Humans are naturally social beings. As we find ourselves sheltering in place and socially distancing in order to flatten the COVID-19 curve, many of us are struggling with the sudden shift from daily in-person interactions to screen-based communication. Without our usual outlets and routines, we’re all at risk of feeling lonely and disengaged from each other and our place of employment. Making time to form bonds and build trust not only combats loneliness, it also helps teams work more efficiently together.

When we think of team-building activities we generally envision group outings like escape rooms and happy hours. With in-person activities not available for the foreseeable future, newly forged virtual teams need to find a way to bond, communicate, and build trust across screens.

Staff mobility and virtual meetings are a big part of our company culture at The Clearing. As a human-centric firm, we focus on building strong, communicative teams no matter where in the world team we are working. Over the years we’ve battle tested many different ways to bond and communicate with each other virtually. We’ve compiled some of our favorite virtual team-building activities in this post in hopes they are helpful while navigating our collective new normal.

TIMING AND FREQUENCY: 
Real-Time Group vs. Individual Activities: Decide whether you want the activity to happen simultaneously as a group in real-time or if team members participate at a time that works best for their schedule. Sometimes called synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous activities, consider recording synchronous meetings that others can access at a later time! Have an action item to close the meeting where everyone shares a little bit about themselves in a group text, Slack post, or other internal communications channel.
Practical vs. Fun Activities: Is this activity practical (e.g., setting up a team charter) or just for fun (e.g., virtual team lunch)? Hint: you can absolutely do both!
One-Time vs. Recurring Activities:  Is this activity something your team will do once (or maybe only when new team members join) or is it something you plan on building into your regular meeting cadence?
VIRTUAL TEAM BUILDING IDEAS: 
CHECK-IN QUESTIONS

Type: Real-time, Practical, and Fun – Recurring

Time: 5 minutes

This one might seem obvious but check-in questions can be a great way to center the group and/or find out something interesting about your teammates. A check-in question we use frequently at The Clearing is, Is anything preventing you from being present today? This gives teammates the opportunity to address possible distractions or share things on their mind. It also invites others to lean into the conversation or pick up the slack if their teammates are dealing with other priorities and cannot fully participate.

You can also use check-in questions to set the mood for your meeting or learn interesting facts about teammates. Here are five check-in questions to try with your team:

What’s one thing you miss most about your home state/town?
Name one product you couldn’t live without.
If you had a walk-up song, what would it be?
Share a funny story about your pet or member of your family.
What’s one unique holiday tradition your family keeps?
COFFEE MUG “STAND-UPS”

Time: 15 minutes

Type: Real-time, Practical, and Fun – Recurring

Stand-ups are quick, 15-minute status meetings where teams come together to answer three questions:

What tasks have you worked on since we last met?
What tasks are you planning to work on today?
Is anything preventing you from finishing your work?

Spice up your daily stand-ups to show some more of your personality and home. Choose a theme for the meeting and see what creative things your colleagues can come up with. You can start simply by asking everyone to bring their favorite coffee mug or get silly and institute a funny hat day.

CREATE “USER MANUALS”

Type: Individual, Practical, and Fun – One-Time

Time: 60 minutes

What is your personal work style? What does your home life look like? What personal commitments do you have that may impact working hours? All of these questions are even more relevant as we’re all scrambling to understand how to balance a healthy home and work environment now that they’re in one space. It’s the perfect time to set boundaries for yourself and your teammates around how to communicate and when to communicate with you. Have team members write out their user manuals and schedule a team meeting to discuss and share as a group. We created a downloadable guide you can use to create user manuals with your team.

Team building activities are a great idea for both in-person and virtual teams even when we are not in crisis as they leave members feeling appreciated, heard, and refreshed. Any opportunity for team members to connect and engage at a higher frequency increases team efficiency and ultimately bottom line profits for the organization. It’s important to remember that while we may be physically apart while social distancing, we must make every effort to maintain social connections.

Rapid movement to mandatory telework and the increase of event cancelations or postponements leave leaders in a difficult position: How do I successfully preserve the continuity of operations while respecting the wellbeing of staff operating in a fully remote environment? This is especially tricky if your organization is used to operating face-to-face. Are organizations doomed to slow operations until the quarantine period is over – or is it possible to host that critical strategy session your team has been planning for months?

At The Clearing, we think it’s the latter.

We facilitate thousands of meetings every year, both virtual and in person. To support your work in the coming weeks, we consolidated our toolkit to give you access to our best practices on how to prepare technology, design remote sessions, and manage remote meetings.

We also have a handy guide below to help determine 1) the different types of meeting you are convening and 2) how well-suited they are for virtual environments.

* Check out our blog Team Building Activities for Virtual Teams for ideas on how to build connections in a remote environment.

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If you or your organization is facing a go/no-go decision on canceling or delaying an upcoming meeting, take a moment to walk through the following questions to evaluate your options to see if it’s possible to move the meeting to a virtual environment.

