Idea: Use a "10 Minute Tidy" in your virtual meetings!

Lives are hectic. True. And I am sure that at least once or twice a week you wake up to find your house in disarray... a half-emptied suitcase sitting open, a stack of open mail or advertisements sitting around, or wine-stained glass unwashed. No? Is that just me? :-O

It is hard to start a day working from home in those conditions. That's why when I read about the 10 Minute Tidy, I thought 'GENIUS'. Every night before getting ready for bed, do a quick 10 minute tidy and feel less cluttered in your head when you wake up the next morning. Simple.

Then the question, why don't we start implementing this rule in our virtual meetings? Save 10 minutes at the end of the meeting so everyone can reflect on the processes that have happened during the meeting or during the week. Instead of complaining about the meeting or about working from a distance, a team makes a point to tidy up loose ends, give feedback, and raise the bar for next time.

I worked with a group last month that had such a practice. They didn't call it that.. but now they do. They expressed how everyone was expected to participate. If Joe needed to leave at 11.50 instead of 12.00, the ten minute tidy started at 11.40. If they couldn't be flexible like this, Joe was expected to prioritise his team's meeting. If there was little to add, they spent time getting to know one of their team members better by sharing stories. And all of them mentioned how quickly they were able to jump into their next meeting together. Less start-up time and talking about the weather.

As research is showing us more and more, trust needs to happen quickly when meeting from a distance or our little silos become even bigger silos and since we cannot make others more trustworthy, we need to be more trustworthy ourselves. The Ten Minute Tidy gives you the opportunity to demonstrate trustworthiness. Are you honestly sharing feedback about the meeting with the team? Are you contributing with credible information? Are you reliably participating every time? These 10 minutes are an investment in trust. Anyone have a simliar practice to share? 

#Getyourtidyon!

Christina Hogan

Job-aids...gone crazy?!?

Just-in-time Learning is a toolbox of learning experiences that creates a pull-system in the organisation and eliminates waste. But it isn't so standardised and it isn't so time-consuming and it isn't at all boring. It is a new age of learning. It is learning when you need it and where you need it. Think job-aid.. gone crazy! (What do you think of that for a slogan?)

I started my journey with JITL by observing where motivation hit me to learn more... one day I was working in PhotoShop and couldn't manage to cut out an image. Instead of opening a monstrous book about PhotoShop or ordering the book and waiting one week, or calling and harassing a friend or reading through a million Adobe forums, I went directly to YouTube and watched a 12 year-old very pedagogically give me 3 steps to solve my problem. (for the record, yes, I began to dislike 12 year-olds and yes, I can help you cut out an image). The ease of using YouTube was key. I knew the tool, I was confident there was a smug 12 year-old out there, and I knew it would take seconds.

It isn't unlike the problems I see when working with various sales organisations. They have 1000+ products in their portfolios and they are expected to position themselves as product specialists while out in the field. And the information they get is curated from Subject Matter Experts that love what they do... and possibly the 1000000 powerpoint slides that come with it. They run a week-long course to help sales professionals and in the end, sales professionals either don't need the information because the product changes or the need for it does, they don't remember the information, the learning budget is tightened or it is simply easier to sell something less complex. There are a bundle of reasons.

That is why Lorensbergs is wrapping itself in the Just-in-Time Learning toolbox. Small snippets of knowledge, skill and motivation over a spaced amount of time. Letting the brain focus on the result instead of how and where and what information to seek. Here are our JITL principles.

How are you and your organisation getting just-in-time?

-Chris

5 Tips On Facilitating Through Video Conferencing Technology

I had the pleasure of facilitating my first focus group using video conferencing this week. The client is a global pharmaceuticals company and whilst I was based in the UK, the participants were sitting together in the USA. Here's some lessons that I'll remind myself of for next time:

Talking to yourself is not a sign of madness you know!

It was important for me to feel what it was like talking to a TV with no/one else in the room because, in effect, that's what I was going to be doing for duration of the 2 hour session. Spending time doing this before the participants arrived was invaluable - even though the person that walked in whilst I was practicing thought I was completely mad!

Getting Rapport is Key

As it's so difficult to 'connect' with the participants without the fact to face contact, then I had to make an extra effort in other ways. I had met the participants before but it was a long time ago and I had completely forgotten their names. Fortunately I had photographs of the last time we met and I asked someone who knew everyone to remind me of each of the participants. It weas invaluable when we did the intros at the beginning.

Zoom in and Zoom Out

One of the great things about videoconferencing technology is that on the system I was using the camera could scan the room and zoom too. This was brilliant for setting up parts of the room whilst the participants were focusing on what I had written on the flipchart. Simply zoom in and then do other stuff out of camera range...simple. If only we could do it in the face to face sessions!

Is there anybody there!

One of the funniest moments in the session was the sudden appearance of one of the participants from 'right stage'. I had been holding back the beginning of the session until everyone was present. Unknown to me, everyone was actually in the room, but one of them was hiding in glorious solitude out of the camera's eye. Lesson next time.....ask someone to arrange the chairs before participants arrive so that everyone is in shot.

Prepare the room....even when it's 3000 miles away

I had my room prepared - flipcharts, pens, blu-tak, participant list, outcomes etc, etc, and am I glad that one of the participants took it upon themselves to do the same at the other end. Next time I'll go one step further by arranging grapes, nuts, music, posters, pens, large post-its and a whole host of other table dressings to make the participants feel that every effort has been made to create a positive learning environment - 3000 miles apart.

If you have any ideas, experiences that can help facilitators bring their session to life over videoconferencing technology, your ideas would be very welcome.

Cheers

Trevor

trevor@lorensbergs.se

www.lorensbergs.se