Time Management: An Alternative

An Alternative to Time Management: Manage Your Energy, not your time

“Managing Energy, not time is the fundamental currency of high performance. Performance is grounded in the skillful management of energy”
- Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

A few weeks ago I spoke on time management tips and high performance to a group of managers and staff. As part of our session I challenged participants to consider looking at managing energy, rather than time as a key to "great" performance. A wonderful book on this topic, which you may in fact find a real paradigm shifter, is Loehr and Schwartz book - The Power of Full Engagement. It is worth checking out!

“Great leaders are stewards of organizational energy. They begin by effectively managing their own energy. As leaders, they must mobilize, focus, invest, channel, renew and expand the energy of others”
- Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

What steps have you taken this week to manage your energy?

If you are a leader, what steps are you taking to mobilize, focus and renew the energy of others?

Teams on Thursdays: Leverage Your Team's Strengths

The Gallup organization and researchers such as Marcus Buckingham and Tom Rath have been leaders in the field of strengths based leadership. Many of you will have probably read, or heard of books such as Now, Discover Your Strengths (Buckingham), Go Put Your Strengths to Work (Buckingham) and Rath's StrengthsFinder 2.0.

Here are 3 conclusions from Gallup’s research on conversation, engagement, and strengths:
If your manager primarily ignores you, your chances of being actively disengaged are 40%
If your manager focuses on your weaknesses, your chances of being actively disengaged are 22%
If you manager focuses on your strengths your chances of being actively disengaged are only 1%

What a difference when you look at strengths!

I saw Tom Rath speak last year in Atlanta and was really struck by one of the business metrics that he shared about how important employee engagement, and a strengths based approach can be:

An engaged workforce has 2.6 x the Earnings Per Share (EPS) than a disengaged workforce. That's a pretty significant figure.

What are the strengths present in your team? As individual team members? As a whole team or system?

How easy was it to answer these questions?

There are some fantastic leading edge assessments available to measure and map your team strengths. One that I stand fully behind, and use with teams that I work with, is the Team Diagnostic Assessment. The Team Diagnostic Assessment has also used in companies including Johnson and Johnson, McDonalds, ING, Unilever, Hilton, Bank of America. The Team Diagnostic Assessment provides a mapping of 14 key strengths of a team. Part of the uniqueness of this tool is that it looks at the team as a system (rather than a collection of individuals). As we all know, any change affects the system -- how often do you take a look at your team as a system? The tool was developed by Team Coaching International.

If you would like to learn more about the Team Diagnostic Assessment, I would invite you to contact me.

Let's discuss how this assessment can provide invaluable insights about your team as a system, its strengths and how these can be leveraged to create, or sustain, a high perfomance culture and results. The assessment also includes a one to two day offsite retreat process with the team, grounded in team coaching. I am presently booking presentations (virtual/webinar or onsite) with corporations who are looking for cutting edge tools and processes to support their teams and results later this year.

Global team? No problem -- the assessment can be delivered in 12 languages, and the retreat can be held virtually. Multiple global (intact) teams? I work with a global network of practionners who can also deliver the program in your languge and culture.

Contact me by email or toll free (1-866-217-1960) to learn more about the Team Diagnostic Assessment and how it could support your team(s). I look forward to hearing from you.

Have a wonderful week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP
Potentials Realized
Email: jennifer{AT}potentialsrealized{dot}com

Teams on Thursday: Creating Quality Communication

I led a seminar yesterday on time management strategies and was reminded of the importance of taking time to reflect on the quality of our communication within teams. Communication is not just about the frequency, it's really all about the quality.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• On a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being really, really terrible and 10 being exceptional), how would you rate your communication with team members overall?


• How frequently do you communicate with your team members face to face or by phone (rather than text or email)?


• What's the impact of face to face or voice to voice communication over your email communication?

Overutlization of email continues to be a huge barrier to performance within teams. The time that a series of back and forth emails takes, can often be resolved in a five minute phone call.

Exercise:

Over the next week observe what patterns of communicaton are present in your team.

