Team Leader Breakfast Cafe - Year End Retreats

Many of you have joined me over at the Teams365 blog this year. Throughout 2014 I have been posting
daily on Team Leadership issues. In case you have missed it, you can check out the year of posts

here. I've looked at core leadership topics ranging from coaching skills for leaders, to trust, to critical things to do during your first 90 days in post, to virtual teams and feedback. If you are a team leader I hope that you will follow along! The Teams365 blog is hosted at our main Potentials Realized site.

One of the monthly events have been hosting for team leaders is the Team Leader Breakfast Cafe which is held by phone on the first Wednesday of every month at 7:15 am ET. Over the past few months we've explored team culture, the six factors of high performing teams. This month I talked about creating high-impact year end retreats for you and your team. I thought you might enjoy it. You can access the call here.

I hope that you enjoy tapping into a year of resources at the Teams365 blog. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have enjoyed, which can support the direction for 2015. We're also looking at offering a membership site for leaders so you can access on-demand resources real-time when you need it. Please comment and let us know what you like about the Teams365 blog, as well as what other support would be useful to you as a leader.

Best
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC, CHRL
Potentials Realized - Leadership | Teamwork | Coaching Skills Training for Leaders
Supporting Team Leaders One Conversation at a Time(TM)
Join us for an upcoming Teams365 Team Leader Coaching Group
OR The next cohort of the Team365 Leader Foundations program
(416)996-8326

Just-in-time: Leadership a - z is j

Today's leadership a through z is about Just-in-time. So much of today's business context makes just-

Wordle created at Wordle.com, Britton, 2013

in-time approaches so valuable -

Just-in time coaching
Just-in-time feedback
Just-in-time training

What words come to mind when you think of "just in time"?

For myself, words such as:
Immediate
In the moment
Specific
Informal
and Focused spring to mind

Immediate feedback and support is important for people to be able to access information right now, in the moment and not six months later or a year later at the performance review process. As leaders we often fall into the trap of thinking that it's going to take a lot of time, when in fact, it doesn't.

What immediate feedback/support/coaching/feedback can you provide right now to your team members? How much time would this really take?

Just in time approaches are very specific, tailored, targeted and focused. If we look to just-in-time warehousing approaches that retailers like Walmart and Canadian Tire have based much of their inventory process on, orders are place when needed, and for specific items. In translating this to the leadership realm, what specific, focused and targeteted feedback do you need to offer to each team member, right now?

Just in time approaches to training or coaching often are more informal. In the moment training can be invaluable, to solve or address an issue right away, rather than when training can be scheduled. This then becomes a more proactive approach to development, enabling "course correction" along the way.

What are the tools you have at your fingertips right now to support you in these conversations?

What other qualities come to mind when you think of just-in-time?

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPCC
Potentials Realized - Leadership, Retreats, Team Development
 Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-TEAM

As an author Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching. She is also a former leader and team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training.

Infusing Coaching Skills into Managers

Coaching skills are critical for managing in today's ever changing landscape. Equipping managers with enhanced coaching skills is an important piece of building internal capacity, strength and resilence within organizations.

Dan Kennedy over at the Great Leadership blog wrote the following article on Infusing Coaching Skills into Managers. He proposes four solid tactics to start equipping your management team with enhanced coaching skills.

I appreciate Dan's comments, especially as I am working right now with a number of corporate clients on enhancing coaching skills and/or developing internal mentoring programs. Several months in to many of these medium term iniatives we are starting to really see tracking and a changing landscape of business relationships with is having an impact on the bottom line.

How are you building coaching skills with your management team?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP
Potentials Realized
Phone: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

90 Day BizSuccess Program Starts Fri. Jan 16th at noon (ET)

Where could your business be in the next 90 days with some focus, tools and accountability? Join me and a handful of other business owners for a 3 month group coaching program which focuses on giving you the tools, structure and focus to take your business from where you are to where you want to be. This program is specifically designed for solopreneurs and service based providers.