MAKING A GO/NO-GO DECISION

The most important question to answer when considering a meeting shift is: what is the business impact of delaying or canceling? Will critical mission or operational targets be missed or impacted if the meeting does not happen as planned? If the answer is yes, the meeting should go on as planned, but it may make sense to move to a virtual environment. When there is little to no impact, it may be an opportunity to discuss alternate times, venues, or if the information is better suited for email or another mode of communication (e.g., existing internal comms tools).

If it feels like you’re moving toward hosting a virtual meeting, ask yourself the following questions before making a final decision:

ARE WE EQUIPPED FOR REMOTE WORK? 
What tools and resources do we have available to conduct a virtual meeting and share information / documents?
Is visual interaction a key to success for this meeting?
HOW MUCH TIME WILL IT TAKE TO SHIFT TO REMOTE SOLUTIONS? 
Will moving to a virtual environment change any of the materials, meeting structure, and/or conversations?
Is there enough time to accomplish the shift?
How else might we accomplish those tasks, if the answer to the above is no?
ARE PARTICIPANTS PREPARED FOR A VIRTUAL MEETING?
Do attendees have the necessary equipment and space to participate? (e.g., laptop, cameras, mics, quiet location, etc.)
Are attendees trained on how to best use the equipment?
Is their wifi connection secure and strong enough to fully engage in using all of the tools (e.g., video, audio, etc.)?
Are there time zone differences?

We hope this information is helpful to you and your organization during COVID-19 and beyond.

In part one of this blog series about Agile transformation, we discussed the key principles underlying an organizational culture that will support this shift. Before undertaking an organizational transformation it is critical is to ensure the organization is ready and willing to do what is necessary to make the appropriate shifts. This is especially true for organizations desiring to shift to an Agile approach, as there are many challenges inherent to Agile transformation.

Through our work at The Clearing helping a variety of diverse organizations intentionally design a peak performance culture, we have identified the top three challenges organizations face when undertaking an Agile transformation, and potential strategies to address them.

CHALLENGE #1:  THE ORGANIZATION IS NOT CULTURALLY PREPARED TO SUCCESSFULLY TRANSITION INTO AN AGILE ORGANIZATION.
Conduct a Culture Assessment: Before embarking on the transformation, conduct a culture assessment to identify the shifts that will be required to successfully transition the organization to an Agile mindset. Recognize and embrace the significance of the “human element” in the transformation.
Create an Agile Transformation Plan: Formulate an Agile Transformation Plan, and integrate steps for the culture shift into it. Build alignment around the plan and the need for culture shift. An Agile Transformation Plan includes an overarching strategy and roadmap, roles and responsibilities, communications strategy, and criteria and metrics for measuring success.
Invest in Agile Training and Coaching: Train, coach, and mentor personnel on Agile principles to reinforce the change.
CHALLENGE #2:  ALL ORGANIZATIONAL LEVELS ARE NOT ENROLLED AND INVESTED IN THE OVERALL VISION AND INTENTIONS OF THE AGILE TRANSFORMATION.
Identify What’s at Stake: Create a shared understanding of what is at stake if the organization does not change the way it currently operates and what will be possible if the organization fully embraces an Agile transformation. Enroll key stakeholders in crafting and committing to the future vision. At The Clearing, for example, we use the CORE PRIME to enroll our teams and clients in a change and to define what’s at stake and how to move forward.
Communicate Early and Often: From the beginning of the transformation, demonstrate transparency (a fundamental Agile principle) by conducting communication activities across the organization to share the transformation intent, reinforce Agile values and principles, and build alignment around the plan.  Integrate intention to embrace transparency into the Agile Transformation Plan.
Collaborate with Key Stakeholders: During plan development, closely collaborate with key stakeholders to craft a future vision and objectives. Keep stakeholders informed and aligned throughout the process.
CHALLENGE #3: TOLERANCE FOR FAILURE IS LOW AND/OR NOT CULTURALLY ACCEPTED, YET FAILING FAST IN ORDER TO LEARN AND PIVOT IS A CORE AGILE CONCEPT.
Focus on Learning: Make learning and adaptation a fundamental principle of the Agile Transformation Plan. Build alignment around the plan and the need for culture shift to support a learning environment to support inspection and adaptation. As an example of how this shows up in an Agile environment, organizations that are truly “Agile” often celebrate failing forward, even holding “Failfests” where leaders share stories of failures and how they learned from those moments.
Integrate Feedback and Lessons Learned: Frame feedback as caring. Create safe opportunities to give and receive feedback and integrate lessons learned into continuous process improvement efforts.

Inspecting and shifting an organization’s culture is always a key aspect of successful transformation. Just as a fish doesn’t know it is in water, sometimes it is challenging to see your own culture as it truly is. Engaging the right outside resources to help with that challenge is often time and money well spent.

In the next installation of our Agile series, we’ll take a deeper dive into culture assessment and change, and how that may look in an Agile transformation. For more insight on how to implement and embrace an Agile culture at your organization, contact us today.

With the uncertainty of changing customer needs, an increasingly diverse workforce, and a barrage of new technology, organizations must constantly adapt to meet evolving market demands. Successful organizations will recognize and address the need to maximize constrained resources while increasing value and impact to their customers. This has led modern organizations to jump on the “Agile train” in increasing numbers. While Agile was originally developed to improve software development and delivery, Agile values and principles have expanded beyond IT development into the operations and culture of organizations.

