Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

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Three Steps Necessary to Success

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Three Steps Necessary to Success
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Most of my work is helping executives and their teams make the shifts they need to make in order to successfully meet bigger goals. It is no easy task. Getting a group of people on the same page to make change sometimes means overcoming several personal agendas before the team can agree to shared goals.

Therein lies the challenge!

Making a change, whether individually or in a group, requires more than commitment to a goal and just “going for it.”

A study conducted at a nationally recognized health clinic revealed that only one in seven people will make the changes they know will make a difference to their quality of life or life itself. This has little to do with commitment and everything to do with the personal ability to make the leap necessary to succeed.

Making change means overcoming deeply engrained habits that feed emotional needs.

Such a shift requires that

  1. You are energetically committed to your goal.
  2. Your plan has the right steps to help you move forward.
  3. You have the right kind of support.

Goal

Let’s say you want to become a better listener, and this is the goal you set.

These would be the requirements.

1. Commitment

First, you would need to assess your commitment to becoming a better listener. On a scale of one to five, do you rate your desire at a four or above?

If not, you will not succeed in your efforts.

If you find you are lukewarm about a goal, your energy around change will not be enough to help make the change. Perhaps a coworker or family member is after you to make this shift, or it just sounds good to be a better listener. But this is not enough. The goal you set must reflect your agenda, and it must be a strong priority for you.

2. Micro Shifts

Second, your plan must reflect micro shifts toward the goal. Too often, the gap between a vision and where one currently is leaves too vast a gap in order to move forward. In other words, we may have a clear picture of what success looks like, and a good understanding of the gap between where we are and where we want to be. We may even have incremental milestones we want to reach that will tell us that our efforts are succeeding. But these are not yet adequate for a sound plan.

A change journey must be broken down into bite-sized moves forward so the brain recognizes success and is encouraged to keep going. In the example of wanting to be a better listener, it may be too big a jump for you at first to leave your personal agenda aside when listening to others.

Perhaps a first micro shift would be to pause five seconds after the other person finishes talking before you jump in.

Or maybe you decide that you must ask one question about what they are saying before assuming you know what they are talking about.

Bite-sized pieces allow you to feel that you are succeeding, and it is a carrot to the brain to move forward instead of retreating to comfortable old habits.

3. Support

Finally, the right kind of support is needed in order to feel one is reaching success. This can come in many forms. You can hire a coach, and/or ask two or three trusted friends or colleagues to encourage and hold you accountable. For some, it is enough to surround yourself with positive people who believe in you and your efforts. Whatever means of support you seek; you must make sure you remove negative roadblocks in the form of people who don’t want you to change.

This may sound odd. However, we are all creatures of habit, and if someone in our circle begins to behave differently, we will subconsciously feel the difference and attempt to calm the disruption. So be careful of those in your circle of influence who may subtly attempt to sabotage your efforts.

In the example of becoming a better listener, you may have someone who makes fun of you wanting to change. Or they may be someone who possesses a closed mindset, and this is reflected in something like, “Oh, give it up. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Be careful of these underground currents that can push you back, and avoid or eliminate them.

If you will give careful thought to these three steps, you can reach goals you never thought possible. Every time you replace a poor habit with a better one, or you shift a behavior that allows you to operate at a higher capacity, this elevates you to a new altitude, allowing you to see greater vistas and opportunities that were once not visible to you.

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© 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.

Does Your Lack of Authority Make You Anxious?

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Does Your Lack of Authority Make You Anxious?
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Does the thought of using your authority make you anxious?

This can really get in the way of moving the business forward.

Susan was the CEO of a small company, who found it challenging to manage her people with authority. And it was costing her considerably.

I first met Susan at a CEO forum. She was instantly likeable – people flocked around her to laugh and joke with her, and it was clear that she made friends easily.

Later, when she called me to work with her, I found that her employees also enjoyed her humor and engaging manner.

“Susan is a great listening ear,” one of her executives said. “And she’s always good for a lift in spirits.”

“Yes,” I said. “Everyone seems to appreciate her.”

“Appreciate her? Not as a leader. They like her,” the executive responded. “But as a leader, she could do with some spine. She needs to stop letting her executive team push her around.”

Although I didn’t let on, this was exactly why Susan had invited me to meet with her.

“I’m noticing that the executive team is making key decisions without me,” Susan shared later. “And I have to confess that I feel some frustration when we hold our team meetings. I feel like people are riding all over me.”

“What do you think is happening?” I asked.