Which communication patterns or activities support the team, its' results and purpose? Which ones aren't effective?

What is one specific action step you can take this month to create quality communication within your team.

Have a great week!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT

Potentials Realized
Team Coaching
Coaching, Training and Assessments for Team Peformance and Results

Teams on Thursday: Synergy

Teams on Thursday: Synergy

"Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people."
- Stephen Covey

What synergies exist within your team?
How does synergy support you team?
What are the new alternatives which are created from synergizing with others on your team?

Teams allow the principle of "the whole is great than the sum of its parts" to exist in part because of the synergistic nature of the relationship between individuals.

Take note this week of how your team is working together. Is it synergistic or something else?

Have a great week.

Warm regards,
Jennifer

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

Solid Foundations for Mentoring Relationships

The Art of Relationship : Mentoring
Copyright 2008 - Jennifer Britton. All Rights Reserved

Great Mentoring is all about building strong relationships

Studies have shown that mentoring fails because:

1.Lack of commitment to the relationship
2.Unclear expectations
3.Lack of trust


"For a Mentoring relationship to be effective, both parties must commit the time and energy to work with each other” – Murphy and Ensher

What energy (time and focus) have you invested to your mentoring partnership?

Whether you are a mentor or protege/mentee, create a solid foundation for your mentoring relationship, by holding a first meeting to discuss your expectations, groundrules etc, and consciously shaping your relationship.

Some of the questions you may want to consider discussing include:

• What are your goals for this relationship?
• What role do you want me to play?
• What do you expect from our relationships (for mentor, for protege)?
• What are our boundaries?
• How frequently will we meet?
• If there are milestones or success measures for the protege - what do these look like?
• What are we committed to?
  

Even if you've been working together for a while it's never too late to discuss these questions. The stronger your relationship, the more powerful your mentoring experience will be.

Warm wishes,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT

Potentials Realized

Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer{at}potentialsrealized{dot}com

Would you like to reproduce this article? Please do with our contact details and copyright intact along with the bio below. We would ask for a link to our site and that you provide us a link or copy of where it is published.

Jennifer Britton supports organizations on teamwork and performance issues as a coach, trainer and consultant. She also helps professionals build stronger relationships for enhanced results in the areas of teamwork, leadership and mentoring. She regularly delivers talks, workshops and gruop coaching on these topics to professional associations and organizations. Visit her online at the BizToolkit blog for more tips on mentoring or at her website: Potentials Realized.

Teams on Thursday: Essential Team Reads

Here are a few of my favorite books on teamwork and team issues:

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team -Patrick Lencioni

The Speed of Trust - Stephen Covey

The Wisdom of Teams - Kazenbach and Smith

Mastering VIRTUAL Teams - Duarte and Snyder

The Leadership Challenge - Kouzes and Posner (more about leadership in a team envrionment)

You can pick up several of these at the bookstore I've set up with Amazon here.

A couple of these I am particularly biased about (The Leadership Challenge and the Five Dysfunctions of a Team) as I deliver workshop programs from these models to teams, AND I also know how powerful the models can be for teams.

What are some of your favorite team reads right now?

Warm wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com

Mentoring

A short while ago I delivered a series of seminars for a wonderful organization which was just launching their own mentoring program. It's been interesting for me as everywhere I am turning these days I seem to be seeeing something about mentoring.

What's been your experience with mentoring? Does your organization have their own mentoring program in place? What exactly is mentoring?

Mentoring itself is receiving a lot more attention these days as more and more organizations and professional associations are recognizing the value of both formal and informal mentoring programs.

From my experience effective mentoring programs recognize the value of the mentoring relationship and invest time into creating a strong relationship between mentor and protege.

Some great resources you may want to look to if you are new to mentoring include:

Ellen Ensher and Susan Murphy. Power Mentoring: How Successful Mentors and Proteges get the Most Out of Their Relationships, 2005.

