Maren Deepwell

Month: May 2023

  • Career transition update: May 2023

    Career transition update: May 2023

    In this month’s update, I want to share how things are going now that we are entering a very busy period, both in ALT’s year and my coaching business.

    Balcony with sea views.

    Reflecting on the past month at ALT…

    This month at work has been incredibly busy, but also included a wonderfully relaxing week of annual leave! May is the month in which we review progress made in Q1, finalise our annual accounts, start working on our Annual Conference in earnest and… a host of other activities that keep everyone across the organisation very busy.

    May was also the month in which the recruitment process for my successor stepped up a gear, which added more tasks to the days of Trustees and staff alike. It’s been a very rewarding and illuminating process, which I feel very positive about. Thinking back to my own ordeal applying for this role, from the extensive prep, to the nerve-racking interview days, to extensive online tests and skills scenarios… I feel for everyone involved. It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare a CEO application and even more to be successful at the end. Hats off to all who applied and threw their hats into the ring.

    I am very much looking forward to the public announcement introducing ALT’s next CEO, which will be coming out next month, so keep an eye out on all our channels šŸ™‚

    … in other news

    I have been working hard on a brand new project that is concluding this week: How to… Lead Virtual Teams: The Course! It’s the first course I have developed for my new venture and it’s been a fantastic project. The course took place over seven weeks in April and May. As a podcast based offering it afforded a lot of flexibility and tailored support for managers and leaders and attracted around 50 participants from across sectors.

    Course logo

    It’s been fantastic to wrap up the first successful run of the course, and interesting to read contributions and reflections from those involved. Definitely a project I am hoping to repeat come autumn.

    My formal coach training is continuing this month, and investing in my own professional development is really important just now. Working with more and less experienced coaches and mentors is really helping me understand more about how to develop my own approach and what aspects of coaching I want to focus on.

    I am still looking for clients for the summer, so if you’re interested in coaching with me, head over to my coaching page for more information or just get in touch for an informal conversation. I currently offer discounted packages and for professionals who are not supported by their employer and for whom cost is a barrier to coaching, I also offer pro bono coaching sessions.

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  • #LVT23 – How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 6 – Set intentions for your practice

    #LVT23 – How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 6 – Set intentions for your practice

    Congratulations on making it to the last part of the How to Lead Virtual Teams course!

    In this final part of the course, we are going to complete a closing reflection. Our focus now shifts back to your intentions for the course and how you might develop your professional practice.

    Listen and reflect

    This week, the podcast (25 min) includes a guided reflective exercise to help you reflect on what you have learnt and how to translate that into practice. You can listen to the episode as usual, or take a more structured approach and bring a notebook and pen to note down your reflections as we go along.

    Listen

    We are going to focus on:

    • What did you learn? What did you learn about your approach to leading virtual teams?
    • How has your approach evolved or changed in the past few weeks?
    • What first steps do you need to take to apply what you have learnt?

    After you have listened to the podcast, take some time to write down further thoughts and reflections. If you’d like to share your reflections with others, share them using the hashtag #lvt23 on Mastodon, Instagram and Twitter. I’ll be looking out for your posts.

    Set intentions for what’s next

    Below are the links to all the course materials, so you can revisit them in your own time. Taking part in this course should act as a prompt and support you to develop your approach to leading your team, project or organisation. If you are not sure what the next step is, here are some ideas to get you started:

    Gather feedback: use this course as a basis for gathering feedback from colleagues and peers and learn more about what aspects of your approach work well and what aspects you can develop further. Leaders and managers often find hybrid working lonely and it can be hard to identify why certain situations or relationships aren’t working the way you expect. Ask specific questions or focus on particular aspects of your approach, such as 1:1 meetings or sprints when asking for feedback.

    Make a plan: use the ideas from the course to set out a development plan for yourself, and identify practical aspects of your current work set up, routines or strategies you’d like to develop. Making a milestone plan can be a really helpful step and this podcast episode gives you a step to step guide to getting started.

    Identify support required: if you are feeling overwhelmed now might be a good time to take a step back and focus on what support you might need to support your professional development and wellbeing. Look out for a special coaching offer for course participants via email.

    Explore all course materials

    All course materials are freely available:

    Week by week

    Share your feedback about the course

    Thank you so much for taking part! It’s been a fantastic experience to share the past few weeks with you all and I hope you’ve found something along the way that’s inspired you and helped develop your approach to leading people and projects in the hybrid or fully virtual virtual workplace.

    This is the first iteration of How to Lead Virtual Teams. I’m keen to hear your feedback, good and bad, so that the next run can be even better. Please take a few minutes to complete this course evaluation form. Thanks!