Susan looked blank. “I’m not sure. But, Patti, I’m scared. How did I get here? Maybe I’m not fit to lead. Can you help?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to attend one of your executive team meetings,” I said. “Perhaps I can glean some insights that might help. Let’s talk afterward.”

When they next met, I was present. Susan introduced me as her new executive leadership coach. “If I expect all of you and the organization to grow, I need to grow first,” she laughed.

The meeting adjourned two hours later, and we met back in her office. I shared what I had observed.

The team was not aligned in any of the discussion, and they fought for personal agendas. Further, when Susan gave a recommendation on an item, two of the other team members argued her down. Finally, one of the team members seemed to dominate the entire meeting with his ideas about how things ought to run. Susan finally sat back and remained silent.

“So, I can see why you are frustrated, Susan,” I said. “It was pretty chaotic in there, and you didn’t move any one of your agenda items forward.”

“Things are just out of control,” she said. “Where do I start?”

“Pretty simple, really,” I responded. “When did you first become uncomfortable with your authority?”

During the rest of our meeting, Susan shared how she transitioned from a competitor to become CEO of her current company. When she first onboarded, the outgoing CEO warned her to play small and allow the team to acclimate to her. It seems one of the executive team members had interviewed for the CEO position and lost. Over the next few months, Susan fell into allowing the team to decide by consensus. She became anxious each time she thought about asserting her authority and backed off.

“I became a fly on the wall and became frozen, Patti,” Susan told me. “I didn’t used to be a highly anxious person. But I am, now. And the stress is overwhelming.”

Susan had taken the path of least resistance, and it had backfired.

  • People on the team started making key decisions without her.
  • She felt she was losing footing.
  • She became vague and unclear whenever she provided direction.
  • Other executives pushed back, and she backed down again.

“The anxiety has become overwhelming,” she told me. ”And I’ll do whatever it takes to remove the stress.”

“Well, get ready for more anxiety, then,” I countered. “But this time, it will be worth it.”

I shared that, whether you make a change or not, when you are not comfortable with where you are (and in Susan’s case, with exerting her authority), you will experience anxiety.

“Right now, you are experiencing chronic anxiety. Chronic anxiety comes from putting up with a situation that is stressful rather than taking the painful steps to resolve it. So that’s where you are, because you find yourself frozen and unsure as to how to move out from this space. Yet, should you choose to confront and make the change you need to make, that also creates anxiety. This kind of anxiety is acute. And we don’t like the thought of more anxiety. We put up with the chronic anxiety of inaction, so we don’t have to go through the acute anxiety.”

“That’s sounds crazy,” Susan said.

“It is, in a way,” I said. “Any attempt to change is going to make us feel the disruption of the familiar. A mentor coach of mine once explained it to me with the following example:  chronic anxiety would be if you walked around with a pebble in your shoe and you just kept walking with it because it’s too much effort to take off the shoe. You don’t want to face the challenge. Acute anxiety would be if you are in a 10k race, and you have a pebble in your shoe. You realize that, if you stop to take it out, you will go a lot faster. But you will also lose time. And you will now have to face compensating to win the race. But you choose to do so; and, thus, face the challenge.”

“So, in order to get peace and reclaim my effectiveness, I will need to get off the path of least resistance, and face this. Stand up. Take back my authority.”

“Yes,” I answered. “But it’s easier said than done. There are a lot of people out there who know they need to face change, but they won’t. They need a thought partner to help strategize and implement, someone who can support them through the acute stress. The difference between them and you is that you are willing to take action on those needs.”

“Makes total sense,” said Susan. “When and where do we start?”

Susan and I worked over the next six months to help her reclaim her authority in a respectful, yet firm manner. There were some eruptions along the way, but Susan dealt with them well, which made room for the team to come together and begin to build cohesion and trust.

A year later, she called me.

“You wouldn’t recognize us,” she said. “We are moving forward together on all cylinders. Our conversations are different, and we are getting things done. I’m feeling comfortable leading, and the team is taking great pride in each of their areas of responsibility. Thank you.”

“You did the work, Susan,” I responded. “You decided a bit of acute anxiety was worth the prize. Congratulations!”

Are you identifying with Susan’s dilemma in this story?

  • Where in your own leadership are you feeling chronic anxiety?
  • How much is it costing you, your team, and the company?
  • And the most important question: Are you willing to go through the acute anxiety needed to take back your authority?

—

This article is part of a series of real-life scenarios that leaders face in today’s business world. The names and details are modified to preserve confidentiality and may represent multiple occurrences.

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© 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.

Can You Be Angry and Still Lead Well?

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Can You Be Angry and Still Lead Well?
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Can you lead well when you feel angry?

A corporate executive described himself as “useless” when he experienced upset.

When he felt angry, he found it difficult to make simple decisions and get regular work done.

Both his team and his family agreed that something needed to change.

The leader’s inability to manage his anger crippled his business, as decision-making and execution are critical to outcomes.

“How do you deal with anger and still lead well?”

That’s the question he asked when he first called for help.

“I’m in the middle of an expansion, Patti. Operating at my best is critical. How do I work around this thing?”

I responded, “You can’t work around it. In fact, the key idea here is to manage your emotions well. When you learn to do this, your decision-making and your ability to get work done will be much stronger than it ever has been.”

“I’m listening,” he said. “But it doesn’t sit well with me. When I am upset, I shut down. I actually feel numb, and it’s hard to think at all.”

He and I met to continue our conversation. He described himself as steady, even keeled in most all situations, and one who shied away from confrontations.

“I’m really pretty easy to get along with,” he said. “But I admit to having some hot buttons. It really gets me going when people are unreliable or untrustworthy. But that’s pretty normal, right?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Those are some of my hot buttons, as well. How do you handle it when these things come up?”

“That’s where it gets difficult,” he explained. “I tend to stuff my irritation and ignore the problem. You can guess how that winds up. In fact, I hate to tell on myself, but I’ve allowed some pretty bad behavior on my team. As it worsens, I get angry. And then I just withdraw and shut down. When I’m hot under the collar, I can’t think. And then, with this expansion, I need everyone to just get on board and stop the nonsense. But they don’t. And that makes me angrier. And at a certain point, when my blood pressure can’t take it anymore, I simply numb out.”

“What’s worse is that when I go home, I think I can switch gears and shut the office out of my head. But my wife says this definitely doesn’t work. She says I don’t connect with the family – no conversation, just a low-hum heavy feeling in the air. I told her I was meeting with you to help me deal with this. She says to thank you in advance on behalf of the entire family. I had no idea it was affecting things that much.”

“So, here’s what I’m hearing,” I said. “You’ve just outlined what may be the chief reason for your company’s productivity loss, your executive team’s in-fighting, your lost deadlines holding back expansion – and your family life at home. That’s huge. You need more emotional agility, and you need it quickly.

“Emotional agility is the ability to navigate challenges by managing your inner game – your thoughts, feelings, and emotions.”

He stared at me with his mouth open. “I’ll do just about anything. I am seeing damage all around me from this. How do I turn this around? How do I get more emotional agility so that I can get things back on track?”

Over the next few months, he and I worked together on making friends with anger.

It sounds odd, but it isn’t. Emotions are powerful, and most of us simply don’t know how to harness this power. Emotions are simply a signal that alerts us when something affects us or our experience. Paying attention to these signals can sharpen our critical thinking and our execution.

But creating awareness around the emotions we are feeling and making friends with them as mere signals is just the first step.

The next step is crucial – managing your emotions.

And this step was indeed more challenging. Once he recognized that anger would help alert him to pay attention to something, he then needed to decide how to address the situation that was causing it.

As he and I identified biggest potential wins through managing his anger, confrontation was first. There was a key area within the executive team that had been left to fester.

He had to decide what he would expect of the two execs causing the trouble, to share it with them, and then to stand by this to enforce accountability.

Then, he needed to recognize how to make decisions, even in a “hot state.”

This meant recognizing and validating the emotion so that he could self-regulate (simmer down) and make decisions based on his values and not be driven by emotion.

Over the following months, the business began to respond positively at both individual and team levels, and the culture shift had significant impact on the company’s ability to expand and do it well.

He single-handedly turned the business around by managing his own leadership.

In confronting his own growth area, he created impact throughout the organization.

What one thing in your leadership could make a critical impact to your business or area of responsibility?

© 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.

Are You Suffering from Performance Anxiety?

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Are You Suffering from Performance Anxiety?
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If you lead a group of people, you most certainly carry the chronic stress that accompanies this. It’s a privilege and a responsibility to lead, and this can weigh heavy.

How do you stay on an even keel and avoid the burnout that can otherwise sneak up on you with this responsibility?

Let’s look at three common false beliefs that CEOs and other leaders carry, which create undue stress and additional problems.

1. I need to know more than my executive team.

This is naïve and unrealistic. The world is in a constant state of change and complexity. The smart thing to do is for the CEO to surround himself or herself with experts. They should concentrate on sharpening their systems, thinking, and emotional intelligence for influence and impact. Challenges that accompany the rise to the top require such.