Robert Tamasay and David Stoddard. The Heart of Mentoring, 2003.

and two excellent online resources:

The Coaching and Mentoring Network (UK) : http://www.coachingnetwork.org.uk/ResourceCentre/Articles/Default.asp

Peer Resources: http://www.mentors.ca/

In addition to my Teams on Thursdays columns, I'll be doing a series on mentoring so keep posted. If you know of other resources for mentoring, please feel free to post below

Have a great start to the week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com

Teams on Thursday: Tapping Into Your Collective Wisdom

"None of us is as smart as all of us."
- Ken Blanchard

Today's team post is all about the collective wisdom and knowledge that resides within the entire team.

Questions to consider:
What's the collective wisdom of our team?
What are we able to do only as a team and not as individuals?
What is our unique team "smarts"?

You may want bring these questions into your next staff meeting. And if you do -- please let us know the impact of the questions using the comments below.

Have a great week,
Jennifer

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

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

Teams on Thursday: Roles within a Team

I’m going to be starting a weekly column here at the blog on teams - a central passion of mine and a huge part of the work that I do with organizations.

As more and more organizations are realizing the critical role teamwork can play in their organization, they are also looking for more resources to support the development of their excellence.

Today’s teamwork quote is from H.E. Luccock:

"No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.”.

This quote reminds us of the critical interconnected and important role of different players within a team.

Within the context of matrix management, virtual teams and other organizational approaches, the roles that are present within a team are no longer as straightforward as they used to be.

Creating an environment where all team members are clear on their role(s) and how they are evolving can play a key role in enhancing productivity, job satisfaction and overall business results.

As you look at your team here are some questions to consider:
What are the different roles present within the team?
What roles are not present? What can you do to fill them?
What roles are overpopulated?
What roles serve the team?
What roles hinder the team?

If you are a team leader or manager, consider spending some time looking at this during your next team meeting or offsite. As a team member what do you notice? What do you think the team needs?

Have a great week,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT

Potentials Realized

Four Years, Four Lessons To Live By

Today marks the 4th anniversary of Potentials Realized. It was 4 years ago today that our door, and phone line opened.

I’ve intentionally built some time in over the last few days to reflect on where we’ve been and what some of our goals are for the future. As a business coach, I love doing this work with my clients, and it’s been great to walk my talk and use my own tools for my business.

I’ve also boiled down four of the lessons that have served me best during my first 4 years in business.

Business Lesson #1: Be clear on what you want as well as what fuels and passions you

Keeping clear about what I love and want to create has been quite instrumental in building a business and a model which enables me to enjoy the best of the city during the winter, as well as the best of Muskoka during the summer. My time up north renews me on an annual basis, providing the opportunity for more strategic thinking and program/product development.

Coaching Questions: What do you want to create in your business? What's going to give you energy? What can't you live without?

Business Lesson #2: Don’t be afraid to create your own path

When I first started coaching four plus years ago, one of the only models available was one-on-one coaching. From the start of my business I was eager to create and design coaching experiences for groups. I've loved being a pioneer in an emerging area of the coaching profession - group coaching. Rather than feeling like a renegade I created my own path. You can read more about group coaching over at my Group Coaching Ins and Outs blog.
Coaching Questions: What's your path? What unique contribution can you make as a business owner? What's the unique path of your business?

Business Lesson #3: Persevere
Strategic perseverance has played an important role in growing my business. If it didn't work, I asked why? If it didn't work, I tried again and refocused. If that didn't work, I tried again.

Most of us know the stats on marketing -- it may take 7-11 times for a consumer to purchase, so why do so many business owners give up after the first try?

Coaching Questions: Where do you need to persevere? What needs to be refocused?

Business Lesson #4: Learn from all experiences, the good and the bad
And finally -- reflection and learning has also played a key role. Whether it's been a great experience or one that's not been so great, identifying the learning and applying in the next step has been critical.

Coaching Questions: What can you learn from your most recent success? What can you learn from your most recent failure?

Some interesting facts:

The US Small Business Association states that only 2/3 of small businesses survive after their first 2 years in business and less than half make it to 4. WOW!

What have been some of the lessons which have served you best in growing your own business?

