them done.

As a quick refresher – SMART goals are goals that are:

It’s likely that your virtual and remote team may not get the support they need. As I often write “Out of sight should not equal out of mind”.
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In a virtual and remote team, it can be very useful to provide peer support across the team. This might include things such as:

Mentoring pairs – If there are certain skills people want to develop, is there a way to create mentoring pairs across the team?

Peer partners - A valuable activity can be assigning peer partners across the team on an annual basis. Whether formal, or informal, having a partner people can meet with and ask questions to, can be valuable in sharing learning.

Job shadowing – Another interesting, and valuable, experience can be job shadowing virtually, where a more junior person is paired with a more senior team member. They may shadow meetings virtually and learn more about the behind the scenes work experience by co-working virtually. Consider how you might create a “take me to work day”.

Formal coffee break/meal sharing time – We learn a lot from each other informally. What are the informal pauses you can create for the team? This might involve coffee breaks where people can drop in for a chat once a week or every few weeks, or a lunch time potluck.

Co-working experiences - Where people bring projects they are working on and work together real time on a virtual platform like zoom, checking in at the top of each hour and working for several hour bursts. A session held like this once a month or more frequently can be incredibly valuable in terms of “getting things done” and also supporting learning across the team.

What are the different ways you can build in more virtual connection time across the team? This is critical for building your team culture.

Wishing you the best,
​Jennifer

Week 15 Focus – Partnership Mapping
Focus Question: Who are the partners who can support you in your work?

Description
Being able to lean into others is really important in our work as coaches and virtual professionals. We may not be able to do everything. Being clear on what’s the key partnership are and what value you bring is important.
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Partnerships may range from coordinating projects together, to Joint Ventures, to Co-Design of Programs and Co-Coaching/Co-Facilitation.

Research/Story

• Who are you working in partnership with?
• What is important about that partnership?
• How is it benefiting you?
• How does it benefit them?
• What is the learning to carry forward?

Activity
In terms of mapping partnerships, it can be useful to identify what you are bringing and why.

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
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The PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner is geared to virtual and remote team members. As I wrote in last week’s post, this month’s focus is going to be in the overlooked area of virtual and remote teams.

Spending time more intentionally on on-boarding virtual team members can go a far way. Today’s post reaches back to a post from the Teams365 blog in 2018 – Questions New Virtual Team Members May Have.

Here’s what I wrote,
“While this list is no means comprehensive, some questions new virtual team members may have, and areas you will want to cover (in an orientation or on-boarding program) are:

Team Issues:

• What is the culture of the team? Remember, how are things done around here.
• What are the team priorities?
• Who is on the team? What are their strengths?
• What could you reach out to them for?
• What else should the new team member know about the team and its focus?

 
The new team members’ role

• What are the roles and responsibilities of the new team member’s role?
• What key priorities and deadlines are there?
• Who will they need to reach out to?
• What feedback loops are there?
• What is expected in terms of performance?

 
Relationship between the team leader and new team member:

• What are your expectations of me as a team member? Team leader?
• How do you like to be communicated with?
• What are the issues I should surface directly to you? When?
• What are the things I should keep in mind in terms of reporting? Connecting with others on the team?
• What issues should I call about? Email about? Use the web about?

 
Who should I reach out to around:

• How to do things?
• Technical IT issues

What other issues are important to note?

Best,
Jennifer

Welcome to Q2! What are your top 3-5 priorities this quarter? Where do you have them enshrined or written down? Have you completed your Quarterly Planning Pages? (found on pages 139-148 of PlanDoTrack)
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As we step into a new month, it is time for a new focus. On Mondays here at the PlanDoTrack blog I will be shifting my focus for the next two months to more of a focus on virtual teams. Whether you are an entrepreneur working with an extended team, or a corporate employee leading a remote team, you’ll find these next 2 months of posts useful.

This month also marks the start of our 15th Year Celebrations. It is hard to believe but it was 15 years ago that I founded Potentials Realized. I returned back to Canada on April 1st, 2004, after having spent most of the 90s and early 2000s working across Central and South America, the Caribbean and Europe. An eye infection “gone bad” led to permanent vision impairment in one of my eyes, a significant factor in bringing me “back home to Canada”. While it’s easy to say now that everything turned out well, one of the reasons I’ve shaped such a virtual business has been in part to circumvent my limitations, as much as possible! I am thankful that technology has made the team support even easier today than it was 15 years ago, turning this into a very viable business model.

I hope that you will join us throughout the next 12 months for monthly celebrations. I’ll be sharing different case studies of the work accomplished, and each month will have a different spotlight. You can download the 15th anniversary calendar here. And stay tuned at the PlanDoTrack Facebook page for announcements!
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Now onward to our April Focus…..
The focus in April will be around virtual teams and on-boarding new members. In the virtual space, investing time in welcoming and on-boarding new team members is a very important function.

This month I’ll be sharing a variety of posts to support virtual teams with the on-boarding process.  It’s likely that you may not have a formalized process, or there may be one that is more geared to in-person work.

I’ll be referring back to a number of Teams365 posts I have offered in the past, so if you have not yet found that resource, be sure to check out this sibling blog geared for leaders, team members and others over at my main site – Potentials Realized.

Best,
Jennifer

An increasing number of teams are moving to the virtual and remote space. While team foundations are team foundations, I am finding a lot of team leaders are eager to acquire more resources around team building activities for their own teams.
As a professional who has been involved in supporting virtual and remote teams for the better part of the last 30 years (yes -- even before the days of the internet!), first as a team leader, and more recently in the last 15 years as a coach and author, virtual and remote teamwork is a passion of mine.

I included several chapters on the topic of virtual team development in my 2017 book - Effective Virtual Conversations (see part 3 and specifically chapters 10 -12). I also have included virtual options in the 40 Ways to Work with Visual Cards e-book, which includes step by step facilitated instructions and questions to explore topics related to change, innovation, teamwork with your teams using images and other visuals.
This month, I wanted to further go into detail about different virtual and remote team activities, and this has been the focus over at my sister blog - the Teams365 blog at my main company site PotentialsRealized.com.
Each Tuesday and Wednesday this month I am going into further detail about different activities you can use with your own virtual or remote team in your next web or phone based meeting.
Here are several posts with more information on specific activities you might want to  explore with your virtual or remote team:
Teams365 #1899 - Using Icons to explore topics. Click here to view.

Teams365 #1898: Virtual Team Builder - COINS: Click here to view

Teams365 #1892: Creating Connection through Images. Click here to view.

Be sure to visit the Teams365 blog regularly for more tips on virtual team development. Given that virtual and remote teamwork has been a significant focus for me at that blog for the last six years, you are also invited to check out the tags related to virtual and remote teamwork at the Teams365 blog such has remote teams, as well as the downloadable ebook -  A-Z of Virtual and Remote Leadership . Let us know how you put these ideas into practice, by sharing over at the PlanDoTrack Facebook page. You may also want to use #remoteteamtips as a hashtag

Best wishes
Jennifer