  • #LVT23 How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 5 – Leading team activities

    #LVT23 How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 5 – Leading team activities

    This post provides all the information you need for Part 5: Leading team activities (originally released 19 May ’23). Each part includes a podcast to listen to, prompts to help you reflect on your practice and inspiration to explore the topic further. 

    Listen to the course podcast

    This course is podcast based and you can take part by simply listening each week as a new topic is released.

    This week’s episode:
    S02E16 – How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 5 – Leading team activities

    In this episode (35 min), we focus on practical activities to foster a positive culture for hybrid and virtual teams. We’ll explore a number of examples of online and blended activities and ‘hacks’ and consider how to meaningfully reward and motivate your team. For this topic, we’ll be referring to examples from Chapter 2 and 3 of ā ā Leading Virtual Teamsā ā .

    Listen

    Reflect on this topic

    These prompts are designed to help you identify blind spots and open up new ways to think about the way you work. Setting aside some time to reflect helps you develop your critical, analytical and reflective skills as a leader or manager:

    • How could you be 1% more comfortable at work?
    • What would work for your team? Why would it work?
    • What barriers do you have to work within (such as cost, institutional protocol, technical limitations etc).
    • What would you want to achieve?
    • Activity: Choose a particular activity of hack from the episode and reflect using the prompts above.

    Explore tools and resources

    Here are some further tools and resources to explore if you’d like to take a deeper dive:

    Say hello #lvt23

    If youā€™d like to connect with me and other participants during the course, use the hashtag #lvt23 on Mastodon, Instagram and Twitter. Iā€™ll be posting a few times each week during the course, and Iā€™d love to hear from you. 

    Catching up?

    If you are catching up with topics you have missed, you can find all the information you need to get started on the catch up page.

  • Tips for a week of complete rest

    Tips for a week of complete rest

    It’s the last day of my holidays today, and it’s been fantastic to have some time off work. It’s been quite a long time since I last went on a holiday trip abroad, and we had a week in Greece, which is not only my favourite foodie destination but also a country where I spent holidays when I was a kid and I thus have a lot of fond memories of this beautiful country.

    The last few months, in the middle of a career transition and at the start of setting up my new business, have been BUSY. So this past week has been very precious time to rest and recharge. And there was a lot of that, fortunately.

    The one downside of the holiday was that the travel in both directions turned out to be a lot more involved than hoped for and we arrived after midnight in both directions, but that was the only downside of the trip.

    View from the balcony to the Cretan coast

    My partner and I had a lot of plans for trips and exploring the island, but enjoyed the rest and exercise we had on our doorstep so much, that we focused on that instead. I loved having time for yoga, running, mini golf and plenty of reading at the pool and no emails, professional online presence, creating content or work on my business at all.

    It’s taken me a long time to be able to step away from all types of work all together, and for me, having a complete week off is a big milestone.. as well as a reflection of how busy I have recently been in every aspect of my practice. I felt depleted enough to be motivated to have a complete break.

    I took some practical steps to ensure that I had a complete break, and I wanted to share some tips that worked for me in the past week:

    • I completed a holiday handover, with my amazing colleagues and deputy, and then logged off all work systems completely on my last day at work;
    • No laptops came on holiday, and all computers at home where switched off when work ended;
    • I deleted all work-related apps from my phone or switched notifications off completely, included direct messaging, emails, and task management apps;
    • I logged out of/deleted all social media apps, like Twitter and LinkedIn, that I only use in a professional context;
    • calendar notifications were switched off or paused
    • A simply note to make a list of anything that I thought of, which were work related and which I wanted to pick up upon my return;
    • I intentionally packed books, audiobooks and other entertainment that would help me focus on things other than work.
    Me on holiday eating a dessert

    Now that I am back from my break, I feel much more rested and relaxed, and I have enjoyed taking a step back. It’s given me a different perspective which feels helpful in lots of ways. Here are some things I am doing to ease myself back into my busy schedule…

    • Plan for a balanced week, which includes realistic goals, not ALL the things that I left undone when I went on holiday;
    • Make time for fun and self care;
    • Focus on habits that safeguard the energy I have gathered during my time off, such as making time for exercise, sleeping, breaks during the day, and so forth;
    • Give myself time to reflect on my trip and how I feel to be back at home (plus cuddling our dogs, which I have really missed a lot).

    One thing that has stayed with me is how much I enjoyed a break in a new place, days filled with new experiences. It’s been a long time since I had that much ‘newness’ packed into a single week, and that has given me a lot of joy.

  • #LVT23 How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 4 ā€“ Fostering a shared team culture

    #LVT23 How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 4 ā€“ Fostering a shared team culture

    This post provides all the information you need for Part 4: Leading team activities (originally released 12 May ’23). Each part includes a podcast to listen to, prompts to help you reflect on your practice and inspiration to explore the topic further. 