In closing, I want to thank all of you who have supported myself and Potentials Realized as we've grown. I look forward to many more years of serving you -- and if we haven't had the opportunity to meet - I'd love to connect to see how we might synergize.

Have a fantastic week,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton PCC, CHRP, CPT

Potentials Realized

Group Coaching Essentials

Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960

Email: info{at}potentialsrealized.com

PS- Stay tuned for some of our anniversary month specials and announcements! I'd also invite you to visit our re-freshed Potentials Realized site (our original 2004 site was wonderful, AND it was time for a facelift - I'd welcome your comments on our new one!).

Gearing Up for Earth Hour

I’m gearing up for Earth hour tomorrow evening here in Toronto from 8-9pm. Toronto like dozens of other cities around the world will be undertaking an hour of voluntary “lights out”

Originally started in Sydney, Earth Hour seems to be growing exponentially. Last year over 2 million people and 2100 businesses took part.

For a quick overview of what Earth Hour is, check out this Toronto Star article: http://www.thestar.com/SpecialSections/EarthHour/article/35072

Some of the cities we will be joining tomorrow evening include:
Montreal, Vancouver, Bangkok, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen. The Toronto Star reports that over 150 cities in Canada alone will be participating this year – giving Canada one of the highest participation rates around the world.

What will you be doing for Earth Hour?

My own roots are intially in the environmental sector, and as such this initiative has captured my attention. Some of you may know that I hold a Masters degree in Environmental Studies, and a significant part of my work globally involved support to community based initiatives such involvement in establishing the Santa Elena Rainforest Reserve in Costa Rica, sea tutle research and environmental education in Guyana, and then support to the countries of the OECS (Eastern Carriben) on the GEF funded work around biodiversity and climate change initiatives, legislation and education. That's why when I do get to write about environmental issues and corporate social responsibility on the part of businesses - I get so excited!

I think that this is a great initiative and my hats off to WWF to finding an initiative and message that is really getting people inspired and fired up (especially little children). What steps will you take today to do your part?

With Earth Day also a few weeks away (April 22nd ) keep your eyes posted for more on what what you, your team and your business can do for the environment.

Have a great weekend!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Group Coaching Essentials
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer(at) potentialsrealized(dot)com

Succession Planning for Business Owners

Some of you may have noticed that I've been a little quieter than usual on the blog. It's because I've been involved in a number of pretty large pieces of work, one which revolves around Succession Planning for Business Owners. Later this month, YSSTAB will be launching the Succession Planning Webinar series for SME's (Small and Medium Enterprises) for York Region. York Region is just located north of Toronto and is Canada's fastest growing census division.

You can read more about the Succession Planning Webinar series over at YSSTAB's website. Approximately 70% of business owners will be retiring in the next decade or so and surprisingly a very small proportion have a succession plan in place. This has the potential for profound impact on the labourforce (for places like York Region especially where 95% of the labour force is employed with a SME), as well as the economy.

As a Business Coach, I am joining 3 other experts (a business valuator, a lawyer, and a financial planner) on this hour long webinar series, designed to provide SME's more information about sucession planning and what to consider when creating one for your own business.

It's been a very exciting process for me over the last few weeks and I am looking forward to keeping you posted as we move into the launch of the webinar series. In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing with you a number of the 8 strategies I talk about during the succession planning webinar.

Do you have a succession plan in place for your business?

Stay tuned!

Jennifer

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

10 Ways to Get to Know Your Team

Strengthening Your Team Relationships
10 Ways to Get To Know Your Team
Copyright 2008 - Jennifer Britton. All Rights Reserved

We can spend a majority of our waking hours at work. But how well do you know other members of your team?

This month's blog focus is all about strengthening relationships in your work and life. Here's a list of 10 things you could do to strengthen relationships within your team by getting to know each other a little better:

1. Create out of the office/off-hours opportunities to connect. It may be as simple as a luncheon out, or a walk through a nearby park.

2. Create a job shadowning day where you get paired with a fellow colleague and learn about what they do you. If a full day is just too long, make it a half day process.

