Patti Cotton

How to Align and Coordinate Your Team

June 1, 2022 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Many a leader has overseen sound strategic planning, only to come to a grinding halt in just a few months.

“I find we get quickly into the weeds,” said Michael. “I really like how you and I just worked on focusing on what matters, and the plan is great (see the previous article on how Michael and I refocused to help him rise above the weeds.) But we’ve planned many times. I share the vision and set the goals, and we hit the ground running. But then, somehow, the team starts bumping heads on projects…Pretty soon, it’s back to business as we’ve always done it – good, but not great. How do I bring my team along in the process?”

“That’s our next step, Michael,” I responded. “And you are spot on. Unless you can align and coordinate your team in actionable and measurable ways, you won’t get far. Let’s roll up our sleeves.”

Michael and I met with his executive team the next week. During this time, he unveiled his business imperative – the top goals and priorities, as well as the quantifiable impact as shared in my last article.

“Team, it’s time we tighten up and get more focused,” he said. “And I admit, I am a chief culprit in keeping us from having done so until this point.”

I chimed in. “What we want to do today is to review Michael’s business imperative for the company for the next 12 months.”

“No offense,” said Candace, the CFO. “But we’ve done this a few times before. And we don’t seem to get anywhere.”

“I understand,” I responded. “Strategic plans and business imperatives usually sound great, but few get far. One important reason is because the executive team isn’t invited to align and coordinate to support the plan.”

“Go on,” said Candace. “I’m listening.”

“Michael will share the business imperative for the company. This imperative identifies the key priorities for the next 12 months, supporting the company’s strategic plan. This imperative is measurable and actionable.”

“From here, however, each of you needs to ask yourself what this means for your own areas of responsibility – and develop your own business imperative. This should support Michael’s imperative. Your imperative should have the measurables and actions to support Michael’s. Make sense?”

“It does,” said Max, COO. “We’ve often listed out who owns what when it comes to the strategic plan, but we haven’t made it as actionable as you are talking about.”

“I can see a more workable plan in the making,” said Sandra, the Marketing Vice President.

“I’m glad you do,” I answered. “It does work.”

“Just a minute,” Max hesitated. “If we are all going to do this, what about all those other initiatives we are working on? What if they don’t fit into the plan?”

“Exactly, Max,” I answered. “Once you develop your business imperative, you will need to ask yourself what to do in order to remain focused. But that’s for our next step. For now, let’s have a good discussion on what Michael’s imperative means for you. And when we reconvene next week, bring your draft business imperatives and we will have some critical conversations. We will not only be talking about what to do with initiatives that don’t support the focus; we will also be talking about what shifts in culture and leadership behaviors you may need to make in order to succeed.”

“Culture shifts? Leadership behaviors?” asked Michael.

“Yes, Michael. You and your executive team are a system – all parts of a system need to work together in the same way. If not, you won’t get any traction.”

Next time, I’ll share details of the next meeting and the tough conversations Michael and his team had to have in order to break through chronic underperformance – and finally become a high-performing, aligned, and coordinated team.

© Patti Cotton and patticotton.com. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express written permission from the author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that attribution is made to Patti Cotton and patticotton.com, with links thereto.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Getting Your Leadership and Company Out of the Weeds

May 25, 2022 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

You are in the weeds, again.

And it feels defeating.

Leading is more complex than ever, and each time you think you are getting on top of things, the speed of business accelerates, again. What is it costing you? What is it costing your company?

You aren’t the only leader suffering from this quicksand. Don’t give up. There is a way out – and up.

Michael sighed and sat back in his chair.

“I’m finally on top of my emails – but the executive team isn’t. This means I’m not getting the responses I need for us to move forward. And then, we haven’t taken next steps in the Alchem Initiative, and we are now two quarters behind. I’m the hold-up there. Not enough time because we are playing catch up everywhere else.”

“Michael,” I leaned forward. “This sounds disorganized. You must be frustrated.”

“I am. I’m frustrated. Exhausted,” he replied. “Leading this company has a pretty low ROI to it these days.”

“Here’s what I’m noticing,” I said. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“I’m saying it’s time to get out of the weeds. For good.”

Step One: To Get Out of the Weeds, Bring Focus to What Matters

“Let’s begin by bringing focus to what matters most,” I said. “This is the first of five critical steps we need to take in order to get out of the weeds and stay out of the weeds!”

The first thing that Michael and I did was sit down together to review company goals and objectives, and to identify priorities for the ensuing 12 months. With some careful conversation, we crafted a vision for the year, and pinpointed the business impact this would have on the business.

“It feels good to recapture clarity around what’s important,” said Michael. “But I’m growing concerned. I realize that we are working on many things that don’t actually support the company in what matters. And if that’s the case, we are not only losing money by not doing what matters, we are also losing it by spending it on what doesn’t matter!”

