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I don’t know if you caught the live reading on the Adopt & Embrace YouTube channel on Friday where founder, (and my boss) Paul Woods (@paulwoods) read from the first chapter of our book Microsoft Teams: A Manager’s Guide to Communication, Collaboration and Co-ordination with Microsoft Teams.

We wrote the book as a team, using Microsoft Teams to undertake the whole process of the writing and editing.

You can see the entire thread of how and why we wrote this and who it’s for in this tweet thread where I explain the value of the book to people in different roles in the organisation. That is, the book is NOT an IT book and it is in fact, a book that helps anyone in the organisation structure a more effective TEAM to boost collaboration and shared work practices.

https://twitter.com/ActivateLearn/status/1202332556147871744

Now you might be thinking that 12 months down the track, the book has probably been outdated by changes in the technology however, that’s not the case at all. In fact, we knew that technology changes so quickly nowadays that it was nonsensical to write about features and not about how teams in organisations can solve business problems.

In this video, Paul stops through the reading to provide further explanations and details but with a “12 months later” view. That is, he mentions that we were lucky that many organisations had already the existing architecture to move to remote work when the pandemic struck.

Would we organisations have been in the same place IF the pandemic struck say 2 or 3 years ago?

I doubt it.

Now, organisations are at the point of probably thinking, “Hey, we HAVE Microsoft Teams so we’re all good!” However, what we are finding is that there’s a mixed level of use and comfort of the tool or worse, team structures set up within it that don’t help solve workplace problems or don’t encourage beyond looking at Teams as just another “virtual meeting platform”.

In the video, Paul shares some thoughts about the need for people in organisations now to take on an iterative mindset. That is, one where people are continuously improving and building on what they’re learning and helping others to do the same.

If you’re thinking of ways of how a live reading helps you and your teams here are some ways you can incorporate this video into your personal or team’s learning plan.

Tips for Extracting Value From this Reading & Incorporating it Into Your Work and Teams

• View the video (or download it so that you can listen to it as an audio podcast if you’re mobile) and capture 3 key lessons that Paul shares and then ALIGN it to what you’re seeing in your own organisation or work team.
• Share those 3 key lessons to your team members IN Teams or at your next Teams meeting to start a discussion and come up with a way ahead for how you can better improve collaboration in your team, or use Teams more effectively that supports solving business problem
• Add this YouTube video link as a TAB to your relevant Team or a channel
• Share this reading to anyone else in your organisation who may need support, encouragement or influence in how Teams can help them and their team
• Share this link and the link to the book to your next Book Club (if you have a work book (I wrote about how you can use Work Book Clubs as Social Learning Experiences)
• Create a Playlist in YouTube and add this video (along with other great videos regarding how to best use Microsoft Teams as a collaborative tool) and in so doing, you’re creating a curated list of excellent learning resources you and your team can have access to (then add the URL of your playlist into MS Teams tab so you can share it with your peers at work).
• Download the 10P Resources Microsoft Teams Design Workbook for free and use this as a basis of your team meeting discussions to go through each ‘P’ and then IMPROVE on it by APPLYING it to your Microsoft Teams structure. (If you do this, make sure you share your results or learning by tagging @adoptandembrace) because these will make up your SUCCESS stories for other work teams in your organisation who will follow your lead and examples.

Tips for Showing Your Appreciation

• If you have read the book previously, write a recommendation on Amazon
• If you have the book, why not post a photo of the book on your preferred social media site and tag @Adoptandembrace
• Subscribe to the A&E YouTube channel and Like the video
• Last of all, buy the book for you and your team! (You can buy it here for yourself or your organisation and get 10% off for orders of 10 or more books; if you buy more than 25 you’ll get a free consult from the A&E team!)