The program includes:
7 x 1 hour group coaching calls
36 BizTips delivered into your mailbox 3 times a week for the 90 days
Monthly lazer 1-1 sessions with me
The BizSuccess Manual (sent out as a weekly modules)

During the program you will:

* Create Your Business RoadMap for the year
* Explore your core strengths and abilities as a business person, identifying areas for leverage
* Acquire knowledge of core marketing principles to help you develop a marketing strategy and budget
* Bust through limiting beliefs you hold about your business
* Learn how to leverage partnerships with other business owners
* Investigate how your business can leverage technology to build client base and increase sales through an introduction to blogs, podcasts and other social networking platforms liked LinkedIn and Twitter

You’ll leave each group coaching call with some new ideas, insights and also action steps before we meet next.

Details:
We’ll be meeting on Fridays from 12 - 1 pm (Eastern) on Jan 16, 23, Feburary 6, 28, March 13, 27, April 17, 2009 (by phone)

Cost: $347 US for the 3 month program

To register, or for more information, please visit here or call Jennifer at (416) 996-8326/Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Warmly
Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC

Widely known for her work in group coaching, Jennifer is also a widely recognized busienss coach. Since 2004 she has coached (and taught) a wide number of budding entrepreneurs through college and government sponsored programs. She’s also a contributing author to Starting Your Own Business in York Region: A Woman’s Guide (2006) and was part of the 2008 Succession Planning Webinar Series for Small Businesses. Throughout the 90 Day BizSuccess program, Jennifer weaves together her passions for group coaching and business development work.

Executive Coaching in the news

There was a very interesting article and accompanying video yesterday in the Wall Street journal online entitled "Executive Coaching - Worth the Money?". The video looks at the actual impact of one company's experience with employing executive coaching services.

The Wall Steet video discusses how the owners have benefitted from a series of offsite coaching sessions (4/year) supported by regular ongoing 1-1 phone based support work. It's a great practical example of how executive coaching is supporting businesses - large and small - from many different industries.

Many of you will recognize that this is quite similar to some of the coaching work which I undertake including Shadow Coaching, 1-1 executive coaching, or a team coaching approach which involves all business partners, owners or senior managers.

Curious about what executive coaching might do for your managers, or teams? The most recent 2008 Sherpa Executive Coaching survey has found that at least half of executive coaching is currently being used for leadership development purposes.

What's your biggest leadership challenge right now?

I'd welcome speaking with you to see how coaching services could support your managers and teams performance, retention and productivity measures.

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Toll free : 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer{at}potentialsrealized{dot}com

Are you drowning in a sea of paper?

I'm pleased to announce that I will be hosting a one hour call with TV host and professional organizer, Hellen Buttigieg, this Wednesday evening (September 19th) from 8-9pm (EST) entitled "Help! I'm drowning in a sea of paper". If you are looking for some quick and practical tips to get your office in order and emerge from the pile of paper that may be hanging around, I hope that you will join us. There is no charge for the call, other than your own long distance charges to the bridgeline.

Click here for more information about the call, and to reserve your spot email teleclass@potentialsrealized.com -- you'll receive an automatic email with the bridgeline information. We are almost at our capacity of 250 callers for the event, so register quickly.

Hellen and I will also be holding the Get Organized Virtual Retreat later this month - Thursday September 27th and October 4th from 7-10pm (EST). Originally launched in May of this year, this group coaching program will give you practical tips and tools to Get Organized in your home environment. We'll be undertaking hands-on exercises during the 6 hours of the retreat, so you will leave the retreat having made major headway in some of your own personal organizing tasks. Space is limited to 15 and is filling quickly. The cost for the 6 hour retreat, plus a group follow-up call, and a Retreat Manual is $250 US -- a fraction of what it would cost to work individually with Hellen and I. I hope that you will join us!

Sign up for the Get Organized Virtual Retreat and payment is available by PayPal at the website or you can call me this week toll free at 1-866-217-1960 to pay by Visa by phone. Feel free to email me at jennifer{at} potentialsrealized.com if you have any questions. We won't be offering this program again this year.

Have a great rest of the weekend!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer{at} potentialsrealized.com

Employee Engagement Revisited

The concept of employee engagement has been on my mind over the last few days and has passed through a number of conversations I have had with organizations. It's almost been a year since I last blogged on the topic, and obviously is still very pertinent to today's workforce.