Michael and I spend the rest of the morning defining the business impact. Quantifiably, if Michael and the team focused on what matters, this would put the company on a path to increase revenue and footprint significantly within two years.

“If we can do this, our competitors will stop running circles around us. That gives me great satisfaction. And on an equally serious note, my board will start placing more trust in me. I’ve lost a lot of ground there with not delivering on what I promise.”

“You are indeed at a critical juncture,” I responded. “It’s time to roll up our sleeves.”

“So, what’s next?” Michael asked.

“We’ve gained good clarity on what matters, but this is indeed just the first step. Now, we need to align and coordinate your executive team around this. This is where we will see what it really means to make this course-correction.”

“Although this sounds challenging,” answered Michael, “I can’t turn back, now. We’ve just uncovered millions of dollars and opportunity to be had.”

What is your own lack of focus costing you and your company?

Stay tuned, Reader, to learn how Michael took the next step to align and coordinate his team – and how it surfaced some pretty troubling culture and behavioral challenges.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Why Your Manager Won’t Make Decisions

September 1, 2021 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Do you have a manager who drags their feet when it comes to making important decisions?

This can affect your entire team and your ability to get things done. Moreover, the impact of just one manager’s indecisiveness affects your entire business.

How do you handle this?

“It feels like things have come to a screeching halt,” said Maxine. “I have one department that consistently delivers late – and always has excuses. Help!”

The more Maxine and I talked, the greater the evidence became that the department’s poor performance was affecting other areas of the business.

“The latest debacle is this: Earl promised me reports by deadline, but once again, he was late.” Maxine continued. “He blames two of his employees for various things I won’t bore you with. The outcome is that I did not receive these reports I needed by our deadline. We actually lost business because of it.”

“So, this has actually affected the business’s ability to compete,” I responded. “And what is the problem?”

“Well, I used to think that Earl couldn’t hold his team accountable. He kept blaming them for performance issues. But lately, I’ve noticed that he really drags in his decision-making. And one of his employees told me she had been waiting on directives from him for three days – that she couldn’t move forward with her project until he made a decision on something.”

Maxine’s business was in jeopardy. After talking with Earl, I asked if I could talk with other managers, as well. My discovery showed that we actually needed to revisit a basic framework for decision-making with Maxine, and then to work with the managers to have a shared understanding.

Here are some of the comments from Maxine’s managers – and which may be reasons your own manager hesitates to make decisions:

I don’t have the information I need. It’s hard to weigh the pros and cons when I don’t have the info I need and the larger picture.
I’m not sure I have the authority. Does this decision fall to me, or does it need to be made by my leader?
I don’t feel like I have the knowledge or experience. I’m new to this position and not sure I am equipped. What if my decision is wrong? I’m afraid to commit, not knowing what the outcome might be.
My past experiences in making these kinds of decisions were poor. What will happen if I make a mistake?
This decision is a tough one – how will I handle reactions? How do I get people on board?

Implied in each of these statements is a lack of clarity in parameters. If you sit with your managers, you may find that they hesitate in decision-making because of similar feelings. Discussions around this and identifying on what is needed to fill gaps in this area are crucial.

Encouraging them to reach out when they have questions is something you should expect. However, if this is not happening, you may want to have further conversations to explore reasons behind this. For more on this, see How Safe is it for Your Team to Make Decisions Together?

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Is Your Company Culture Too Nice?

July 21, 2021 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Is your company culture “too nice”?

As a leader, you may think you are doing your business a favor by encouraging politeness. But sometimes, emphasizing this too much may send the wrong message entirely.

How can you tell if you need to toughen up your culture?

Larry was quick to share with me that the culture at his company was warm and friendly, with a “family feel” to it.

“People are very courteous around here,” he said. “But we are in trouble. That’s why I’m calling you for help.”

“What kind of trouble are you experiencing?” I asked.

“I’m discovering that what our people say in meetings is not what they are saying in the hallways. We have quite a few employees that are under-performing, and their supervisors are not willing to hold them accountable. Our deadlines are not being met and we’re not even working on priorities. What’s going on?”

After sitting with Larry and some of his key executives, I discovered what kept his company from being a healthy, high-performing business. And as I shared, Larry’s face showed its dismay.

“You mean the very thing that I emphasized has created the problem?” he asked.

“Not exactly, Larry,” I answered. “Being kind and polite is important. But you need to make sure they don’t take this to mean an unwillingness to set expectations, be transparent, and hold people accountable.”

“I thought I was motivating the staff,” he answered. “After all, you ‘catch more flies with honey than vinegar,’ as they say.”

“Unfortunately, leaders over-emphasize politeness for a variety of reasons, Larry,” I said. “Some may not like conflict. Some might think, as you, that it will motivate people. Others may feel this will foster inclusion. But look where we have wound up, here.

