Extraordinary Team Tips

What would you do if you knew that communication with your teammates was going to fail? After all, you inherently know that there will be a communication mishit, but we just don't know when or where it is going to be! Whether it is during a face-to-face meeting, a virtual meeting, email, text message or shared document, here are some ideas to improve team communication. To improve team communication as the speaker AND a listener, listen here.

Volunteer organizations usually have a plethora of boards, committees, task forces, and other types of teams to help achieve the organization's mission. Many of these team members are busy professionals, inspired by the organization's good work. However, when push comes to shove, higher priorities prevail. Follow these tips to keep your boards from being "bored."

I had an interesting conversation with one of my clients about her people working with teams vs. leading teams. This might appear to be a subtle nuance at first blush, but let's dig a little further to discern the difference.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares how team leaders can set up their teams for success with "the team launch."

Team goals provide the team with needed focus and direction. An all-encompassing vision or simple, well-defined goal statements provide the team with a unified sense of what is important. To set clear team goals try these strategies.

One clue: No agenda, no attenda! Follow these five strategies and you'll see your meetings be much more productive.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares techniques for active listening in order to enhance teamwork.

The next time you go to your team meeting, take a few moments to observe the team functions and roles. At any particular moment, someone is leading, taking notes, keeping on track and on time, as well as participating in the meeting. Watch closely who is performing each function. The team leader may be working very hard at all of these functions — not only leading the meeting, but keeping notes on a yellow legal pad, steering the agenda and the timetable, and answering questions without a whole lot of participation. If that leader is you, well then my friend, you are working too hard!

Of all things about strategic planning, it drives me crazy when the plan has a number of strategic objectives. How many are too many?

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares fun and creative tips for how to start a meeting.

All teams need a team leader to focus their efforts, set guidelines, and deliver results. How you go about selecting your team leader depends largely on the mission, management, organizational culture, and development of your team.

When you watch a high-performing team in action, you realize that they have some habits, rituals, and ceremonies that support the team's work. Here are some examples that I have seen effective teams establish to create a certain purpose and put them in a different mindset.

Measure your teams effectiveness on an ongoing basis with these metrics.

There are myriad formal and informal team assessment tools that you can purchase "off the shelf." In the event you decide to use one of these instruments, follow these steps to maximize the experience.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares how to avoid tedious Board presentations using a Board presentation packet.

I often work with clients to facilitate an "after-action review" at the end of a project to discover pitfalls and opportunities for improvement for the next project. So I was thinking....why not do this with your team at the start of this new year? Discover key learnings about the year so you can prepare for the year ahead!

I am often asked to facilitate an after-action review (AAR) upon the completion of a project. It's a bit more formal than a standard debriefing and allows the participants to truly understand what happened and create some preventive and mitigating strategies for the next project. AAR typically occurs when the project went south...but can also be applied to glorious projects that we wish we could clone and replicate!

Want your teams to stay focused? Capture and post key information for all to see – on a whiteboard, on flipchart paper, or on the screen. By writing down what has been said, team members will stay focused and on track as well as remember and act on the information well after the meeting.

If your team is like most, it relies on two or three strategies to make decisions: consensus, team input with the team leader making the final decision, or the loudest voice wins. Effective teams use MANY different decision-making strategies, such as these.

If you are serious about moving your organization from a traditional, hierarchical organization into flexible, nimble teams, think through the benefits and costs—as well as the many cultural changes that you, your employees, and your customers will have to face. For some, the changes are just too great, and teams may not be the best solution. For many, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. Any organization interested in moving toward a team-based environment should have the following things in place.

A client of mine was frustrated that nothing was happening after a team meeting. He said, "It's a great conversation, but then everyone goes back to 'work,' and nothing happens!" It's a common complaint as most teams identify potential tasks throughout the course of their meetings and then walk away thinking that everyone knows what they need to do. Au contraire! Unless you have a process to ensure all know what needs to be done, who is responsible for doing it, and by when, it's no surprise nothing happens. Here is how to turn potential ideas into concrete team commitments.

Most North American companies and organizations reward individual performance. We celebrate our individuality and want to be compensated and rewarded for our efforts. However, if you want your people to perform as a team, you must reward them as a team.

People choose their seats for all kinds of reasons. Some sit wherever there is an empty seat. Others want to sit where they always do. Some want to sit next to a particular person. Others want to be close to the coffee pot. But how do you choose where to sit to help you achieve your objective? Try these tips.

This type of teamwork doesn't happen overnight. It starts with a few people who set the standard and ground rules for team cooperation. Try these techniques to build an extraordinarily cohesive team.

Whenever I am facilitating a team that is facing a potential decision, I suggest using a process tool called a "Force-Field Analysis." Here is how it works.

As a professional meeting facilitator, hybrid business meetings are simply harder to design and coordinate as you need to meet the needs of two audiences and ensure an appropriate level of engagement and collaboration. So here are my top ten tips to lead and/or facilitate an effective hybrid business meeting.

I'd like to embellish on Matthew Rechs' 11 Promises as a Manager to include 11 Promises as a Team Member.

All teams should agree on how they will manage time during a meeting. Unless noted otherwise, the leader keeps time and the rest of the team is subject to the skill of the leader to keep the meeting on track between topics and to end the meeting on time. That is quite the task. The leader is already busy managing the content of the meeting! Why not ask for a little help from another team member to manage time during a meeting? Here's how to assign the role and what it entails.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold explains the stage of brainstorming when true innovation and creativity take place.

Your team has just brainstormed a creative, long list of ideas, solutions, problems, causes, or other items. Now what? Rather than simply roll up the flipcharts, toss them in a corner and forget them, you can take the next step and narrow down the list with these voting variations.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold defines what a "team memory" is and why it's so important to record them.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares details about the role of the meeting facilitator.

There's a reason why brainstorming has gotten such a bad reputation – and it all boils down to the fact that most people don't know how to brainstorm effectively. Here's how to do it.

Most brainstorming lists end up in a long-forgotten pile — usually because the list was too long or intimidating to deal with. By organizing your brainstormed ideas, you can quickly sort your long list into a few manageable categories.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold explains "non-promotable" work and why we need to be intentional about assigning it as team leaders.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares a few strategies to better re-connect as a team in person.

Bring your team together to get clarity and alignment on what you need to do in the next year or so with this strategy to develop a quick strategic plan.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold has created a process with steps to create listening posts for voice of the customer.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares a few ways to use coffee cups to encourage networking and teambuilding.

Neil Hoyne, in his new book, "Converted: The Data-Driven Way to Win Customers' Hearts" provides the insight that only the chief data-guy at Google can share. High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares the details.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares a number of ways leaders and their teams can improve their team communication by focusing on their body language.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares factors leading to The Great Resignation and how team leaders can improve employee engagement.

Take advantage of this natural "check-in" with one or two people to "check-in" with the team. It allows team members to share what's on their minds so they can focus on the team's work.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares strategies on how to build trust with your team and among team members.

As a professional speaker and panel moderator, I have instinctively known the importance of making numbers count, but this book shows you HOW to do that.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares some strategies to take effective and productive breaks during meetings.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares how teams can create a written team charter to set out and accomplish team goals.

High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares how teams can unleash their creative sides using innovative ground rules.

Keep your meetings focused using these strategies from high-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold.

Here is how you can spot team groupthink and why it can be a problem for your team.