3. Pair staff members together as team supports or buddies. These support teams can be rotated every month or so, enabling all team members to get to know each other.

4. Create special project teams which will foster closer working relationships.

5. Create an environment of trust. Trust is essential in order to facilitate close working relationships and create the foundation of for . How we create trust? Through transparency. Walking our talk. Creating shared leadership opportunities, practicing integrity.

6. Create opportunities for loved ones or family members to attend team events. These people know your team mates best. You might be surprised at what you learn about them, and what you learn about yourself based on discussions.

7. Instead of bouncing that email to your team mate, get up, go over and speak to them!

8. Invest in opportunities for the staff/team to "get away" from the office to focus in on team issues and get to know one another. Bring in an external facilitator to boost the process (Click here for an article I wrote on what to consider when designing your next team retreat).

9. Make sure that your team meetings are working for you as a team. Are they sapping energy? or boosting morale? Have team members suggest short activities or ideas that could be brought into the meetings to avoid the Death by Meeting syndrome.

10. Look at what everyone brings to the table. As a team, you should have a shared vision of what you want to accomplish. How does each team member see their role in contributing to the team's vision and accomplisments?

What are some approaches that have worked well for your teams? As always, I look forward to having you comment below.

Warm regards,
Jennifer

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

Looking for some additional ways to strengthen your team. Read my article: Team Building Tips: Take Your Team From Great to Extraordinary

Strengthening Your Relationships At Work

My theme for February is all about relationships in honour of Valentine's day. As a relationship systems coach I tend to do a lot of work with business partnerships and teams (as well as some intimate couples) who want to move their relationship from great to extraordinary. In honour of this, most of my blog posts here, along with my sister sites Your Balanced Life! (all about work-life balance) and Group Coaching Ins and Outs (all about group facilitation) will have a relationship flair to the end of the month.

When was the last time you focused on your relationships at work? It's funny how we spend a majority of our waking day at work, and yet many workplaces suffer from a clinical team detachment. How often do you get together with your team mates to communicate? Or do you work for a company where your communication with your next door neighbour is by email? Please don't laugh -- this really does happen in some workplaces.

So....regardless of what your commuication mode is...here's some food for thought as you consider strengthening your relationships at work.

Creating Positive Workplace Relationships - a great article from Peter Vajda over at management-issues.com

Why Genuine Dialogue is the Key to Workplaces - Tammi Lenski

Creating Positive Intentional Business Partnerships -- a blog post I wrote last week on questions to consider when you are looking at creating any business partnerships -- joint venture or business model

Building Solid Work Relationships: Developing Rapport with Co-Workers - Deborah S. Hildebrand

So here's a question for you - What is one thing you could do this week to strengthen your relationships at work? What impact would that have?

Stay Tuned later this month as I'll share a list of intentional activities you can do to foster stronger working relationships with your co-workers and business partners.

Have a great rest of the week,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT

Potentials Realized

Coaching for Teams and Business Partnerships

Come - Get Organized with Me Next Week

Was one of your New Year's Resolutions to get organized? Is it still sitting on your new year's list? Ready to check it off?

Come join me, world class organizer Hellen Buttigieg, and a small group of other individuals, next Monday night for the Get Organized Virtual Intensive . The program will be held on Monday February 11 AND 25th from 7-10pm (EST) by phone. We are hosting a group coaching program for individuals who are READY to GET ORGANIZED!

It’s going to be a very interactive two evenings of information and action -- to support you in getting things in order. We are holding the program by phone, so that you can tackle your closets, your drawers, your desk during our time together…no excuses! The program is a mix of time spent on the phone as a group where you will get tips, tools and other resources for organizing (15 minutes every hour) and then structured individual exercises offline to apply these new tips at your home right away (the next 45 minutes of every hour). Hellen and I will be there throughout the two evenings to support you to bust through any obstacles that may pop up!

