If you’re serious about becoming a better remote leader, you’re going to want to become a master in the art of remote team communication.

Key initiatives, motivation, strategic priorities, updates, celebrations–there is so much to communicate with your team.

But here’s the big question.

How do you know your messages aren’t getting lost in the background noise of competing priorities, digital distraction, and hazy sameness of emails and instant messages?

Communicating What Matters Most

It’s no exaggeration to say that every time you or your team form a memory, your brain changes. You literally build new connections (or strengthen existing connections) between neurons.

We also know quite a bit about how people build memories and retain information. As a leader focused on remote team communication, four of the most important principles are recency, repetition, recall, and emotion.

Recency

One way to spark memory is through recent experience. You probably remember what you had for breakfast today … but lunch three weeks ago is likely fuzzier.

Repetition

It’s easier to remember what you encounter more often. Hear a song once and you might say “that’s a nice song.” Hear that song ten times and it might not leave your mind for a week–whether or not you want it to.

Recall

One way we strengthen memories and retain information is by accessing it. When you have to recall the information to answer a question or do your work, you are more likely to retain it.

Emotion

Emotion has a powerful effect on memory. If you reflect back on a time you experienced a strong emotion, you probably remember more about your surroundings. For example, I’ve been in many high school auditoriums, but I still remember details of the auditorium where I learned I’d won my first multi-state high school debate tournament.

Bringing it All Together: The Power of 5×5 Remote Team Communication

Effective leaders don’t leave these memory enhancers to chance. You can build processes and plan your remote team communication strategies to leverage these characteristics of memory.

One technique to help you do this is our 5 x 5 Communication Planner.

5 x 5 refers to communicating key messages five times, five different ways. “Five times” achieve repetition and recency. Five different ways can help with recall and emotion–particularly when you engage your team and get creative.

The first two or three elements of your 5 x 5 communication plan will be the standard ways you use consistently and people come to rely on. These might include team meetings, emails, project management software, and message threads.

When you extend beyond these and do something differently, that creates positive emotion: “Oh, wow, this is different and fun. This is important.”

It can feel challenging to get creative and mix up your communication strategies when you’re busy and tired. So, we made it easier.

Mixing it Up: 101 Remote Team Communication Techniques

We’ve been working with remote leaders around the globe to help them communicate clearly and ensure they and their teams align around what matters most. We’ve also asked them what’s working and how they vary remote team communication to help keep everyone on the same page. Here’s what they said:

Visual Reinforcement

1. Scrolling banners
2. Virtual backgrounds for MS Teams, Zoom, etc.
3. Items on shelf/credenza in the virtual background
4. Login messages on laptops
5. Splash screens when logging onto the company website
6. Physical whiteboard, chalkboard, or poster placed next to, or behind, you in a video call
7. Screen savers
8. Pop-ups on internal websites
9. Email signatures
10. A second monitor in your background scrolling the message or with a related image
11. Banner or ad on an internal website
12. Polls
13. Virtual desk drops
14. Quick recorded video message

Creating memories with a bit of fun

15. Client or customer presents to the team
16. Internal wikis
17. Music video
18. Riddles at the end of emails or agendas related to the topic
19. Have another leader recognize one of your team members or team for performance related to the topic
20. Temporary tattoos
21. Dress up in costumes to emphasize the message
22. #Hashtags
23. Video text messages
24. Gamification
25. Memes or fun graphics
26. An inspiration speaker related to the message
27. Animated GIFs
28. Songs
29. Write a poem
30. Cameo app (where a celebrity delivers the message)
31. Play a game related to the message
32. A humorous presentation or sketch
33. Telephone game–pass the message in a loop through the team
34. Text-based Games that Reveal the Message (eg Wheel of Fortune)
35. Games that reinforce the message (eg Jeopardy or Trivia-style with related content)
36. Theme music
37. Named group-chats or text threads
38. eCards
39. Internal competitions
40. Cross-team presentations related to the message or theme

Messages on (or with) Stuff

41. Send flowers or plants with the message.
42. Sending food (many leaders were very specific about the kind of foods including: pizza, pastries, cupcakes, frosted cookies, muffins, healthy snacks, goodie bags, meal-delivery services, coffee, and tea). Messages are either printed on or included with the food.
43. Send a book that emphasizes the message or has it written on the front cover
44. Bookmarks
45. Swag gifts (Tchotchkes with key messages)
46. Personalized/inscribed beverage bottles with a message
47. Send a balloon with a deliverable or key message inside the balloon
48. Clothing with message printed on it (eg: hats, tee shirts, sweaters, jackets)
49. Print it on mugs or cups that are used in virtual meetings
50. Message in a bottle
51. Yard signs