For those not familiar with the Gallup Research on Employee engagement, approximately 29% of employees today in the US are actively engaged. These employees are more productive, more profitable, have a better safety record, create stronger customer relationships and stay longer with the company.

Anywhere from 54-56% of employees are not engaged. These are employees that are "checked out" - showing up for work, but really not connecting or contributing significantly to the company's bottom line.

The third category from Gallup's research are the 17% of employees who are actively disengaged. The cost of disengagement to the US economy is $350 Billion dollars a year, a very significant amount. Actively disengaged employees are not just "checked out", but they are the toxic employees, whose dissatisfaction has the possibility of spreading to the rest of the workforce.

You can read my earlier blog posts on employee engagement here. In June, I saw Tom Rath, one of the Gallup Researchers, and experts on the topic of employee engagement speak in Atlanta. It was a great presentation and when I get back to my office next week, I'll follow up with some additional research that it coming out, as well as what organizations can do to boost employee engagement.

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer {at}potentialsrealized.com

Curious about Coaching? View CBS Sunday Morning Report

Curious about coaching? CBS Sunday Morning ran an interesting story on coaching yesterday. You can view it here.

It provides a good overview of what coaching is, and how can support clients in business, life and the home. There's a great eight and a half minute video clip that you can view on the right hand side. I hope that you will check it out if you are curious about what coaching is all about.

As a Certified, Credentialized coach with the International Coach Federation myself, it was wonderful to see how they provided an overview of some of the diverse areas of the coaching profession, including leadership and executive coaching which I provide. They did not provide too much coverage of some of the other areas that I provide coaching in - career coaching, team coaching and group coaching. If you are interested in learning more about how coaching in these areas can support you, I hope that you will visit my website for more information.

I also offer a complimentary coaching session by phone (40 min) to interested individuals to see if I might be a good fit in supporting you to achieve your goals. To schedule a sample coaching session, please email me at jennifer{at}potentialsrealized{dot}com.

I look forward to hearing from you and would welcome your comments on the CBS spotlight after you have seen it -- please feel free to comment below.

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC, CHRP
Potentials Realized
Group Coaching Essentials
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960 (across North America)
Email: jennifer{at}potentialsrealized{dot}com

Change Management: Are you ready for change?

Change is an inevitable part of today’s business environment. I’ve been thinking a lot of about change management lately, in part due to requests for facilitation support in this area from companies, as well as what’s showing up on the news and in my mailbox.

I just got a wonderful book from Elaine Beich, who I consider a master in the area of consulting and learning and development. I saw Elaine speak last month in Atlanta at the ASTD conference where she talked about Change Management tools and processes. Her new book - Thriving Through Change: A Leader's Practical Guide to Change Mastery - which I’ve just started is excellent. You can check it out at ASTD Press.

Elaine talks about how the pace of change is getting quicker and quicker. Did you know that the amount of information we are exposed to in one week of a New York Times newspaper is more than what our ancestors were exposed to during a lifetime in the 17th Century? Amazing.

Likewise, she talks about how information is changing at such a rapid pace that some of the information students are learning in the first year of university can be outdated by their third year. Incredible.

Whether you are a student, professional or business owner, how are you keeping abreast of the changes in your industry? What are you doing to be proactive with change, rather than reactive? How are you stepping out to embrace the ongoing changes?

I will be doing a series of blog posts on change management in the next few months – in part to answer some of the queries I am receiving from readers, as well as organizations I work with. What’s you biggest question regarding change? What tools do you need for your organization? What tools do you need as an individual?

I’d love to hear your questions and comments on change – feel free to comment below.

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Email: jennifer{at}potentialsrealized.com

Leveraging Business Partnerships

A growing scope of my work this year has been in the area of coaching business partnerships. Leveraging the amazing tools created by the Centre for Right Relationship (the wonderful partnerhsip of Marita Frijhon and Faith Fuller) and their training in the area of Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching, I am seeing outstanding results for business partners I am currently coaching.

Are you looking to create or enhance your business partnership? What could be available if focused more on your relationship with your business partner?

A few weeks ago, I ran a 50 hour business planning course with Business Students who are putting together their first business plan. It was a team effort where students work with at least one partner. One of the many themes which emerged from this work is the challenge created by working with a business partner. What skills do you bring to the table? How do these compliment your partner? Where are the gaps?