For more information about the program please click here.We still have space for a few more individuals to join us for these two evenings of fun, organizing, coaching and tips so if you’ve been sitting on the fence about joining us, I hope that you will email me at info@potentialsrealized.com to reserve your spot. Cost: $250 US or Canadian( a fraction of the cost of what it would be to work with Hellen and I individually for the same amount of time ~ approximately $4000). Registration forms are available here.

Get a head start on your spring cleaning and check it off on your list!

Questions? Please give me a shout at 1-866-217-1960 or drop me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

Warm wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized

What do you think? Small Business Marketing

A number of my small business clients have been spending the month focusing on creative ways to get the word out about what they have to offer. I always love looking at just how the internet is creating new opportunities to small business to get the word out at no, or low cost.

Walking my talk is very important to me, and throughout the 90 Day Biz Success Program, I too undertake a number of the assignments my clients work on.

A neat tool that I have just started exploring (and I mean just started) is Smilebox, which allows you to create a slideshow with music at no cost.

I thought that I'd try my hand at putting together some photos for my spring through fall programs up in Muskoka which I run with my colleague Sharon Miller. This year, in addition to our couples and women's retreats, we are also offering customized executive and team retreats in Muskoka. You can find more information at our Retreat2Muskoka site.

You can view my Smilebox creation here:

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

It's a very basic slide show, and is just a quick filler for the moment but it was really neat to be able to put this together in less than 15 minutes.

What do you think? There's space for you to comment after you've viewed the slideshow, and as always, feel free to comment below.

Have a great week!

Warm regards,
Jennifer

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

Employee Engagement in the new year

Employee engagement continues to show up as a critical issue for many managers and workplace learning professionals. You can read earlier posts I've written on the topic here.

The 2007 ASTD Employee Engagement Survey has just been released and answers some of the following questions:

• How many workers are engaged?
• How much does it matter to the learning function?

This study looked at link between learning and employee engagement and involved 750 respondents in an online survey. ASTD collaborated with i4cp and Dale Carnigie and Associates for the study.

You can listen to a podcast about the survey and its results here.

ASTD has also published an interesting article this month by Cris and Mel Wildermuth of The Effectiveness Group entitled the "10 Ms of Employee Engagement". I saw Cris present on this model back in June at the ASTD Conference in Atlanta -- it's a great model! I hope that the model will be able to spread more into the mainstream in coming months. Cris - if you do read this, I'd love to have you as a guest blogger or interviewee here.

For an additional mneumonic approach to Employee Engagement, check out the 10 Cs to Employee Engagement, originally published in the Ivey Business Journal.

What employee engagement issues are showing up for you right now in your organization?

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

5 Tips for Effective Virtual Team Meetings

5 Tips for Effective Virtual Team Meetings
Copyright 2008 - Jennifer Britton. All Rights Reserved

Is one of your new years resolutions to ensure that your virtual team meetings are more effective? Today’s post includes 5 tips for Effective Virtual Team Meetings. Perhaps you work with in-person teams - not to worry, many of these ideas will apply to you as well.

Tip 1 – Establish Ground Rules or Ways of Working for the Group

This is an essential for any group process. Spend time at the start of your work together to develop common ground rules or ways of working to frame how you will work together. These should be written down and circulated to the group as a reminder.

Number one rule -- Don't assume! It's very dangerous to do when you are in a room together, and even more so for when you are working across time, geography and cultures!

Some examples of ways of working for a virtual team might include:
* Start and end calls on time
* Rotate call times to meet the needs of different team members in all time zones
* Respecting all team members ideas and perspectives (which does not mean agreeing with all of them, rather respecting them)
* 100% Focus on the meeting at hand (and not surfing the net, reading other materials, sending emails during the call)

What else would you include in your group’s groundrules?

Tips 2 and 3 – Be respectful of time
A major challenge, and opportunity, of holding team meetings across distance and timezones, is that participants may be calling in at different times of the work day (or even before or after work). Some team members may be gearing up for the work day, others may be winding down.