Meetings

52. Rotate team members sharing the message in a meeting
53. Team members presenting to one another on key message / topic
54. Have a respected peer, colleague, or another leader share the message
55. Virtual coffee chats (supply the coffee/tea and invite to change camera view to something more casual.)
56. Virtual lunches
57. Meeting notes / summaries
58. Meeting agendas
59. Calendar invitations with key messages
60. Meeting pre-reading materials
61. One-on-one meetings 
62. Skip level meetings
63. All-hands meetings
64. Virtual walk and talks
65. Demonstrations

Old School Tried and True

66. A positive, encouraging start-the-day message from leader (recorded or written)
67. Email
68. MS Teams & Zoom Meetings & Messaging
69. Project management software (eg: Asana, Trello, Basecamp, Slack)
70. Phone calls
71. Text messages
72. Cell phone notifications
73. Voice message
74. Powerpoint
75. Physical mail–letters, greeting cards, postcards
76. Newsletters
77. Surveys
78. Thank-you notes (handwritten)
79. Recognition and celebration
80. Check for understanding
81. Press release
82. Vary the timing and context of routine messages
83. Acronyms related to the message (if you’ve read any of our books, you know this is one of our go-to favorites)
84. Tag lines to make it memorable

Social Media

85. LinkedIn (articles, posts, features, video)
86. TikTok videos (and ultimately, all social media channels were mentioned)
87. Online paid ads
88. Write and/or share articles related to the subject
89. Internal blog
90. Internal podcast
91. Social media spotlights celebrating related behaviors and accomplishments

Project Tracking

92. Action trackers
93. Project plans
94. Open issues lists
95. Storyboards
96. Calendar invitations
97. Micro-learning software
98. Shared documents
99. Status settings in collaboration software
100. Annual or project kickoffs
101. Post-project celebrations

Your Turn

There’s a starting list of remote team communication techniques. To improve your remote team communication, work on one or two items from the list that add variety and break up preoccupation.

We’d love to hear from you–what would you add to help leaders master this critical skill?

The post 101 Remote Team Communication Approaches for Stronger Teams appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

You’ve learned a lot about how you work and what makes you most productive over the last year. You had more choices on how to structure your day, when (and with whom) to engage. You figured out what worked best for you. The return to the office can feel as overwhelming as that initial, emergency pivot to working from home.

7 Tips for staying productive as you return to the office (or move to hybrid work.)

1. 1. Inventory what made your work from home time so productive.
   2. Talk with your team and make a plan to support one another.
   3. Leverage your commute.
   4. Be deliberate about what work you do where.
   5. Consider quiet hours for focused work.
   6. Invest in strategic relationships.
   7. Learn, iterate and adjust.

How to Build Your Return to the Office Plan

1. Inventory what made your work from home time so productive.

Our guess is you weren’t radically more productive the first few weeks you suddenly had to work from home. But you figured it out. The trick here is to learn from your learning. How did you structure your day? How did you communicate with your team during the pandemic?  Did you get up earlier? Take more frequent breaks? Did you take time out for a walk at lunchtime to just refresh and think?

A return to the office does not necessarily mean you need to go back to all your old patterns and habits. Figure out what works best for you and your team, and then determine how you can incorporate some of that into your new routine.

2. Talk with your team and make a plan to support one another.

Here’s the good news. Everyone is thinking about how they can return to the office without adding hours to their day. No one on your team wants to be less productive.

This is the perfect time to communicate with your team (even if you’re not the boss) about what is working and how to work even more effectively and efficiently with one another.

We’ve built a FREE hybrid and virtual teams assessment to help you get the conversation going.

3. Leverage your commute.

When the pandemic first started, many managers we spoke with shared how much they missed the “time to think” or listen to a podcast.

Yes, commute time can be a huge time suck, but it can also be focused time to invest well. Consider how you might leverage your commute through value-added activities to work on your personal development, make a few calls (safely) to catch up with colleagues or friends, or even just have the white space to think quietly about the day and week ahead.

4. Be deliberate about what work you do where.

If you’re spending some time in the office, and other days at home, work to be deliberate in your time blocking. The news is full of examples of frustrating employees talking about quitting their jobs because a return to the office mandate feels like a frustrating waste of time.

Of course, your return to in-person work will be frustrating if you head to your cube and join a Zoom call with the people sitting in the cube next door.

Talk with your manager and co-workers about how you can best leverage the time you do have in the office for deeper collaboration and innovation. Then, do what you can to plan your deeper thinking or individual project work for the time you have at home.

5. Consider quiet hours (or open-office hours) to focus your work.

A best practice we are seeing with our clients planning their return to the office strategy is carving out “quiet hours” with no meetings and/or open-office hours where employees can “drop by” virtually or in-person to share ideas, brainstorm, or even get a quick response to a problem.

This time use of time blocking can help overcome the biggest fear we’re hearing from so many managers who are contemplating a return to the office: the fear of perpetual drop-by disruptions on non-urgent matters.

6. Invest in strategic relationships.

Even with a focused, deliberate effort to build trust and establish strategic relationships, most managers tell us they really miss the deeper conversations and spontaneous relationship-building that comes from in-person work.

Leverage your in-person time to work on a few key relationships. This is a great time to find (or become a mentor). Or to work on your relationship with a challenging boss.

And, of course, if you’ve ever taken one of our leadership training programs, you know how passionate we are about building strong, collaborative peer relationships. Consider how you might leverage your in-person time, to invest in your relationship with others as you build your return to the office strategy.

7. Learn, iterate and adjust.

Just like it took a minute to figure out how to be productive working from home, with the kids playing the ukelele in the next room with their virtual school on mute, your return to the office plan will take time to get right.

Talk with your manager and your human resources partners about what is working and what support you most need.

Try some of these suggestions. Figure out what works best for you and your team. Keep the conversation going. Iterate, and adjust.

Your turn.

We would love to hear from you. What best practices are you finding work well as you return to the office?

Note: If you prefer a video version of this article to share with your team check out this Asking For a Friend on Staying Productive. 

The post How to Stay Productive as You Return to the Office appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

If you want to take your virtual or hybrid team to the next level, use this virtual team-building tool to get your team talking about what’s working and identify areas for continued improvement.

What makes a highly successful virtual or hybrid team?

Highly successful hybrid and virtual teams have one thing in common. They work at it.

Each team member commits to working on the team while working on the work.

Everything is deliberate.

They’re strategic in how they communicate, how they connect, and how they ask for help. They dedicate time to think about “How we do things around here” and talk about what’s working and what’s not. They understand the importance of psychological safety and are deliberate in helping others feel included.

And, when it’s not working, they slow down and fix it.

We’ve both worked in highly successful hybrid and virtual teams for decades. And, we now lead a company of hybrid and virtual teams. In our experience, and in our work with clients during and emerging out of the pandemic, there are six habits we consistently see lead to high performance in hybrid and virtual teams.

They …

1. Regularly invest in getting to know one another as human beings.
2. Have a clear definition of what success looks like.
3. Dedicate time to discuss how they communicate.
4. Collaborate with one another informally.
5. Carefully design virtual meetings so they are the best use of everyone’s time.
6. Consistently look for ways to improve.

(Read more in our 6 Habits Of Highly Successful Hybrid and Virtual Teams.)

How’s your team doing in this regard? Why not ask the team with this easy virtual team-building tool?

Virtual Team Building Tool: An Easy Way to Get Your Team Talking

You can download this virtual team-building assessment tool for free here.

click image to download PDF of the team builder assessment

1: Download the virtual team-building assessment and distribute it to your team.

2: Ask each member to rate how they candidly feel the team is doing in each of the areas.

3: For each of the categories invite your team members to share how they rated the team and why.

4: Celebrate strengths and what’s working, then identify opportunities for improvement.

5: Pick one area to work on, invite I.D.E.A.s to improve, and make a plan.

6: Schedule the finish (determine who will do what, by when, and how will you know it’s finished) AND pick a time to talk about how things are going.

The post Virtual Team Building Tool: An Easy Conversation Starter appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

It’s not a shocker that this year, the most helpful articles were about creating a deeper connection with your team, leading well during times of uncertainty and disruption, and of course, practical tools for leading remote teams.

So here you go (click on the header link to access the article). These are our best leadership articles of 2020 based on your reading and sharing.

What do you think were our best leadership articles of 2020… what resonated most for you?

And of course, if you have a topic you like us to tackle in 2021 please let us know in the comments or drop us a note at info@letsgrowleaders.com

The Best Leadership Articles of 2020
(According to You)

1. How to Start the Decade in Deeper Conversation

We wrote this most popular leadership article in January of 2020 BEFORE we had any idea what was on the horizon. And yet with the quick pivot to remote work, it turns out this easy team-builder worked wonders for creating trust and connection in remote teams.

We’ve had tremendous feedback from participants of our live-online leadership training programs who’ve used this tool as part of their action learning this year.

2. What Employees are Yearning For in Remote One-on-Ones

When the Pandemic first hit one of our biggest concerns was how many managers we saw canceling their one-on-ones. This was our passionate response. We captured the biggest needs we were hearing from managers around the world.

Also fun, this article was recognized in the CTO awards for best leadership articles of the year. If you’re looking to get better at one-on-ones in the new year, this posts for you.

3. How to Lead When Your Employees Don’t Have to Follow

Also a pre-pandemic hit, David shares one of our core philosophies: “everyone’s a volunteer.”

4. Practical Help For Exhausted Leaders Who Need to Get More Done

Okay, this was also interesting. We wrote this in February almost as if we knew what was coming next. Who knew that we had no idea of the exhaustion that lay ahead. In this practical article, we share some of our foundational tools and approaches to get results and improve relationships without driving yourself (or your team) into the ground.

5. How to Lead in the Midst of Urgent Rapid Change and Strain

In this early pandemic article, we share a great story from our very last on-site client visit of the year, along with practical tips for leading through a crisis.

6. Three Ways to Create a Virtual Watercooler for Your Remote Team

So much of the research about leading remote teams points to what employees miss most are the informal opportunities for interaction and sharing best practices. This article gives you practical ways to recreate that for your team.

7. How to Capture What You’re Learning From This Crisis Right Now

We wrote this right at the beginning of the Pandemic when everything was in total lockdown, Clorox and toilet paper were in short supply, we were sanitizing groceries before they came in the house, and our readers told us they were quarantining their copies of our books in their garage for 24 hours before they could read it.

And so we captured this “BED Talk”

8. How to Disrupt the Disruption and Help Your Team Move Forward

A lot of the training work we’ve been doing with our clients over this past year has included practical tools and techniques to”disrupting the disruption” to build a brighter bolder future. Here are a few practical approaches that can help as you continue to navigate this crisis.

9. How to Co-Create a Better Future

This article pairs well with our #8 winner, with more practical approaches to help your team do the best they can with what they have from where they are.

10. Four Words to Help You Build a Powerful Team

“How can I help …?” can go a long way in building a team. In this article, we share important ways to uncover the support your team most needs.

Most Popular Leadership Article of All Time on Let’s Grow Leaders

7 Ways to Help Your Team Deal with Ambiguity – Let’s Grow Leaders

This article continues to top our “best leadership articles” list every single year. And, Winning Well: Leading Through Uncertainty and Change continues to be one of our most requested keynote programs. You can’t always choose what you show up to, but you can always choose how you show up.

The Best Leadership Articles of 2020 (as seen in other media)

Leadership without Losing Your Soul Podcast (With David Dye)

David’s podcast audience has been growing quickly with over 80 episodes. Here are the top 3 for 2020.

How to Avoid Micromanaging Remote Employees

Burnout to Breakthrough – Interview with Eileen McDargh

Advanced Guide to Leading Online Meetings that Don’t Suck

Asking For a Friend Vlog (With Karin Hurt)

In the 4th Quarter 2020, Karin’s Asking For a Friend Vlog went live on Friday’s at 11:30 EST with a sprinkling of her old school pithy moments of leadership advice.

And the most popular Asking For a Friend Live was about Connection and Celebration in remote teams with Scott Friedman and Debra Fine. (you must be logged into LinkedIn to view)

We are so grateful to all of you who read and share our articles. We’re delighted to have you part of our growing Let’s Grow Leaders Community.

See More Best of Let’s Grow Leaders here.

The post The Best Leadership Articles of 2020 (and more … based on your votes) appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Robert unmuted his microphone, leaned into the camera, and asked in a near-whisper: “How can we find the fun again?”

We were facilitating at the Inc 5000 Vision Conference, helping leaders navigate the challenges of a remote, socially-distanced workforce. Heads nodded. And a sea of sympathetic half-smiles and hopeful eyes filled the Zoom screen.

He continued, “My company culture was built on frequent social gatherings and my people draw energy and encouragement from one another. The fun isn’t window-dressing, it’s an essential part of their productivity–and without it, I worry about our future.”

As the pandemic’s socially distanced slog continues into the winter months in the northern hemisphere, you know how important Roberts’s question is for your team’s morale and productivity.

4 Ways to Find the Fun Despite the Slog

As we’ve talked with leaders around the world who can find the fun, four characteristics emerged.

1. Authenticity and Vulnerability

Vulnerability isn’t ‘fun’ per se, but it’s essential. Starting with “fun” without acknowledging reality feels disconnected or manipulative.

Transparency from leaders and team members about their feelings, acknowledging the reality you and your team face–these build trust and credibility. They also lighten the load just a bit.