Challenges aside, partnerships provide a rich space for opportunities and greater scope than ever working alone. If you are currently working solo, what would a business partnership provide for you? What could you do that you are currently not doing alone?

If you are interested in exploring these issues further, I would like to invite you and your business partner to try a sample coaching session by phone. My goal for the first quarter was to offer free coaching sessions to over 50 partners. I am now more than three quarters of the way through this process. If you would like to book a 45 minute sample coaching session with your partner, please email me at jennifer@potentialsrealized.com with Sample Business Partner Coaching in the subject line, along with two or three times you are available to undertake the session. Please also indicate the timezone that you are in.

I will also be looking for a business partnership to coach on the evening of Saturday March 24th from 8-9 pm (EST) by phone. If you and your partner would like to reserve this spot, please email me with March 24th in the subject line.

Stay tuned for many more posts related to business partnerships. I look forward to hearing from you,

Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, CPCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized

Jennifer Britton is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach and is the founder of Potentials Realized and Integra Enterprises. Jennifer weaves together her sound business acumen with expertise in HR, group and team development, to support individual, team and executive clients in not-for-profit, governmental and corporate clients across North America and Europe.

What's in a business plan

I had the pleasure of running a 50 hour Developing a Business Plan course over the last few weeks which led to the development of 15 new business plans by participants. The course has launched some really innovative plans - from golf courses, to restaraunts, to a financial service firm, to a tailored concierge services, to a Muskoka based resort.

This post is the first of many I will be posting on the ins and outs of business planning for small business.

The Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans
Copyright 2007 - Jennifer Britton. All Rights Reserved.

If you are a small business owner, what's the status of your business plan? Is it still collecting dust on the shelves, or do you consistently refer back to it?

Business plans are not only a useful tool for leveraging needed capital, but they can be an invaluable tool for business owners. A business plan should be a living, breathing document, which is regularly updated and referred to.

One of the most common questions I often receive when coaching business owners is, what should a business plan include?

Typically, a business plan should include the following sections:
* Table of Contents
* Executive Summary
* Business and Management Overview
* Marketing (which includes the 4 Ps - Price, Product/Service, Promotion, and Place (Distribution), industry analysis, and market review/research)
* Location Information for the Business
* Personnel Requirements
* Legal Requirements
* Financial Requirements

As each industry and business is different, the skeleton of the plan will look slightly different.

If you are in the process of developing your own plan, or revising one, which sections are most challenging for you to work on? I'd love to get your comments and will create new posts based on your questions.

In future posts, I will delve deeper into some of the areas of the business plan which can be of interest to any entrepreneur or small business owner. Stay tuned for future editions - including marketing, product/service offering, market research, industry analysis.

For all business owners out there, here's a challenge: What one thing can you do this week to revive your business plan or move your business plan forward?

Looking forward to connecting again soon on this issue,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, CHRP, CPCC
Potentials Realized
Email: jennifer[at]potentialsrealized[dot]com

The Power of Relationships

What are the most important relationships for your business? We live in an age of relationship marketing, social networks, and referrals. Relationships are central to business success in today's economy. Have you been investing sufficient time into the most important relationships in your work and life?

Increasingly, more of my coaching work is moving into the domain of coaching business partnerships and other relationships, expanding from the team and group coaching and training work I have been doing since 1988. This is a really exciting shift for me, and I have set a goal to coach 50 partnerships over the next six weeks. Are you looking to design your partnership alliances more fully? Prehaps you are developing a new strategic venture with an external partner, want to enhance your relationship with your existing business partner, or develop stronger alliances with your individual staff members. What is the value to you of having a strong partnership alliance?

For the next six weeks I will be offering complimentary Designing your Partnership Alliance sessions held by phone with partners (business or personal). This process takes approximately 45 minutes.

If you are committed to investing in your relationships this year, and are interested in benefiting from Designing Your Partnership Alliance, I'd love to hear from you! Please send me an email or call me toll free at 1-866-217-1960 to book a DPA session. Please suggest two to three preferred times for holding the sessions, as well as what time zone you are located in.

I look forward to hearing from you and supporting you as you invest in your relationships this year!

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized