Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

Increasing Your Influence

Is Your Team Costing the Company Money?

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Is Your Team Costing the Company Money?
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Three Trust Indicators

You can talk all you want about time management tactics, learning how to facilitate critical conversations, and mastering conflict resolution.

But unless your team enjoys a high level of trust among its team members, none of these wonderful skills will help your team’s performance.

In fact, your team may be costing your company a lot of money.

Signs of an Unhealthy Trust Quotient

Here are some signs your team may have an unhealthy (and therefore costly) trust quotient.

  • Everything takes longer and seems harder for team members.
  • People don’t do their best work.
  • They easily become disengaged and withdrawn.
  • Their confidence in themselves and others on the team diminishes.
  • They have feelings of complacency or even fatigue.
  • They are not as prone to connecting with each other or sharing information.
  • Grousing about the company may be a common theme.
  • Some might even question if the enterprise is a right fit for them.

What It Is Not

These signs are not to be confused with team overload, where a company over-commits, and its results are felt throughout the organization with inappropriate workloads and deadlines. No, this is not overload.

What It Is

This is a falling away from former collaboration. It’s an unwillingness to participate by speaking up. It’s a reticence to take risks together, and an uncomfortable commitment to the status quo. You may see things like escalated emotions, turf issues, abdication of responsibility or micromanaging, and certainly some hidden agendas.

As you consider what comes with low trust, you can easily deduce what this means to the company.

What do you do when you detect signs that your team needs to build more trust?

You need to determine the source of this lack of trust so that you can rectify it.

According to researchers Dennis Reina, PhD; Michelle Reina, PhD, and David Hudnut, MIA, renewing trust can result in greater accountability, effectiveness, innovation, respect, performance, profitability (need I go on?). The researchers have developed a Team Trust Scale that measures three areas: trust of character, trust of capability, and trust of communication.

How does your team rate?

I have taken the researchers’ indices of a high level of trust in these areas and paraphrased statements with which you and your team members can rate yourselves.

Using a scale of 1-5, with 5 being highest. How do you rate?

Trust of Character

  • I manage expectations
  • I establish boundaries
  • I delegate appropriately
  • I encourage mutually-serving intentions
  • I keep agreements
  • I am consistent

Trust of Capability

  • I acknowledge people’s abilities and skills
  • I allow people to make decisions
  • I involve others and seek their input
  • I help people learn skills

Trust of Communication:

  • I share information
  • I tell the truth
  • I admit mistakes
  • I give and receive constructive feedback
  • I maintain confidentiality
  • I speak with good purpose

How did you do? And where do you need to shore up first, in order to make biggest impact in up-leveling team trust?

Four Types of Leadership Behaviors You Can’t Do Without

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Four Types of Leadership Behaviors You Can’t Do Without
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How many leadership behaviors have you read about? Ten? Twenty? Another number?

Pretty mind-boggling, isn’t it? And if you are like many, such a sea of varying information can cause you to simply put the latest article aside and go back to doing things the way you know how.

In the world of leadership development, schools of thought are just as varied, and this means that I, as executive coach, can choose to use an assessment that evaluates 10 areas, or 26 areas.

So, now what?

If you are seeking to fast-track your leadership in this new year, I advise that you focus on enhancing just a small subset of four leadership behaviors.

Just four areas.

New research reveals that these four types of leadership behaviors account for 89% of leadership effectiveness, especially for front-line leaders. (Source: McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index https://www.mckinsey.com/)

McKinsey & Company surveyed 81 organizations, diverse in industry and geography (agriculture, consulting, energy, government, insurance, mining, and real estate in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Europe).

The results showed the following four areas of leadership to be most important, explaining 89% of the variance between strong and weak organizations in terms of leadership effectiveness.

  1. Supporting others.
  2. Solving problems effectively.
  3. Operating to follow through for results.
  4. Seeking different perspectives.

What does this mean for you?

Well, what it doesn’t mean is that you just need these four and then you can sit back and relax. But what it does mean is that, as you review your leadership commission and where to start, it may well be with these four.

Rating yourself on a scale of 1-5, how do you feel you measure up?

I’ve included some reflective questions to help you begin your assessment:

Supporting others.

Do you operate with authenticity, and show a sincere interest in those around you? Do you seek to inspire and build trust? Are you adopting the approach “tough on issues, tender on people”?

Solving problems effectively.

Are you thoughtful as you analyze and consider best options for action? Do you seek to be proactive in identifying and anticipating challenges, and to come up with solutions, rather than to react too quickly without the information you need, risking a poor decision?

Operating to follow through for results.

Do you marry vision and supporting strategy to action? Have you mastered the behaviors required to meet your goals and objectives, and can you manage people, products, and process effectively so that outcomes are a reflection of your best work?

Seeking different perspectives.

As esoteric as it sounds, do you “seek first to understand, then to be understood?” (Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People). Do you ask your team members to contribute ideas for performance improvement? Are you keeping the pulse on changes in the environment that are likely to influence your company and your work?