And to get real for a moment: the pandemic slog is real. We’re living it. Close family and friends are sick. Friends, family, and clients have lost friends and family. Along with you, we long for the days when we can once again gather safely with loved ones or conduct training and strategic facilitation in person.

Those days will come again, but right now we face the slog. Frankly, it stinks and everyone’s tired of it. And …we can do it.

Over and over again we’ve seen leaders care for their teams, inspire morale, motivation, and breakthrough performance. This is hard; and you’re up for the challenge.

2. Varied and Individualized

In our conversations with leaders who are able to find the fun, a recurring theme is variety. The virtual happy hour was fun the first time, but the tenth one feels obligatory and routine.

How can you mix up your routine remote activities?

Perhaps you could start every team meeting with a different activity? For more social or fun activities, keep it fresh. Many teams have incorporated online games, themed events, and professional development into their mix of recognition and connection.

Another important aspect of variety is individualization. Recognize the differences in your team so you see and connect with people as they are. One CEO shared an effective way to do this in her company: periodically they take half-days for self-directed professional development, followed by brief sharing about what they chose and what they learned.

With everyone choosing their focus and learning, then sharing it with their colleagues, the activity is both individualized, varied every time, and connects team members more closely with one another in areas of passion.

3. Anticipation

An endless horizon stretching ahead forever is discouraging and, on top of pandemic-related anxiety, can lead to significant mental health challenges.

Give people something to look forward to will break up the monotony and energize performance. But don’t schedule everything – leave room for …

4. Surprise and Delight

One of the most powerful ways to find the fun is with the element of surprise and delight. Create moments of the unexpected where people feel genuinely seen and valued.

Recently, a client had a coffee meeting with Karin. He had pastries delivered to our home office ahead of the meeting. It was so unexpected–we rarely have pastries, and it brought so much joy.

Another client ordered a pizza to arrive at her team member’s home just as our meeting was wrapping up. That pizza brought so much joy that he sent us a picture just to celebrate the moment.

Surprise and delight don’t have to be about food. When people show up for a routine meeting, what can you do that would delight them? Make them smile and say “Wow, that was cool!”

You don’t need to rely on surprise and delight every week. If you do, it becomes routine–and the endless horizon returns. But every few weeks, how can you make people smile, feel seen, and do it in a way they aren’t expecting?

Your Turn

The slog is real. But so is your team’s resilience and ability to persevere. You can find the fun and energize your people with a combination of authenticity, variety, anticipation, surprise, and delight.

We’d love to hear from you: As you lead through these challenging circumstances, how are you renewing your team’s energy and morale?

The post How Leaders Can Find the Fun During the Slog appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

One of the most frequent concerns we hear from leaders and teams (where remote work is the foreseeable norm) is the lack of a virtual watercooler. That metaphorical place where people exchange ideas, build connections, and spontaneous innovation thrives.

The informal exchange of ideas is critical for innovation and building relationships.

Fortunately, you can create spaces and interactions that simulate or improve upon the accidental connections that happen when you’re in the same building.

But it does require different ways of thinking and interacting.

As you’re thinking about how to re-create these interactions, it may be helpful to reflect on why watercoolers have become shorthand for these dynamics. The prosaic watercooler wasn’t designed as a place for team members to build relationships and share ideas.

But it works. Well.

Why? One reason is that it feels easy … no pressure … just chatting.

It’s the same reason people tell us the best conversations that happen at conferences happen during the coffee breaks.

So, how can you bring people together to cultivate spontaneous connections and new ideas?

3 Ways to Create that Virtual Watercooler

1. Create a standing “watercooler room”

One of the most straightforward ways to re-create that gathering space is to build an online version. A Zoom or Teams video meeting that stays open, where people can drop in to say hi, take breaks, and talk about whatever they want.

To get people used to its availability, it may help to have a natural reason people would want to stop by. Perhaps a different daily resource, fun prompt, or shared activity or whiteboard.

Standing “break room” Slack or Teams channels can also play this role. We’ve seen organizations create dedicated spaces for work-related free-form discussions as well as personal topics like exchanging recipes, following sports, and many more.

2. Use quick parallel conversations

We’ve been inspired by teams around the world who come together quickly to solve problems, get creative, riff on ideas, and chart strategic action–in minutes, not days.

The secret to this rapid creativity and strategic problem-solving?

Breakout rooms.

There are so many ways to use the power of breakout rooms for fast parallel thinking.

You can seed the conversation with one meaningful, specific “How can we?” question and have each room address it – or give each room a different question or aspect of the challenge ahead. Or hold a quick standup meeting where people address one current challenge, then design a rapid-breakout session to address solutions for the three most common issues.

