Use this tool today to increase your engagement on your virtual call!

This week I started a four-week series teaching home visitation supervisors strategies for virtual supervision.

The challenges of virtual supervision
We talked about the typical challenges in virtual supervision; distractions, internet capacity, and a lack of tech-savviness. However, one of the biggest challenges identified was the difficulty in connecting to the people they supervise.

We can't physically connect to them
Without the physical connection and closer proximity to the person, it feels challenging to have strong communication. Yet, that is what we need as leaders. We need to be able to hear them clearly and communicate to them effectively.

Here's a strategy I teach
I taught them three strategies for virtual supervision. I wanted to share the first one with you today because I think it will be valuable to help you transition from zoom call to zoom call.

Strategy # 1 - Connect before you continue

There are two components to connect before you continue. 

• First, you need to connect to yourself. 
• Second, you need to connect to the person you were talking to. I want to focus on the connection to yourself.

Why you need this strategy
As we move from call to call, meeting to meeting and email to email, they tend to blur together. And what happens is thoughts, emotions, and anxiety about things we need to do as a result of that call, email or meeting carry from one meeting to the next.

I call this residual leftover! And if you don't consciously let go of that, it will affect your next engagement.

Connect before you continue means to connect to yourself more mindfully.

We need to be very in-tuned with what's happening
It is more challenging to communicate in this virtual world. We have to be more mindful to tune in to nuances. We need to be more present to watch for body language, hear subtleties of voice tones, and pick up on what's happening beneath the words.

To do that, you need to let go of what just happened and become present in this moment. You need to connect with yourself before you continue.

The tool to use
The approach I use for this is to take a few deep breaths. One tool I suggest is box breathing. As you breathe in and out, your finger goes around an imaginary box on your desk. 

• up the left-hand side, breathe in
• across the top breathe out
• down the right-hand side, breathe in
• across the bottom, breathe out

I suggest breathing through your nose for both the inhale in the exhale, but you can do it however you choose. 

There are many versions of breath counting. Some like an even square four counts of inhales and exhales. I instead encourage you to have the exhale longer than the inhale. It is the exhale that takes our bodies out of fight-flight-freeze mode, where our sympathetic nervous systems are in overdrive and calms us down, activating our parasympathetic nervous system.

Connect before you continue.

The outcome:
When you connect before you continue into the next meeting, you will find that the virtual conversation will be more effective, and I'm guessing more enjoyable!


Do you want training for your organization?
If you are interested in team training for your organization, just let me know! I love to connect with groups and grow them so that they can do their mission-driven work with confidence! I'll also share the other two strategies with you.

Need more help?
Here are some extra resources to help you connect before you continue into that next supervision conversation. 

From the Surviving to Thriving Podcast 

• Episode # 6 - Zoom meeting No-No's
• Bonus Episode: How to deal with leadership STRESS in times of massive crisis!​

From The Training Library 
If you are a member of The Training Library, here are a couple of webinars you might watch or rewatch! If you want to learn more about The Training Library, you can do that here.

• WEBINAR: Breath Magic - Breath your way to being a calm, composed and in control leader!
• WEBINAR: Thriving Through COVID-19 - Mini Training

When you do the work to develop yourself, you become more competent, thus confident. And that my dear, is what will move you from surviving to thriving in both your leadership and your life!

Let me know in the comments what other challenges you are facing with virtual supervision. You are the one in the trenches. Let me know what it's like so I can support you!