Tag: #virtualteams

Career transition update: March 2023

A month ago, I shared the news that I will step down as ALT’s CEO this September to focus on my work as a coach. It’s been a hectic few weeks since the announcement and I want to take a moment to step back and reflect. In 2018 when ALT started to work as a virtual team, we shared monthly updates on that transition and what we as a team learnt along the way. Just like big organisational change, leadership transitions like this too often happen behind closed doors. Obviously, like with any recruitment exercise, there are some aspects that are not appropriate to share as things progress, but I feel it could be useful to chart my perspective and share some of the experiences along the way.

Reflecting on the past month

After ALT made the announcement last month, I was overwhelmed by the many comments and messages I received. It was a wonderful moment for me and enabled me to connect with many people whom I have worked with over the past 15 years. It was bittersweet to be reminded of the many fun projects and events I have been involved in and to look back at how things have changed.

I have always felt valued at ALT, and the warm reaction to the announcement has only emphasised how much we have achieved in recent years and how much the work we do means to our Members. Although it has been bittersweet, it’s also felt right to me to have made the decision to move on.

Meeting candidates

The recruitment panel who will appoint the next CEO of ALT is chaired by Professor Helen O’Sullivan. My part at this stage of the process is to meet candidates for informal conversations about the role, and I have been enjoying these meetings very much.

It’s interesting to talk about how we work as an organisation, our journey through the global pandemic and what we are working on at the moment. I like answering all the questions candidates have, and to try and see the organisation through their eyes. As the recruitment process moves towards the application deadline next week, more and more of these meetings pop into my diary, and I am really pleased that I can play my part and help give candidates a sense of what it’s like to be ALT’s CEO day to day.

The most commonly asked question, other than those around finances and strategy, is what it’s like to be the CEO of a fully virtual team day to day, whether I meet my colleagues in person and what I find easy/hard about it.

Day to day

Outside of the recruitment process, not much has changed in my day to day work. I have a long notice period, and my planned departure date in September is still nearly six months away, so at this time, my work continues as before. This week, two new members of staff join our team, one providing maternity cover for our Admin Officer who had a baby earlier this year, and also a new colleague to lead our refreshed hybrid events programme.

With the OER23 Conference coming up in a few weeks, we have much to focus on and even more to deliver each week. One thing I am doing differently is documenting my work. I keep more meticulous notes than I might do otherwise and I make sure to document any processes I am the owner of, so that I can ensure a smooth handover when the time comes.

Interested in becoming ALT’s new CEO?

I can heartily recommend working for ALT! So, if you are interested in leading a learning organisation with a wonderful staff team and a dedicated Board of Trustees, head over to the ALT website to find out more, arrange an informal chat and apply. Applications close on 27 March 2023.

20/03/2023
What’s so important about open practice for hybrid leaders?
At the moment, a lot of my work is focused on the upcoming OER23 Conference. OER23 is the 14th annual conference for Open Education research, practice and policy is organised by ALT, the Association for Learning Technology, in partnership with UHI, the University of the Highlands and Islands. OER23 will bring together the strong Scottish Open Education movement and international participants to leverage our shared expertise for change in policy and practice. The conference will be co-chaired in partnership with the GO-GN Global OER Graduate Network, connecting emerging researchers and a global perspective with local and national knowledge.

Suffice to say, I am super excited about this event which I have been fortunate enough to help organise since 2015 and which is always a great highlight of my year. This year, I am especially looking forward to heading up to the conference, partly because it’s in one of my favourite parts of the world, the Scottish Highlands, and partly because it will give me a chance to catch up with many friends and colleagues I haven’t seen in a while, including long-time collaborator, Lauren Hanks.

Lauren and I have been talking about hybrid working and leading virtual teams for the past few years, and at least year’s OER Conference we even ran a session together: As leaders of virtual teams, we critically examined what lessons we can learn from open approaches to learning and teaching and how we can use that knowledge in an increasingly virtual workplace. Since then, I have been thinking a lot about why open practice is so important for knowledge workers, and particularly managers and leaders who work in hybrid, distributed or fully virtual teams:

Sharing practice openly to improve practice

A few years now I was fortunate to interview a manager from Google together with my then colleague Martin Hawksey. We spent an interesting hour talking about leading a virtual team, and what struck me (and what’s stayed with me since) is how similar some of the challenges were and the solutions we had each come up with. Similar despite the fact that Google and a small, independent charity with less than 10 employees where clearly very different workplaces.