Create groups of 4-6 people, create a time limit that feels slightly too short, and get out of the way to let people engage with one another. The secret is to make these conversations relevant and fast. The best result is if one group says, “let’s keep talking” and then does.

3. Get personal with meaningful prompts

It is possible to build and nurture human relationships remotely. We know because we’ve done it with clients and friends around the world. Whether you’re starting a business meeting with human connection or facilitating a virtual social hour, how can you be intentional and increase everyone’s understanding of one another?

The key is to use meaningful prompts. You might introduce the process with easier topics like hobbies, but over time, move to more meaningful conversations.

One of our favorites is “What are you most proud of?”–either in life, work, or any other aspect of life. This gives everyone quick insight into a person in a way that’s safe and not too vulnerable.

We’ve also worked with teams who have used questions like “What has been your source of strength or inspiration over the past months?” “Can you show us a picture or object associated with your source of strength and inspiration?”

More Ways to Build Deeper Connection in Your Virtual Teams

Karin Hurt talks with Tanveer Naseer about more ways to build trust and connection in remote teams on this special edition of Asking For a Friend.

It takes intentional effort to rebuild these informal exchanges, but the rewards are worth it. Your virtual watercooler will help to build connected teams and facilitate better ideas.

We’d love to hear from you. What are the most effective ways you’ve seen remote teams rebuild informal gatherings?

You might also like:

How to Get Better at Remote Small Talk

How to Find the Best Ideas to Make Remote Work Easier

Beyond the Basics: Online Meetings that Don’t Suck Your Soul

How to Get More Creative In Your Remote Team Communication

How to Start Your Zoom Meetings in a More Meaningful Way

The post 3 Ways to Create a Virtual Watercooler for Your Remote Team appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Small talk is challenging for many leaders, but it can be even more challenging when leading a remote team. In this episode of Asking For a Friend, I talk with small talk experts Debra Fine and Scott Friedman about practical ways to approach this fine art.

“Yeah, I don’t do small talk.”

“My team understands, I’m cool with THEIR chit chat in-between meetings, but I don’t really have time for that stuff. I’m all business. That’s why I’m so productive.”

“I get that small talk is important, but I just hate it’s so uncomfortable. I never know what to say.”

“I love hearing about what’s going on with my team personally, but I don’t want to waste their time talking about my personal life, so I keep that to myself.”

These are all phrases we’ve heard from managers (and executives) recently. And yet, what we hear from their teams is quite a different story. People are yearning for human connection, with one another and their manager.

The truth is small talk is no small matter. People are yearning for trust and connection, and a feeling of being around a virtual watercooler.

5 Practical Ways to Up Your Remote Small Talk Game

In our Asking for a Friend Live series this week, Karin interviewed connection experts Scott Friedman and Debra Fine about building connection and celebration—and of course, the importance of small talk in the mix.

A few tips from that conversation:

1. Use prompts to invite a deeper conversation.

Debra suggests that instead of asking “How are you?” Use the phrase, “Catch me up.”

For example, don’t just ask, “How’s your kid?” Because of course, you’ll hear the most likely answer, “Oh, he’s fine.”

But if you say, “Catch me up about your son, Sebastian. What’s he’s been up to since we last spoke?” just like that, you are having a meaningful conversation that helps your co-worker feel seen and cared for.

2. Make casual check-ins a task.

If you struggle with small talk, make small talk a task.

For example, you could make a calendar appointment to reach out to two people you work with each day, just to check in. Or, if you’re leading a meeting, make a deliberate plan to start the meeting with space for small talk and a check-in prompt or two.  Then, just like every other task, once you’ve completed it you can check it off. (P.S.  no one needs to know you think of it as a task. They’ll just love the time for connection.)

3. Book-end each meeting with time for casual conversations.

Small talk doesn’t have to take a lot of time. As you head into each remote meeting, think about having small talk frame your meeting like bookends. Begin and end every meeting with time to connect for five minutes at a human level.

4. Create opportunities for asynchronous small talk.

One of the I.D.E.A.s that came out of a recent Courageous Cultures live-online program was to build a series of Slack channels where employees could engage with one another as they had time around topics they cared about (e.g. recipes, funny pet pics/stories, fitness challenges).

5. Make it a ritual.

Scott talks about the power of “Wow Friday,” where people get a moment to share their concerns and celebrations.

Wine: Get a beverage of choice and give people a chance to share what’s on their hearts.

Wow: Celebrate something good, and be able to celebrate.