Developing any one of these four is a game-changer, and I will tell you frankly that you probably won’t do this alone. Why? It is one thing to be self-aware about the changes one needs to make, and it’s quite another to be able to effectuate those shifts and make them part of who you truly are. You will need to tap into some kind of expert support to step into more of this potential.

This said, the first step to change is to identify the needed change. So, where will you start? What will give you the greatest ROI in your own leadership?

And secondly, who might help you get there?

Three-Direction Checklist for Leadership Effectiveness

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Three-Direction Checklist for Leadership Effectiveness
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Your role requires that you lead. You may be in charge of a team, a greater area of responsibility, or even an enterprise.

Yet, if you think your job is to simply lead those who report to you, think again.

You need to manage up, down, and sideways.

Why?

Because strong team leadership is not enough to support the enterprise effectively. Research continues to prove this as we examine what works – and what doesn’t – to align culture, increase business impact, and frankly, to ensure your career success.

Effective leadership means that you need to be able to develop trust, forge shared accountability, and strengthen your influence at every level in the organization.

How do you do this? By managing this up, down, and across.

Here’s a quick checklist – can you identify where you need to strengthen your leadership in managing?

Managing Up

Are you aligned with your leader’s agenda? As you work with your CEO, your board, or other leader, are you focusing on strategic issues and demonstrating financial results? Or does your own agenda distract from these key areas, wasting time, energy, money, and brainpower?

Many a seasoned leader has fallen into complacency with what works for their particular team. In doing so, their ability to see the larger picture diminishes. If you find yourself in the latter situation, you will want to acquire or revive your company-wide lens to connect your role and your team’s charge to the organizational agenda.

Managing Down

Have you aligned your reports’ work to the agenda of the company? Or have the growing demands placed on your area strayed from the larger agenda? When I first begin work with a company in growth mode, I frequently discover that teams may be working on things that have little to do with the current company agenda.

Shifting priorities at the top means close communication at all levels to share this so that all are supporting the enterprise in their focus, responsibilities, and assigned work. When was the last time you re-examined your reports’ roles, assigned projects, and accompanying goals and deadlines, to make sure these align with the company’s direction and focus?

Managing Across

Have you aligned with your colleagues, both intra- and inter-team, so that you support shared accountability and success? Or are you shooting virtual arrows at your colleagues and their teams because they are holding you back or interfering with your ability to deliver?

The lion’s share of productivity problems in an organization result from a lack of commitment and ability to solve problems between teams. Forging strong ties and agreeing to keep communication channels open for this are key to keeping employees engaged and motivated, and your customer’s journey an excellent one.

Where do you stand as you review these three areas? What is the one thing you can do now to move forward in this area so that you can capture greater success?

Five Questions to Make a Fulfilling Transition to Your Next Chapter

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Five Questions to Make a Fulfilling Transition to Your Next Chapter
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Since life is not static, your situation is also full of change. You may be seeking to change careers or retirement. Some of you have just sent your child to college for the first time. Your marital status or your role with an elderly parent may be in question. But, no matter what shift in life is occurring for you, most certainly you are asking yourself what’s next.

Many of us plan with new activities in mind. We see empty space ahead, and the natural human thing to do is to quickly fill this so that we have a navigable course for our days. As human beings, we don’t like not knowing what to do with ourselves.

Then, some of you are in a contemplative stage in your life where you question whether you’ve made the contributions you wanted to make. You ask yourself if you can truly make this next chapter count, making sure that it is meaningful and fulfilling.

If you are finding yourself in a position of change and you are drawing up a bucket list for your next chapter, take the time to ask yourself the following five questions in order to make your future story most meaningful.

Five Questions to Make a Fulfilling Transition

1. How do I ensure that this next chapter is most meaningful?

It’s natural to seek meaning in our lives. It answers questions such as, “How do I navigate the world?” and “Why am I here?” Human beings seek purpose to understand how they fit in, and as you shape your immediate future, it will be more fulfilling if you can relate what you do to a purpose.

For example, if you choose to shift careers, how will doing this bring more meaning into your life? If you decide you will climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, what meaning might you draw from this experience? At many levels, these two examples will provide new opportunities to learn and grow.

2. How can I make sure that whatever I choose makes a difference to others?

This question becomes even more important as we age. At a certain point in life, we begin to question what difference or legacy we have truly created. This harks back to meaning and purpose, and links it to how we have been able to positively affect others.

It answers the question, “Has my life been of worth?”

This query can be answered by identifying how we have contributed by bringing value to the world. We need not take on Mother Teresa’s commission in order to feel confirmed in this way. One of the greatest human beings who contributed to my life was a high school teacher who simply cared enough about his students to show them that he did.

3. Where in my life do I need to play bigger?

It may be that in your current situation, you have ignored some personal growth opportunities. Some of you may have something in your personal life that needs adjusting. Others may have identified a specific dynamic in your professional life that holds you back. Are you comfortable confronting conflict? Confident in presenting? Where in your life might you decide to finally tackle that one thing that keeps you in a compromising comfort zone? One of the greatest satisfactions we can find is that sense of overcoming and stepping into the success that new growth brings.