It struck how easily we forget to share how we work alongside what we do outside of formal training and development. Yes, there is a whole industry out there dedicated to workplace learning, but few of us who work in education or the third sector have a lot of scope to engage with that day to day. More often than not, a project deadline or the start of term looms large, and so we focus on the output of what we have achieved, rather than how.

In order to overcome that challenge, I build into my work routine a moment to reflect on WHY something went well or not, alongside what the outcome has been. For example, if I found a way to improve a workflow or manage my time for a project more efficiently, then I will share that with my colleagues as I go along. That is how “show & tell” time was brought into our weekly team meetings.

I am less interested in the amazing outcome of something than I am in how it was achieved and what made it work or fail. Crucially, I am most interested in sharing those insights to help us as a team and an organisation learn from that, and to help others avoid our mistakes and build on our work.

Hybrid and remote teams often focus on reporting outputs, rather than process, and so it is especially relevant for us working in virtual teams to create routine moments for reflecting and learning together casually.

Opening up space for sharing leadership practice

A really common issue for leaders in this space is worrying about “is it just me who is struggling with this?”. When everyone works from home and all you see is a carefully curated or blurred background with a professional, well-groomed headshot framed by a flattering camera angle, it can be hard to get a sense of how others are coping day to day and easy to feel that you are the only one who is struggling.

Complaining about workload or being busy is in my experience a lot more common than the kinds of problems you experience when you are leading a team or a large project. Performance management, HR trouble, lack of productivity, loss of communication… these are just a few of the issues that commonly challenge us and that can be difficult to talk about.

This is often compounded by working with colleagues who have a large online presence. When you see blog posts, podcasts or social media conversations all sharing exciting updates or personal successes, or when you see those group chats full of cheer and inside jokes rolling past you, then how do you join in? Where is the space for questions about things you are not sure of or worry you are doing wrong?

Open practice in a leadership position is different from sharing things like new publications, or blogging about exciting projects. It opens up a space to share the practice of leading, of managing people, not just the end results.

Modelling leadership with intentional communication

One of the most challenging aspects of leading people or projects in hybrid or remote teams is lack of comparison. In a traditional workplace you’d see more examples of how others lead, what their meetings or one-to-one catch ups might look like, how they deal with difficult situations or simply how they act day to day when at their desk or on campus.

Depending on how hierarchical or closed an organisation you worked for, you may see a lot of conversations happening behind closed doors, or at the pub after work, but even a lack of openness would set some kind of example.

Mediated by technology, tools and platforms, leadership can be a lot harder to observe. There is a lot of communication that you may never be aware of at all, happening in individual or group chats you are not part of, and during meetings certain ways of behaving may be the result of technical issues, lack of digital competency or simply a bad hair day. It’s much, much harder to observe how others lead effectively (or not), and to learn from that approach for yourself when everyone works remotely.

It’s also a lot harder for teams to follow the example of those who lead them, as there is so much that is not visible. You can’t really tell if your Line Manager is working hard or watching videos on YouTube when you never see them. What it comes down to is a much greater need to intentionally communicate to fill in the blanks created by hybrid working. Here are some examples from my own experience:
- Tell colleagues what to expect from a meeting ahead of time, and be specific about what kind of engagement you are looking for from them;
- Share when you are having a screen break or stepping away from work for a bit, to normalise taking breaks;
- Set out a clear format for regular activities like 1-to-1 catch ups, and communicate what’s the same for everyone, so that others can learn from that example when organising their own meetings.
Image: Photo by Luke Southern on Unsplash
19/03/2023
Coaching tool: List of 100 Dreams
I am always on the look out for new tools or resources for coaching, and I want to share this one I recently came across in a blog post by Laura Vanderkam: It’s called a ‘List of 100 Dreams’. If this is a new concept, then head over to Laura’s blog to read more about the original exercise from Career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine and how Laura has used this exercise as part of her work on productivity and time management.