2. I need to make all important decisions.

Fully 50% of all decisions executives make are wrong. Various factors play into this, but chief among them is that executives make these decisions without the benefit of brain trust. Know when you must make an executive decision – and when it’s best to include others for various perspectives to challenge best thinking.

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3. I can count on my great performers being great leaders.

Many a CEO has promoted an excellent performer to a leadership position because of his stellar performance, and this has backfired. In fact, the skills and attributes of a great performer are not what will make him a great leader, as leading people requires a different skillset. What the organization is left with is an underperforming leader, which causes problems and more work for those who lead.

If you find as top leader that you are carrying undue chronic stress, chances are that you are not tapping into the full potential of your executive team to take more ownership. Sharing this with them will not only relieve performance anxiety for you, it will also flex the executive team’s ability to stand into greater responsibility and succeed.

© 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.

How to Develop a Culture of Gratitude in the Workplace

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How to Develop a Culture of Gratitude in the Workplace
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Could your workplace benefit from greater morale and engagement?

The answer may be simply to develop a workplace culture of gratitude. This may seem odd to many, since gratitude has long been considered a “soft” practice, but the results are dynamic.

In fact, developing a culture of gratitude helps elevate wellness, engagement, productivity and employee retention. And these things are measurable.

Moreover, gratitude has been called the gateway to developing greater empathy and compassion, which are cornerstones of group emotional intelligence on high-performing teams.

Gratitude is the quality of being thankful.

But it differs from appreciation.

Whereas appreciation is thankfulness for the goodness in our lives, gratitude moves beyond this. It attributes these positive things to forces outside ourselves. For example, noting an accomplishment at work will include recognizing the efforts and contributions of others in making this a success.

Moreover, if gratitude is to become a culture embraced by the organization, it must be systematized so that it is replicable. Where do we begin?

Gratitude starts at the top.

We must start at the top, agreeing at the executive team level to identify and coordinate the practice of gratitude. Then, modeling this, we must also teach them to reports, replicating this throughout so that it cascades throughout the entire workforce.

Where do you begin?

  1. Define key approaches your organization can take to express gratitude.

Begin with “thank you.” How does your organization address recognition? It may have yearly events where people are recognized for years of service, outstanding performance, and other categories.

But what can expressing gratitude in the workplace look like on a more regular basis? Where and how can you say thank you more often? This may take the form of virtual or physical “walls” that provide shout-outs. It may be in the form of a handwritten note or other special gesture. Decide how gratitude looks at the individual, team, and organizational levels.

  1. Assess for gaps and growth opportunities at the individual, team, and organizational levels.

As you design your organizational gratitude practice, make sure you examine how these thread through from the individual to team, and from team to organization, so that the practice cascades throughout. For example, does your organization preach work-life balance, but quietly expect that people will work 80 hours weekly? This requires not only conversations but reexamining the organizational model to see how to restructure and grow the resources needed for its employees to enjoy balance.

  1. Identify the behaviors that support these approaches.

Many times, change management practices fail only because the organization has defined categories of improvement, but it has not identified the supporting behaviors that support each category.

For example, if a category within your defined gratitude practice is “recognize a job well done,” what are the behaviors associated with this? How will we know this recognition is occurring?

An example might be, “timely acknowledgment through personal call or thank you note.” Be sure to address the whole person as you define behaviors to be recognized. Focusing solely on top performers omits all those supporting the process who contribute greatness through character, such as going the extra mile, exhibiting great compassion, and other traits. And these are the heart of the organization – the very stuff that keeps it going.

  1. Model these behaviors to begin establishing the culture.

As chief executive, how are you expressing gratitude for others in the workplace? Facets of your expression should include being sincere, specific, and humble. As an insincere acknowledgment erodes trust, so does a sincere expression build it.

Beyond this, a simple “thank you” is not enough without saying why you are thankful. Give specifics as to how someone else’s behaviors or actions resulted in a positive outcome or tenor. And third, be humble and keep this about the other person. It is always disappointing to hear of an acknowledgment that turns a message into something that is all about you or the project itself. Make sure you give ample light and credit to the person you are recognizing.

  1. Reward these behaviors in others as you recognize them in order to reinforce the culture.

How can you reinforce these behaviors in others? What does acknowledgment of these look like? And how can you hold your managers accountable for supporting this? Do you need to build this into expectations? And what does that look like?

Gratitude, when practiced with a sincere heart, can turn around an ailing culture. Be sure to address it. And be sure that it starts with you.

© 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.