From Silicon Valley startups to U.S. Federal Government agencies, organizations that are implementing these principles often speak about “doing Agile.” But what does it actually mean to “BE Agile?”

When an organization truly embraces Agile, the Agile values and principles become an integral part of the organization’s culture. Organizations that embody an Agile culture all seek to do the following:
● Foster an open environment of transparent communications and collaboration, both inside your company and externally with your customers and stakeholders
● Provide a workplace where there is freedom to experiment and learn, and embrace the possibility for failure—which is where the most learning occurs
● Connect with your customers to understand their true needs, and welcome their continuous feedback
● Prioritize work based on expected value for the recipient: focus on the fewest, most important initiatives first
● Empower employees to make decisions at the lowest possible levels, and trust they will be executed
● Train employees to be adaptable and flexible instead of relying on static plans

At The Clearing, we champion an Agile culture, both in how we collaborate internally and in how we engage with our clients. One way we express our agility is through use of The PRIMES, a collection of group behavior frameworks that outfit us to solve challenging business problems. An example of a PRIME that incorporates Agile principles is the “BE” PRIME. The BE PRIME aligns with the Agile principle of continuous and rapid improvement. At The Clearing, we pause at regular intervals to examine how we are “being,” and assess whether our behavior serves the best interests of ourselves and others.

We frequently ask, “How can we be better?”, and pivot based on our discoveries. As an example, the initial preparation for a recent client session meant our team had devoted hours to building an effective meeting design and agenda. Despite our aspirations for a well-planned day, the dynamics in the room led to our original session design falling completely flat. With the BE PRIME in mind, the facilitation team regrouped at lunch and threw the initial design completely out the window. Flexing our agility, we quickly came up with a new plan to better serve our clients and ultimately produce the intended results and reactions. Given the uncertainties shaping business and government today, this kind of in-the-moment adaptability is essential to achieve desired outcomes–even if the path to those outcomes must change along the way.

The most impactful organizations don’t just adopt Agile in name only; they ARE Agile, weaving Agile principles into the fabric of their culture. Responding nimbly to customer needs, cultivating a learning environment, and focusing on the essential–these are all hallmarks of organizations with a peak performance, Agile culture. Transitioning to Agile can have a positive impact on the way your organization does business, but it is a major shift in mindset and way of work that can be difficult to implement.

In the next installation of our Agile series, we will discuss the challenges of implementing Agile and how to mitigate and reduce risk during Agile transformation. For more insight on how to implement and embrace an Agile culture at your organization, contact us today.

When I was five years old, I received my first electronic keyboard. I would pretend to play along to the cheesy, pre-programmed elevator-esque music, letting the machine do the heavy lifting. Soon thereafter, recognizing my increasingly apparent love of music, my parents gave me a piano and signed me up for lessons. Unlike my beloved keyboard, this new instrument didn’t play the music for me; I had to learn how to string together melodies on my own.

Many years later, I’ve grown both as a performer and as a professional and I’ve come to recognize many parallels between musicianship and leadership. Like musicians, every individual in an organization practices and performs skills on their own, but it takes a conductor—someone with perspective on how everything fits together—to create organizational harmony.

Leadership, like mastering a musical instrument, is a skill that takes practice and years of dedicated study. A good leader works on perfecting their skills, but a great leader knows that learning is a life-long journey. No matter where you are in your study, there is always more to learn and experience. That said, these three leadership lessons from music always ring true for me.

Find Your Style
Musicians use a set of core principles, i.e., music theory, that can be applied in many different styles. Most musicians learn the basics first: how to read music, how to follow a rhythm, and, over time, find a specific style of music at which they excel. Leaders must undergo a similar process of discovery. As a leader, it’s important to find the style of LEADING that best resonates within the context of the situation at hand while enabling you to accomplish your organization’s goals. A handy and simple reference is described in the LEADERSHIP SPECTRUM PRIME.

Know Your Room
Even if you play the right notes, the wrong orientation will leave your audience feeling as though something is off. Employees constantly look to their leaders for direction, so there are plenty of opportunities in a day to miss the mark. Depending on the acoustics of the room and the ENVIRONMENT in which a leader operates, a whisper can land like a shout. Perfect sound and perfect communication both require an understanding of context and the discipline to adjust as needed. All leaders experience some awkward squeaks and microphone cracks along the way, but when you nail it, it’s music to everyone’s ears.

Learn to Improvise
Practice makes perfect, but perfection isn’t always achievable. Learning to improvise and the ability to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations is an ongoing challenge, but worth the effort. Improvising takes more skill than performing a song as it was written. No matter how many times you’ve solved a similar problem or completed a task, there will be days when things just don’t go your way. As leaders, we need to learn when to throw out the score and jam to the beat of our own drums. Authenticity can be a very powerful tool when ambiguity about the future is high.

Every day I’m grateful to my parents for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to study music. The lessons I’ve learned as a musician have shaped me as a person and made me a better leader and professional, too.

Do you need help finding your leadership style? Learn more about identifying your strengths and other traits of successful leaders in our leadership development and executive coaching programs or reach out directly.