Welcome to List of 100 Dreams week

What is it?

The ‘List of 100 Dreams’ is exactly that: a long list of things you wish to do, have or devote time to. In essence, it’s a very long bucket list. Laura explains it thus:

These could be travel goals, career goals, personal goals, or just general things that would be fun to do or possess. While plenty of people start a bucket list at some point, the upside of aiming for 100 Dreams is that it’s kind of…tough. Getting to 100 often requires coming back to the list several times. And while the first third or so tend to be big, longterm dreams (go to New Zealand!) by the last third it might be items like visiting a state park an hour away, writing a white paper on a topic that fascinates you, or owning a nice pair of pajamas. We’re talking fairly doable dreams.
https://lauravanderkam.com/2018/10/welcome-to-list-of-100-dreams-week/

Why try it?

What I liked about the idea of making a really long list, is that it would help me identify new things I might want to do, rather than simply revisit the familiar dreams or goals which have been on my mental list for a long time. I found it helpful to challenge myself to dream, rather than to simply plan or prioritise.

It feels fun to sit down and spend time thinking “what do I want to do?… What else?… and which other 78 things?”. I had not challenged myself before to try and come up with 100 things like this, and it was enjoyable and surprisingly difficult.

How to use it?

If starting with a blank page seems daunting (and to me it definitely did), then you could give yourself different headings under which to write your dreams: for example, you could use: work, people, self. Or, you could consider dreams for now, soon and later.

Writing this as a stream of consciousness exercise for which you try to keep writing without pause could work, too.

Or, add to the list over the period of a week.

The key for me was to give myself permission to add anything that came into my mind, no matter how big or small or unachievable or insignificant. If something silly came up, that went on the list, too.

A hybrid working adaptation: List of 100 Hybrid Working Dreams

This tool can be used in lots of different contexts: you can use it for your life as a whole or focus on your career, and you could also use it to set out a vision for your organisation or team.

It’s not often that we find time to sit down and focus solely on what possibilities there are when it comes to how we work, rather than what we achieve, and this tool can help make that space.

Some prompts you could focus on are:
- what are your dreams for your workspace?
- what do you wish for in terms of working with others?
- What would you like your daily routine to be like?
- What changes, big or small, would you like to make in your team?
- How would you like your organisation to change?
- What do you wish to have in place to make work better?
If you want to try out this tool, choose your favourite way to write or make notes, whatever you find easiest, and start writing down whatever comes into your mind. Don’t self-edit. Don’t judge.

Give yourself space to think of 100 things (and, as Laura suggested, if that’s easy, then simply up the number and go for 200, 500 or even 1000 dreams to write down).
17/02/2023
Lunch break ideas for hybrid workers

At this time of year, it’s easy to focus on ever busy work schedules instead of activities that help with balance. Here in Cardiff the weather is dreary and grey, and not particularly inspiring even in the lightest hours of the day. Leaving my desk and screens in favour for a proper break feels much easier on sunny days.

When I came across a book called Gone for Lunch: 52 Things to do in your lunch break (by Laura Archer), in the library recently it felt like a great opportunity to find some inspiration.

Here’re my 10 favourite ideas for lunch break activities, inspired by the book but specifically adapted to the needs of hybrid workers. The ideas in the book are divided into for sections: activities you can do while sitting, being active, inside and outside.

As most of us hybrid workers probably spend enough time sitting inside already, most of the activities on my list involve being active and/or outdoors, but there are two exceptions and I’ll start with those:

1 Take a nap

This is also in the book, and there are some useful tips here: aim to nap for between 10-30 minutes, don’t forget to set an alarm, and make sure you nap before 4pm and no later, to avoid disturbing your sleep in the night.

One of the nicest upsides of working from home is that there usually are much better places to nap than in an office or on campus, and, in my case, the presence of willing pets who are just as keen to cuddle up for half an hour as I am.