4. How shall I make this next chapter fun?

A lot of executives and business owners I coach are intent on meeting goals and getting ahead. They should be – this is their commission – to support a healthy enterprise and their own careers.

I see the same in others, whether stay-at-home parents or retirees. It can become somewhat of a dry checklist with little enjoyment, unless we ask ourselves how we can approach our work so that it is fun. When you are in a serious situation such as caretaking, this question may seem odd, but it is even more important. Levity feeds attitude, and attitude feeds soul. How can you infuse fun into your next chapter?

5. Is it possible to “have it all” in this next chapter?

What does “all” mean to you? When most ask this question, they are usually addressing that long list of activities. But if you will take a moment to step back and ask yourself what is most important to you in the coming story, what outcomes you would like to celebrate at the end of that chapter, I think you will find that your list becomes smaller, but more meaningful and full of the essential.

The greatest reward comes not from a full calendar, but from fewer, but deeper and more enjoyable experiences.

Here’s to making an amazing next chapter for yourself! Have fun with these questions, and make sure that your new story counts.

Five Principles to Quickly Align Your Leadership with the Future

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Five Principles to Quickly Align Your Leadership with the Future
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Many of you have resonated with last week’s article about Sandra and her need to make her business viable for the future. If you haven’t read it, yet, read here.

Some have asked me how to develop the leadership “flex” or agility that is necessary to meet the future successfully. But how to do this – to develop your leadership to reflect purpose and flexibility, exercising highest creativity for best decision-making, continually learning and changing…well, entire books have been written about this!

My private clients and I work over a period of time to help them develop this agility.

But to give you a quick start in this direction, let me share some foundational principles with which we begin our work. Incorporating these into your approach for the upcoming year will make a profound difference in the way you are able to meet the future successfully.

Where in your work or life do you need more of the following?

1. Acknowledge that change requires responding rather than reacting.

It is first necessary to acknowledge that the world tomorrow will not be the same as it is today, and that the unknown holds exciting possibilities far beyond anything we can imagine. This is more challenging than you think. You may admit that things are changing, but if you introspect carefully, you will note that in certain areas of your life or the way you lead, you expect some things to remain the same. When they don’t, rather than to respond thoughtfully, you find yourself reacting with surprise and defensiveness. When this happens, you eclipse using the creative part of your brain to think through how to handle the situation. Identify the areas that tend to place you in a reactive mode so that you can make the mental shifts necessary to overcome this.

2. Dare to explore new and uncharted territories.

This means becoming comfortable with operating with the unfamiliar, stopping to widen your lens to understand the landscape as you go. Pushing the edge means nothing unless you are willing to look at it and to step out onto it in order to move forward with this new reality. How long has it been since you have met with other leaders to discuss what is happening in the world and how it affects the business landscape – and the way you must lead? Exploring new territories means having an executive team that forges ahead together. As you adopt the mindset of exploration, invite others to come with you, so that you can climb with support, camaraderie, accountability, and best collective thinking.

3. Be willing to flex and adjust your approach as you make meaning of the unfolding terrain.

You must develop leadership agility. This is the one thing that will keep you current in your leadership:  the ability to “take effective action in complex, rapidly changing conditions. Only 10% have mastered the level of agility needed for consistent effectiveness in our turbulent era of global competition” (Joiner and Josephs, Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change). When faced with new and foreign terrain, mountain climbers must weigh carefully the equipment and approach they will use in order to avoid disaster. Don’t fall into the mindset that what you have used in the past will work in future. Weigh and test carefully as you move forward.

4. Get excited about making mistakes.

You should always be making new mistakes – these indicate that you are forging ahead in the unknown, discovering points of learning that can become part of your roadmap to help you to navigate more successfully. If, however, you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again, this is a clear signal that you have a particular point of learning that has not been addressed successfully. Many persist in approaching something in the same way repeatedly, hoping that after a while, there will be a breakthrough. There won’t. Confront the fact that you need to make a shift – and ask yourself what you have learned from this so that you can up-level your thinking and your leadership.

5. Understand the power and necessity of 360° leadership.

Leadership must be actively engaged in all areas of your life. I often tell my clients that, “You take yourself to work and back again,” meaning that whatever you carry in one area of your life will affect how you show up everywhere and in all situations. Further, leadership must be present at all levels and at all degrees of the team and the enterprise in order to meet and make change effectively. It is generally what people consider “the little things” that count for much. For example, are you an individual, team, or company that promises much and delivers late? You may be saying that this doesn’t matter – that your clients love your product and they will wait for it. However, these are the differences that will make or break you in future vis-à-vis the competition. Do a quick assessment of what improvements need to be made, and tackle the biggest win, first.

As you look at the quick principles above, which one is most pertinent to making a big shift in your own leadership?