    Mid-point check-in – 5 min

    Before we jump into the new topic, let’s check-in with how things are going halfway through the course. You can do this simply with a pen and paper, or if you are keeping notes somewhere throughout the course, go back to the notes you made during orientation week. During orientation, you were invited to set intentions for the course. We explored what you most want to get out of the course, and what you’d like to learn more about. We also considered what constraints might block your progress.

    Check in with your intentions now and really focus on your needs and interest. What has sparked your curiosity? When did you stop to think about something new? What concerns have arisen? Note your reflections and re-adjust your approach to taking part.

    If you are just getting started or catching up with topics you have missed, you can find all the information you need below:

    Past topics:

    Podcast | Blog post | Part 1: Orientation and a brief introduction to Leading Virtual Teams
    Podcast | Blog post | Part 2: How we work and onboard new colleagues
    Podcast | Blog post | Part 3: Setting shared expectations

    This week:
    Podcast | Blog post | Part 4: Fostering a shared team culture (12 May ’23)

    Future topics: 
    Part 5: Leading team activities (19 May ’23)
    Part 6: Course reflection – Setting intentions for your practice (26 May ’23)

    Check-in done? If you’d like to share your reflections you can use the hashtag #lvt23 on Mastodon, Instagram and Twitter. I always love to hear from you and how things are going, so you are most welcome to drop me a line via email, too. Simply respond to one of the course emails with your thoughts.

    Listen to the course podcast

    This course is podcast based and you can take part by simply listening each week as a new topic is released.

    This week’s episode:
    S02E15 – How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 4 – Fostering a shared team culture

    Working in innovative ways, as virtual and hybrid teams, offers us the opportunity to re-imagine how work and what our day to day feels like. In this episode (34 min), I’ll be discussing ways of fostering a shared team culture. Simply put, we’ll be exploring the question ‘What do you want your team or organisation feel like on a day to day basis?’ and how do you achieve that. For this topic, we’ll be referring mainly to examples from Chapter 2 of ā ā Leading Virtual Teamsā ā .

    Listen

    Reflect on this topic

    These prompts are designed to help you identify blind spots and open up new ways to think about the way you work. Setting aside some time to reflect will help you develop your critical, analytical and reflective skills as a leader or manager:

    • How would you describe the culture in your team or organisation?
    • Are there any existing problems or habits you are seeking to change?
    • What would you like to see happen?
    • What are the barriers that are stopping you?
    • What experience and skills will help you achieve your aims?

    Explore tools and resources

    Here are some further tools and resources to explore if you’d like to take a deeper dive:

    Say hello #lvt23

    If youā€™d like to connect with me and other participants during the course, use the hashtag #lvt23 on Mastodon, Instagram and Twitter. Iā€™ll be posting a few times each week during the course, and Iā€™d love to hear from you. 

  • #LVT23 How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 3 ā€“Setting shared expectations

    #LVT23 How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 3 ā€“Setting shared expectations

    This post provides all the information you need for Part 3: Setting shared expectations (originally released 5 May ’23). Each part includes a podcast to listen to, prompts to help you reflect on your practice and inspiration to explore the topic further. 

    Listen to the course podcast

    This course is podcast based and you can take part by simply listening each week as a new topic is released.

    This week’s episode:
    S02E14 – How to Lead Virtual Teams: Part 3 – Setting shared expectations

    In this third course podcast (33 min), we examine how we can set shared expectations with and for the people we work with and how we communicate those expectations. We are going to examine the difference between expectations and lived experience when it comes to work life balance and in the context of collaborating or meeting online. For this topic, we’ll be referring to examples from Chapter 1 and 2 of ā ā Leading Virtual Teamsā ā .

    Listen

    Reflect on this topic

    These prompts are designed to help you identify blind spots and open up new ways to think about the way you work. Setting aside some time to reflect helps you develop your critical, analytical and reflective skills as a leader or manager:

    • How do you communicate your expectations to your team?
    • What do you communicate by example?
    • How does your approach affirm or contradict your expectations?
    • How do your expectations differ for yourself and others?

    Explore tools and resources

    Here are some further tools and resources to explore if you’d like to take a deeper dive:

    Say hello #lvt23

    If youā€™d like to connect with me and other participants during the course, use the hashtag #lvt23 on Mastodon, Instagram and Twitter. Iā€™ll be posting a few times each week during the course, and Iā€™d love to hear from you. 

    Catching up?

    If you are just getting started with How to Lead Virtual Teams or catching up with topics you have missed, you can find all the information you need to get started on the catch up page.