2 Meditate

The book includes tips of trying desk yoga or to focus on ‘wish, pray, hope’ , so inspired by that, I am going to include meditation as a lunch break idea. There are plenty of apps out there like Calm or Insight Timer that offer free recordings, breathing exercises and timers to help engage in mindfulness and meditation.

Personally, I find coming to a complete stop and resting in stillness for a few minutes is a powerful way to reset for the rest of the day, no matter how or where I do it.

3 Green spaces

I really like the idea of visiting green spaces. The book suggests that “spending as little as 40 seconds looking out over green space can boost concentration” and goes on to explore other benefits for our physical and mental wellbeing of spending time in nature.

Depending on where you live and how much green space there is around you, looking at some maps of your local area will help you discover new green spaces close by, and help find new routes that you do not usually take.

4 Local Café

Adopted from the idea to visit local markets included in the book, you can visit (independent) local cafes which are close enough to where you live. Many of us find remote working from home can become quite lonely over time, and visiting local cafes or delis for an hour can help us reconnect with people and offer a change of environment.

5 Listen to a podcast

As a big podcast fan, I enjoyed reading the suggestions in the book for listening to podcasts during lunch breaks: start with short podcasts to find out what you like, look for podcast recommendations on blogs or sites you usually use, rather than charts within podcast apps to get more personal recommendations and make use of the broad range of subjects on offer to engage with different interests.

One problem I encountered unwittingly with podcasts at lunchtime, is that I gravitated towards ones related to work. Listen to podcasts became more like professional development or catching up with things I hadn’t had time to read or listen to during work, which was productive, yes, but didn’t provide the break that I need at lunch to recharge. If you are looking to disconnect from work and really relax, choose a podcast with a relaxing topic unrelated to work.

6 Take a photograph

As an avid taker of photographs, the idea to take a “take a carefully considered photograph” really chimed with me. The idea is to really focus on the colour, form, shape and composition of the photograph, and to take time over it. Practical tips include turning on gridlines, focusing on a single subject, using reflection and so forth.

This is an interesting activity as it’s completely flexible and can happen indoors and outdoors at any time. One I am going to try out for sure.

7 Local Wildlife

Another suggestion is to explore local wildlife, which could include taking part in activities like an online national butterfly count or bird watch, anywhere from gardening containers on a balcony, a nearby park or field.

8 Play with a pet or care for a plant

The most ‘local’ of animals for me are our dogs, and one of my favourite things to do during my lunch break is to play with the dogs in the garden. Hiding small treats for them to sniffle for or playing with their favourite toys and really focusing on them is a brilliant way to relax, and gives me a great sense of connection.

Given that I am also devoted to my plants, another way to take a proper break from my screen is to care for my plants. Regular watering, dead heading flower pots… whatever it is on any given day really helps me to stay away from my screens for a while.

9 Go for a wander

This one probably doesn’t need much explanation, and can easily combine with several of the other activities… walk while listening to a podcast, walk a dog, wander in a green space, explore your local area and so forth.

Or… for a complete change try a mindful walk. Really focus on the activity itself and avoid distracting yourself from what your senses tell you about your environment. Breathe easy and follow your feet.

10 Visit a Cemetery

My favourite moment reading the book was when I spotted “visit a cemetery” in the list of activities. Clearly, this is my favourite given that I spent years as an anthropology student in graveyards. For me, any opportunity to visit a cemetery is welcome.. so if you, too, like a bit of an explore through such spaces, then find your nearest one and enjoy your lunch break.

10/02/2023
Tranquillity by Tuesday
I’ve really enjoyed reading Laura Vanderkam’s Tranquillity by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. From an anthropological perspective, it’s interesting to read a book rooted in the experiences of a group of people putting the productivity and time management ideas into practice and I especially enjoyed reading why things did and didn’t work for particular individuals. I found it helpful to read about their experiences alongside the expert guidance provided, as it helped me think through how and why certain things might work for me or my coaching clients.

Being on a journey of trying to work less hard and find more balance made this book appeal to me more with a central focus on calm and wellbeing alongside more traditional productivity techniques. The first ‘rule’ that I put to the test for me is Rule Two: Plan on Fridays.