Virtual Team meeting management requires respect of time on two levels:
1. Start and End the meeting on time. If the meeting is set to 60 minutes, make sure that the meeting is 60 minutes
2. Set calls at times convenient to the group -- for example, setting a 10 am call Toronto time, would mean 7am for someone in LosAngeles, 4 pm in Germany, and midnight in Japan. Take a look at where your team members are located, and if necessary, rotate call times to make the convenience equal for all members. If a majority of members are based in a similar time zone, ensure that the call has enough leverage and substance to warrant different time zone team members calling in in their pyjamas.

Tip 4 – Have an agenda - and one that works!
A really common pitfall for most teams today is the Death by Meeting syndrome, so wonderfully captured in Patrick Lencioni's book of the same name.

Lack of an agenda or roadmap for in-person meetings can be deadly, and for virtual teams exponentially so!

Some quick tips for virtual team meeting agendas include:
* Circulate the agenda a day or two before the call (keeping in mind the impact of weekends in different time zones)
*Recap at the end of all calls: agreed action points, who will be accountable, next steps
* Time at the start of meetings for a short update from all callers
* Ensure that there is enough time for all essential items to be covered. If you find that meetings consistently go longer than 60 minutes and you just can't squeeze it all in, what about going to a 75 minute, or 90 minute format?
* Circulate the key meeting points or a recap next steps as close to the end of the meeting (within hours,not days of the meeting end). A simple template approach can be quickly used for this.

Tip 5 – Build connections outside of the meeting
Virtual Teams often start off with great gusto and energy. The lack of face to face meetings can make it difficult for some teams to sustain the inital energy over time.

Wherever possible, create opportunities for team members to build connections outside of the meeting. Whether it is holding formal face to face meetings on an annual basis (strongly recommended, and in great frequency than every year!), or creating informal virtual networking functions outside of the usual team meetings, time spent by the team outside of the formal meetings can help to support the team's development and sustained performance.

There's a lot more on building connections outside of the virtual environment, so please stay posted.

Hope that 08 has started off great for you and your teams! As always, I welcome your comments.

Warm regards
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC
GroupCoachingEssentials
email: jennifer{AT}potentialsrealized{com}

PS - What's your team's stretch going to be this year? What do you want to look back on in December of this year and say "Wow! We did it!". What support do you need to make that happen?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! And welcome back to the Biz Toolkit blog. I hope that you each had a wonderful holiday and got some well deserved rest. Are you ready to make 2008 great?

For those of you who like New Years predictions, I've come across some great blog posts that are already out there including:

Amit over at How to Manage Human Resources : 60 HR Predictions for 2008

Inside Retailing: Top 10 Business Predictions for 2008

Business Week's Innovation Predictions for 2008

Queen's University's (Canada) Predictions for 2008

What other posts have you read about New Year business predictions that you've liked? What are yours? Feel free to comment below.

Do you want to make 2008 great for your business?

If you are looking to make the new year great and you are a business owner, I hope that you will consider joining me for the 2008 Biz Success Virtual Planning Retreat. If you haven't had the chance to do your business planning for 2008, here are three chances to join me for a six hour structured business planning retreat by phone.

No need to leave your office and all your resources. Each hour we will meet for 10 -15 minutes by phone as a small group to focus in on a new area of business planning, and then we will spend the remaining part of the hour offline doing our own work on our own business. This program will be of interest to new and experienced business owners -- anyone who wants to ensure that business will be great in 2008! See my earlier post on December's programs here.

You have three sessions to choose from:

BVR-081: Saturday January 5 (10 - 4pm EST) OR

BVR - 082: Sunday January 13 (10 - 4pm EST) OR

BVR - 083: Thursday January 17 and 24 (7-10pm EST both evenings)

In addition to the retreat, each group will have a follow up call, and each particpant will receive the Biz Success Planning Manual by email. This is a resource for the retreat and for the year ahead.

Your investment - $150 US or Canadian. Space is limited for each virtual planning retreat so email me if you'd like to reserve your spot. You can also call me toll free at 1-866-217-1960. Download a registration form here.

Have a wonderful start to the year!

Warm regards,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT

Potentials Realized

Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960