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Real-time conversations crucial for networking in a virtual world

Leave a Comment / Newsletter, Productive Conversations /

By Nancy Settle-Murphy, Guided Insights and Patti Anklam, Hutchinson Associates This issue of Communiqué focuses on planning and facilitating conversations most likely to help you cultivate mutually-rewarding relationships. We also discuss ways to follow up to keep both parties engaged and interested in moving forward together. In this issue, we refer primarily to voice-to-voice conversations, […]

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Ten must-know email tips for teams to make an impact and get results

Leave a Comment / Newsletter, Tools & Technology /

By Nancy Settle-Murphy, Guided Insights and Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts, Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts & Associates Are you having trouble keeping up with the fusillade of emails your team members churn out each day? Are you wondering why team members don’t respond to your messages or if they even read them? Email is the cornerstone of communications for most

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Recognize and address early signs of virtual team dysfunction to avoid irrecoverable problems later

Leave a Comment / Leadership & Management, Newsletter /

If you’re part of a virtual team, you develop a sixth sense for knowing when dysfunction has crept in. The signs are clear, even though you can’t see vital body language or hear side conversations. People start making excuses for missing the weekly con calls. Or maybe they don’t even bother to RSVP. When people

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Get and Give What You Bargained for With Clear Agreements That Make Sense

Leave a Comment / Leadership & Management, Newsletter /

Setting false deadlines has become as chronic as breaking them, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Managers might get away with this practice once or twice, but when team members finally catch on, chances are they won’t fall for it again. And worse, they’re more likely to ignore authentic deadlines when

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Mobilize Global Virtual Teams by Avoiding 8 Common Landmines

1 Comment / Navigating Across Cultures, Newsletter /

Imagine you’re heading a new global team responsible for a major company initiative. The 25 team members represent 10 countries and five continents. You need to get this team moving quickly, and you must rely on a combination of asynchronous and synchronous communication methods. Even the most seasoned international business professionals may fall into some

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Mentoring From Afar – Go the Distance To Grow Top Talent

Leave a Comment / Leadership & Management, Newsletter /

Your organization is lucky to have retained some extraordinary talent despite the best efforts of your top competitors to lure them away. Among these key employees are a few dozen freshly minted MBAs and several mid-level managers who have been hand- picked to take on senior positions once the current crop of baby boomer executives

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Worth a Thousand Words: Connecting Virtual Teams Through Imagery and Metaphor

Leave a Comment / Newsletter, Team Collaboration /

Using images and metaphors can work wonders to break the ice, create a shared sense of purpose and cultivate an environment of real collaboration. But when a team is confined to connecting only through virtual means, the use of visuals as a springboard for meaningful discussion is typically limited. Not because it has to be

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Cutting to the Chase: 8 Essential Steps for Faster, More Engaging Meetings

Leave a Comment / Facilitation Skills Training – Delivered Live, Remotely, Newsletter, Virtual & Hybrid Meetings /

“Most meetings are poorly-planned, badly-managed and attendance is often mandatory. If you’re forced to sit though a meeting that’s running way too long and the agenda is nothing of concern to you, then using a mobile device will allow you to salvage at least a little of your productive capacity. But the real answer is

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Six Management Practices That Don’t Cut It in a Virtual World

Leave a Comment / Leadership & Management, Newsletter /

Do you think that just because you’re a successful manager of traditional teams that you’ll automatically be a hotshot manager in the virtual world? Maybe not. In fact, it’s often those managers who assume their leadership skills are eminently transportable to a virtual team are those who struggle the most. Why? They haven’t taken the

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Coalescing a New Team – Creating Ties That Bind

1 Comment / Newsletter, Team Collaboration, Virtual Leadership /

Maybe you’ve inherited new team members from another group within your company as a result of recent reorganization. Or perhaps your company has merged with another, giving you a whole new group to manage. Whatever the reason, you need to pull a new team together, including people who have been working together all along and

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Open Communication, Mutual Respect Keys to Intergenerational Harmony

Leave a Comment / Inclusion & Well-Being, Newsletter /

With multiple generations working side by side for several years now, much has been written about the key differences that affect the ability of multigenerational teams to collaborate successfully. Some organizations have taken this advice to heart and work to consciously reflect these differences when it comes to selecting and cultivating teams. Others have dismissed

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Improve Performance in Troubled Times through Distance Learning

Leave a Comment / Continuous Learning in a Virtual World, Newsletter /

Face it: Even the healthiest companies must make dramatic reductions in staff and overall spending to remain viable in what may be the worst economy most of us will see in our lifetimes. As staff is cut, more is asked of those who remain. Most times, these additional responsibilities call for new skills. Yet with

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Cultivating Trust from Afar in Tough Times

Leave a Comment / Leadership & Management, Newsletter /

Today’s astonishing economic situation affects virtually every working individual around the globe. As organizations are forced to make drastic cuts and other difficult changes to remain viable, the need for competent, credible, trustworthy leaders has never been greater. At the same time, the very nature of our global economic collapse has bred deep distrust for

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Accelerate On-the-Job Learning With (Virtual) Peer Roundtables