“In fact, I’m willing to wager that you have people agreeing with each other on decisions when you should have healthy debate with different perspectives. This means you are killing possibilities of innovating. You probably have some people who were hired at a high-performing level who have now slowed down their pace to ‘meet the herd.’ And you probably have hidden conflict because people aren’t willing to address critical issues that keep the company from moving forward.”

“You are right,” Larry answered. “I can see that, now. So, what do I do?”

Here are some key steps I outlined which reflect the work we did together over the next few months to turn around Larry’s poor culture.

1. Set new expectations.

When it’s time to shift gears to foster a healthier culture, know what you want – and set these expectations very explicitly. This means defining what your cultural norms are and how they appear in action.For example, if one of your cultural norms is “respect,” what does respect look like when people work with each other? Instead of avoiding tough issues, it can mean confronting these issues by providing timely, critical feedback that supports growth.

2. Foster psychological safety at every level.

There is no high-performing team without psychological safety. Your team members must have each other’s back, support differing perspectives, ensure that everyone has a voice, and more. These are part of team norms – and if you haven’t done this work yet, it’s time now. You will see a huge difference in the way that your team is motivated, how they produce, and how they work together.

3. Hold people accountable for the right things.

Most businesses hold their people accountable for deadlines and for goals reached. But they seldom build in the system and processes they need to support human behavior. What this means is that if you want your people to be respectfully candid and talk about real issues, you need to encourage and reward this.

How does your company’s culture measure up?

Are you happy with how motivated and engaged your staff are?
How well do they brainstorm to innovate?
Do you reward supportive critical feedback that fosters greater development?

Focusing on your company culture means exponentially increasing your business revenues. If you find, like Larry, that your company isn’t where you want it to be, commit to making this a priority.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Executive Coaching: Understanding the Numbers

June 9, 2021 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Returning to work means reexamining how you operate to get things done. It’s an opportunity to see whether you and your staff can be even more effective in light of the complexities that have developed in the world which affect the business landscape. It’s time to fine-tune your leadership and take it to the next level.

But as business owners seek to develop their leadership and that of others in the company, they often focus on presenting workshops, classroom training, and mentoring programs. These have proven to be the least effective in developing leadership. Executive coaching, which is called upon less frequently, has proven to work best for leadership development, and the numbers reflect this.

“But my training budget is modest,” said one leader. “I can’t give every executive her own private coach.”

I agree that executive coaching may appear to be more costly. But the return is also much higher. Studies by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the American Management Association show the following: When businesses invest in executive coaching to develop greater leadership, they recognize a mean ROI (return on investment) of 7 times that of their initial investment, with a solid 25% of those same companies reporting a return of 10-49 times the investment.

How might your business benefit from such returns?

Typical ROI results reported from executive coaching include (but are not limited to) increased revenue and profitability, reaching or exceeding organizational goals, higher performance and productivity, greater creativity and innovation, and enhanced skills in communications and conflict management.

At the same time, leaders have all heard disappointing stories of coaching experiences that cause hesitation.

“How do I know it will work?” asked one executive. “My colleague really enjoyed his coaching experience, but he said it never really helped him reach any tangible goals.”

Sadly, his story is not unique.

How can you ensure, then, that your investment will pay off sizable dividends? Careful planning to identify a leader’s development goals and objectives is not enough. The coaching engagement should be overseen by a formally trained coach using proven methodologies, and the plan should have distinct measurables (more numbers!) that serve as success markers to gauge how well the process is working.

You may also consider team coaching, which can make the most of your budget, and still have great returns. New evidence supporting the effectiveness of this approach is exciting, and can yield such outcomes as greater trust, performance, alignment, and coordination (and these are just a few dividends).

A lot of leaders, in their eagerness to get “back to normal,” have given little thought to leadership development. The return to work has been first and foremost on most minds. However, with the complexities that COVID has brought to us, leaders and other decision-makers will need to sharpen their skills in decision-making and execution.

Indeed, the COI (cost of inaction) when it comes to leadership development is staggering and has increased exponentially with the new business landscape. For example, 67% of all productivity loss can be attributed to poor communication and conflict. Less-than-optimal leadership practices can cost a business an amount equal to as much as 7% of its total annual sales. There’s much more, but I think you are getting the picture.

Why don’t more companies take advantage of this tool?

Leaders fall into what we call “normalcy bias,” where they feel they are doing well, even when they are not. They may feel that coaching is only for corrective situations, or their executives seem too busy for coaching. And many feel their teams are meeting every goal they set. If the latter is your case, I’d challenge you to think about whether things are just too easy, and what could be accomplished by stretching those goals.

As the great “return to work” continues, and you think about whether your company is ready for more change, ask yourself if you are really fully equipped to lead it. Make sure that your investment, however you allocate it, provides you with a great return.

The Clockwork of Excellent Leadership: 3 Essential Gears

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Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.