The basic idea is to plan for the week ahead on a Friday afternoon and the chapter goes into explaining why this is a helpful practice and how to do it. I already plan on a weekly basis, but it was still interesting to read more about why this is effective. Two things jumped out at me:

Plan across three key categories: career (which I took to be short-hand for all types of work, paid and unpaid), relationships (which encompasses partners, family, friends, any we care for and spend time with, including pets) and self (this is the category that is easy to overlook).

Plan on Fridays: there is a good section on why Friday afternoon is a good time to plan (provided you follow a Monday – Friday work or school schedule):
1. there is little opportunity cost: for many of us, Friday afternoon is close to the weekend, it’s not a good time to start something new and this less busy time can be extra productive if used for planning;
2. You can make Monday productive: start the week knowing what your day is going to bring and focusing on it;
3. Upgrade your weekends: making more time to make plans for leisure or family time or self care rather than using the weekend for planning;
4. Calm the ‘Sunday scaries’: meaning that going into the weekend with a clear plan for the following week helps you switch off and stop worrying about or planning for what’s ahead.
This last reason resonates with me in particular, as I usually do planning on Sunday evenings and I have definitely found that to have downsides.

So, that’s the strategy I am planning to adopt from Tranquillity by Tuesday, and if you are interested in exploring more, I’d definitely recommend this as a very well written, interesting read which comes with a lot of resources which are free to download on the book’s website 🙂
07/02/2023
Personal reporting in Asana

In my last post, I reflected on the benefits of a monthly newsletter as a tool for reflection and monitoring progress. For example, I shared how looking at my blog posts for the month gives me a chance to think about aspects of my work I have enjoyed and want to do more of, things I’d prefer to spend less time on, what I want to focus on in the coming month and what is going on the back burner or stopping all together.

This kind of approach, focusing on what to stop/start or do more/less of is generally helpful, but I find it particularly effective when I review what I have been working on and can use specific examples. Now, in my CEO role, my team and I have started to use Asana last year to support collaboration and reporting across the organisation. I found it extremely useful from the start, but transferring all of my personal to do lists and productivity habits into a new platform has taken some time. As I became more confident in the platform, I found new ways to manage my workload and to review my own progress.

One example of this, is that I have started to use Asana more for my weekly work planning, and I wanted to share some tips about how I do that:

1. Reporting

The reporting menu in Asana comes with a “My first dashboard” set up, and I have used this to set up a personal view of tasks by going into each one of the charts and adding a filter that selects only me as an assignee of the tasks being reported on. This way, I can see all of my tasks at a glance.

It’s the first time in my career that I can analyse my workload at this level of detail, and it’s fascinating to compare my own sense of how things are going and what I am spending time on with what the dashboard view captures. It’s a useful exercise for me to consider what’s not being captured and why.

Most of the time, I find leadership related activities are absent from the reporting. Although I have both shared and private plans that capture most of what I do “think about staffing problem” or “ruminate on difficult email response” type tasks are not always easy to quantify.

2. Unscheduled tasks

One of the key priorities for us as a team in order to make the most of Asana, is to ensure ALL tasks we add have a deadline and are assigned to someone. I get a lot of tasks assigned to me, and using the reporting feature helps me identify the proportion of tasks that are currently without a due date and thus falling off my radar.

I love the discipline and accountability a tool like Asana brings with it, particularly as it helps you capture what you are doing wrong (planning work without giving it a deadline or a lead) as well as what you are doing right. It’s fascinating for me to reflect on why this is happening in certain areas of the work we are doing, as it often points to a lack of communication or clarity elsewhere, which in turn helps me understand what I communicate effectively and what I need to do better to get across.

3. My Tasks

In Asana the Board view of My Tasks is starting to feel more helpful to me. I have set up a “To do this week” section, which I add tasks to at the start of my week. That helps me get a sense of whether my workload is reasonable or not.

I have also set up a CPD section for myself, in which I dump all CPD related stuff. I then have a recurring monthly task that reminds me to review this section. I intend to use this section as a short-cut to complete my CPD list during my next appraisal.

Here is a glimpse at my personal dashboard:

04/02/2023