Leave a Comment / Continuous Learning in a Virtual World, Newsletter /

If you’re like many of our clients and colleagues, you work some distance away from your key colleagues. This may mean that you rarely get the chance to brainstorm ideas, share lessons learned, or explore difficult issues with your peers. With technology as an enabler, virtual roundtables can be an effective way to exchange ideas

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Building Relationships, One Conversation at a Time

Leave a Comment / Newsletter, Newsletter: Essential communication and collaboration skills for virtual teams, Productive Conversations /

Can you build a trusting relationship when you’ve never had an actual conversation? (And no, IM, email, text, Twitter and blog “conversations” don’t count!) While it may be possible, it’s pretty unlikely. Most business conversations tend to focus on tasks and priorities, whether to review the progress of a current project, delegate actions or make

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Proven in Practice – Top Tips Essential to Virtual Project Team Performance

Leave a Comment / Newsletter, Team Collaboration /

I’m always gratified when readers write to say that the latest Communiqué really hit the mark. One reader, a colleague and former client of mine, has sent me so many such mails over the last 10 years that I arranged to meet with him – virtually – to learn which tips he found the most

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Guidelines for Great Global Team Meetings

Leave a Comment / Meeting Facilitation Services, Newsletter, Newsletter: Navigating across cultures, Productive Conversations /

Thanks to advances in technology, project team members scattered around multiple time zones work together as a matter of routine. However, without a keen understanding of important cultural differences that are most likely to affect collaboration, many virtual global project teams struggle to achieve their goals, or sometimes simply fall apart. In this edition of

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Seven Attributes of an Exceptional Virtual Collaborator

Leave a Comment / Leadership & Management, Newsletter /

Just because someone works virtually doesn’t mean that person really has what it takes to collaborate successfully. In fact, many who work remotely are poorly suited to make the connections they really need to thrive. In this edition of Communiqué, we look at characteristics that make for a successful virtual collaborator, and those that may

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Holding Back: A Counter-Intuitive Approach for Virtual Leaders

Leave a Comment / Newsletter, Productive Conversations /

When they first join a new team, members tend to be energized, motivated, and eager to learn the ropes. Many take pride in finding the information and resources they need to tackle their new assignments and may need just a bit of guidance to keep moving in the right direction. After all, absorbing and applying

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Real Cultural Assimilation Takes Patience, Time and Willingness to Adapt

Leave a Comment / Navigating Across Cultures, Newsletter /

A colleague recently landed a job for Export Trading Co. LTD, an agro processing company in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with offices throughout Sub Saharan Africa. I wondered: Is it any easier to become assimilated into a new culture today than it was for me when I took a temporary assignment in Hong Kong two

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Leading vs. Managing Remote Teams

Leave a Comment / Leadership & Management, Newsletter, Newsletter: Leading effective virtual teams /

As more organizations work virtually, managers of traditional work teams are tapped to lead geographically dispersed teams. When thrust into this unfamiliar territory, many managers flounder, especially those who rely on command-and-control tactics to get work done across locations, functions, cultures and time zones. Joining me in writing this month’s Communiqué is my friend and

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Moving to the Virtual Classroom: 8 Steps to Keep Learners Engaged

Leave a Comment / Continuous Learning in a Virtual World, Newsletter, Newsletter: Continuous learning in a virtual world /

As our workforce becomes more scattered, organizations are being forced to rethink how they deliver training. While the array of solutions may vary, one trait these organizations have in common: They are scaling back or altogether eliminating classroom training in favor of distance learning. Most don’t have the experience or tools to make this move

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Navigating Through Invisible Cultural Tripwires

Leave a Comment / Facilitation Skills Training, Navigating Across Cultures, Newsletter, Newsletter: Navigating across cultures /

It can be really awkward to candidly discuss cultural differences when your colleagues work across the hall. But when colleagues work across the continent or on the other side of the world, these conversations becomes exponentially harder. Yet, by missing the opportunity to openly explore how cultural differences affect its ability to collaborate, a team

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To speed decision-making, get rid of the noise

Leave a Comment / Facilitation Skills Training, Leadership & Management, Newsletter, Productive Conversations /

To be, or not to be? Not all decisions are as profound as Hamlet’s, but some team decisions can be real game-changers. Making tough decisions can stress out members of any team, but when you’re working as a geographically-dispersed team, the decision-making process can be especially draining. Why?  Simply put, the decision-making process for virtual

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Dealing with Disruptive Participants, Virtually

2 Comments / Meeting Facilitation Services, Newsletter, Virtual & Hybrid Meetings /

We’ve all suffered when the bad behavior of just one person can derail a whole meeting. Maybe it’s been the know-it-all who steamrolls over anyone who tries to speak. Or the person who folds her arms and rolls her eyes without a word. It could be the guy who has nothing good to say about

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Building Trust Within Virtual Teams – Small Steps Add Up

4 Comments / Leadership & Management, Newsletter, Virtual Leadership /

When we ask clients to name the toughest challenge associated with leading virtual teams, there is one answer that always pops to the top of the list: Building trust. Or in some cases, it’s re-building trust. Building trust is hard for any team, but it is especially hard for virtual teams, whose members have few

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Nancy Settle-Murphy

  • Boxborough, Massachusetts
  • (978) 263-2545
  • nancy@guidedinsights.com

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