More here…

More on Small Talk and Networking: Do Talk to Strangers

Join us on Friday’s For Asking For a Friend

Join Karin every Friday at 11:30 EST for her Asking For a Friend Video Series where she shares practical tools and techniques including interviews with well-known authors and business leaders from around the world.

Your turn.

What are your best tips for creating casual conversations in virtual teams?

See Also:

Fast Company- How to Replace Small Talk When Working Remotely

For more remote team tips and techniques visit our remote team resource center.

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The pivot to more virtual meetings didn’t create this problem. Anyone who has ever run more than a meeting or two knows the challenge of managing the person who just can’t seem to shut up. Whether in a virtual meeting or an in-person one.

It’s extra tricky when they’re a high-performer whose heart is in the right place. And extra, extra challenging when no one else is talking in your virtual meeting.

So how do you build better trust and connection in your virtual meeting by ensuring everyone’s voice is heard?

After all, it’s human nature for your oxygen sucker to think, “Thank God for me, otherwise, no one would say a word.” And they keep on talking for the good of the team. In the meantime, other lose interest and may even turn the camera’s off in your virtual meetings.

My best advice for in-person meetings is to take a break. Then have a quick hallway conversation with the well-intentioned over-sharer to (1) thank them for their ideas and contribution (2) share your concern about getting more voices into the room and, (3) invite them to help draw others in by asking more questions and inviting their colleagues to contribute.

You can do something similar in your virtual meeting.

5 Ways to Encourage Everyone to Share in Your Virtual Meeting

So how do you keep your well-intentioned talker from hijacking your virtual meeting? In some ways, it’s actually a bit easier if you use this opportunity to reset expectations and leverage the technology.

1. Take time out to reset expectations as a team.

First set the stage, “We’ve been working from home for a while now and it looks like we’ll be at this for a while. It’s really important that everyone has an opportunity to contribute and offer their ideas in our virtual meetings.”

And then, invite their ideas.  “Before our next meeting, I’d like everyone to email one or two I.D.E.A.s to ensure everyone has a voice in our virtual meetings. Then, I’ll combine the ideas and we can talk through them and come up with a strategy that will work for all of us.”

Note: by giving everyone a chance to submit their ideas in advance, you give the people who are normally not talking a better chance to weigh in on what it would take to draw them in. This pre-gathering input technique can work well on other topics too.

2. Use the power of chat

The private chat works just like a hallway conversation but without having to take a break. Use a similar “thank, explain, invite” approach as I outlined above with your meeting hijacker.

Public chat also works great to prime-the-pump for conversation in your virtual meeting.. One of our favorite ways to do this is to ask everyone to “put your fingers on the keyboard,” and then ask a provocative question and have everyone chat in the answers. Then you can call out the answers of some of the folks who are less likely to unmute and speak.

3. Leverage breakout rooms for more intimate and streamlined conversation.

This is where technology is your friend. When we’re facilitating virtual meetings or live-online training we almost always use the breakout rooms to encourage deeper dialogue. We find the smaller the better. It’s hard to hide in a group of three or four, and we find participants do a better job of encouraging one another’s contributions and making space for everyone to speak. AND the ideas generated are almost always better with more brains actually engaged in the conversation. Vary who gives the readout from the groups each time. You can even randomize it so that it’s not just a volunteer. For example, “and when we come back I’d like the person with the birthday earliest in the year, to give the readout.”

4. Teach the art of facilitation and then take turns.

Empowering all team members with some basic training or tips on remote facilitation will help everyone know what success looks like and be more likely to help keep the meeting more inclusive (with a side-effect of encouraging some self-regulation). By rotating the meeting facilitation through every member of your team you by default encourage more balanced conversations.

5. Talk with your well-intentioned meeting hijacker off-line.

If you try all this and still have a well-intentioned meeting hijacker, it’s time for an off-line voice to voice feedback conversation about the pattern, point out why it matters and invite them to come up with a solution. Our I.N.S.P.I.R.E. technique for having a difficult conversation works great at a time like this.

Your turn.

I’d love to hear your ideas. What are your best techniques for preventing a well-intentioned big mouth from hijacking your virtual meeting?

HT to James daSilva of Smartbrief for the prompt.

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Do you ever feel like us? Sometimes we just look at one another and say, “Why are we so tired?” Leading in chaotic times is exhausting.

But when it comes right down to it, one of the biggest reasons is all the uncertainty and contingency planning.

“If there’s a vaccine by then we’ll hold our event this way … and if not, let’s plan for an entirely different approach.”

“We will go in THIS direction unless THAT happens, and then, of course, we’ll need to do THAT instead. Can you build it out both ways?”

“We desperately need leadership training. And we’ve selected you …” (that’s the good news).

“But first, we have to see if …” (and all we head into another hopeful holding pattern).”

And your contingencies depend on THEIR contingencies. And the vortex of chaotic times continues.

How to Ensure You Show Up as a Better Leader During Chaotic Times

You just don’t know what you’re going to show up to tomorrow.

But you do have a very important choice: How you show up.

One of the best ways to become a better leader is to DECIDE how you want to show up.

No matter what.

Consistently.

Regardless of what happens next.

To lead from your own playbook.

You can’t always choose WHAT you show up to,

but you can always choose HOW you show up.

When Karin was teaching in the MBA program at the University of Maryland, one of her favorite assignments was helping her students articulate their values and operating principles by building their “leadership credo”(click here for a step-by-step guide to this activity which you can easily adapt for a Zoom team-builder).

We take a similar approach in our long-term leadership programs by helping leaders build their personalized leadership playbook. They reflect on and articulate their leadership values, operating principles, and what they want to be known for—their leadership legacy.

We then take the conversation a step deeper as we talk about scenarios that make it challenging to show up as this best version of themselves. And how they can help one another overcome those challenges.

Then, when the chaos ensues, we encourage leaders to pause and control what they can control: how they show up. Because they’ve got the playbook.

Your Personalized Leadership Playbook

And so we share this tool with you, to help you (and your team) build your own leadership playbook for thriving during chaotic times. Let us know how it goes. We’d love to have you share your aspirational leadership legacy with us in the comments. Feel free to use this playbook with your team. You can download the PDF here.

Your Turn:

What’s your aspirational leadership legacy. For what do you want to be remembered as a leader?

The post How To Show Up As a Better Leader During Chaotic Times appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

But, how do you get others to see it? Particularly, now. After all, your boss has bigger fish to fry than talking about your career.

But this crisis could go on for a while.

And you care about your future and want to make a bigger impact.

In-person visibility is at an all-time low. The company off-site where you would normally have some great hallway conversations is now virtual.

But the good news is that in some ways it’s even easier to emerge as a leader and get noticed for your leadership potential.

Because you know what your company needs right now?

Great leadership at every level.

If you’re stretching out of your comfort zone, contributing what you can, truly caring for the people around you, making the tough decisions, and prioritizing what matters most—you are bound to get noticed.

5 Ways to Demonstrate Your Leadership Potential Now

This is your moment.

New leaders always emerge in times of crisis.

Stay focused on adding value, making a consistent contribution, and worry less about who gets the credit.

It might not happen right away, but trust me, there will be a point that people look back and say, “Who made a difference during our time of crisis, what did they do, and why did it matter?”

You want your name at the top of the list.

Here’s a start.

1. Connect deeply.

Everyone is struggling in their own way right now. Show up with deep empathy (and a bit of vulnerability) and work to connect. Influence starts with trust and connection. And you know what else? It feels good! For you and for them.

2. Keep your cool.

Grace under pressure is by far one of the hardest leadership competencies to teach. And, it’s one of the most important leadership competencies needed right now.

When everyone’s freaking out about a fast pivot, or visibly oozing pandemic stress onto everyone around them, the people who can provide stability and calm stand out.

Just like stress, calm is contagious. Anything you can do to help the people around you stay grounded will add huge value. Be the one who helps the team stay focused and productive.

3. Consistently contribute I.D.E.A.s to improve the business.

And not just any ideas. Bring ideas that are strategically aligned with what your organization needs to do to thrive in the next 18 months.

No one has all the answers. That’s your invitation.

Show that you get what matters most and bring ideas about how to solve a big problem, and in the next 9 box review, your boss will be sharing how resourceful you are with excellent critical thinking skills. You can use our I.D.E.A. model to vet your ideas and then make your case.

4. Be sure every meeting you attend is better because you were there.

People are Zoomed out. Everyone we talk to is sharing that remote work is leading to more meetings, not less.

You don’t have to be in charge of a meeting to make it better.

Check out our FREE remote team’s resource center for ideas on how to lead remote meetings, run better remote one-on-one and more and work to make any meeting you are a part of better. Suggest alternative ways to communicate, including asynchronous communication.

5. Lead a team to solve a problem.

There’s no shortage of challenges right now. Pick something that’s really frustrating you, that’s within your ability to make better. Find a few like-minded people and work on it. Don’t do it because you need visibility. Do it because you care and want to make your organization better. Every leader I’m talking to right now is looking for more gung-ho, solutions-oriented people to help.

Be the person others see as working to make things better.

Your turn.

What ideas do you have for someone looking to demonstrate their leadership potential right now?

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