Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

brainstorming

Business Leader: Are You Socially Isolated?

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Business Leader: Are You Socially Isolated?
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In today’s fast-paced, hyper-connected world, it’s paradoxical yet increasingly common for business leaders to experience social isolation. This phenomenon, exacerbated by the rise of remote work and digital communication, poses a significant threat to their professional effectiveness. As business leaders, we often overlook the subtle but profound impact that social isolation can have on our decision-making, innovation, team dynamics, and overall leadership capabilities.

Marc’s Story

Marc, a seasoned CEO in the manufacturing industry, reached out to me for help. Pre-pandemic, Marc thrived on face-to-face interactions, drawing energy and ideas from his bustling office environment and frequent industry conferences. However, as remote and hybrid work became the norm, Marc found himself increasingly isolated. The casual hallway chats and spontaneous brainstorming sessions that once fueled his creativity were replaced by sterile Zoom meetings and endless email chains.

The psychological toll was swift and severe. Marc began experiencing heightened levels of stress and anxiety, which, in turn, impaired his ability to make sound decisions. This aligned with the studies that show that social isolation can lead to depression and cognitive decline, further aggravating these issues. For Marc, the lack of emotional support and camaraderie led to a decline in his mental health, affecting his performance and decision-making abilities.

When Marc reached out to me, he complained of post-pandemic brain fog. He was noticing a lack of clarity around thinking and decision-making. He was anxious and complained of severe stress. What we uncovered as we began our work together was that Marc had isolated himself socially over time in this new hybrid world. This caused significant damage, as he unwittingly cut off the rich and dynamic input his team and peers could provide. This meant that he had limited or no access to diverse perspectives and feedback, crucial elements for informed decision-making and fostering innovation. Without this, his decisions became increasingly insular and less effective. Innovation, once a hallmark of his leadership, began to stagnate.

In a collaborative setting, diverse viewpoints spark creativity and drive innovative solutions. Isolated leaders like Marc miss out on these critical interactions, leading to a decline in their ability to innovate and adapt to changing market conditions. The consequences for the organization can be severe, with missed opportunities and a lack of competitive edge.

Marc’s isolation didn’t just affect him; it impacted his team and permeated throughout the entire company. Strong relationships and trust are the bedrock of effective teams. As Marc and I worked on a plan to turn this around, his team was eager to share their growing detachment and the perceived lack of value they brought to the table. This was also affecting their ability to support morale and engagement within their own teams – a recipe for increasing turnover and a deterioration of organizational performance.

The once vibrant and collaborative culture of Marc’s company had begun to erode, impacting the bottom line. In short, the entire company had been adversely affected by one man.

It is important to note that Marc’s isolation also created strategic vulnerabilities for him. He neglected networking and building relationships with industry peers that were crucial for staying abreast of market trends and competitive intelligence. Without these insights, Marc struggled to make strategic decisions that would position his company for growth. Opportunities for partnerships and collaborations were missed, further hampering the company’s ability to compete and innovate.

In sum, Marc had diminished his credibility and influence within his organization and the broader industry. A leader perceived as disconnected may struggle to inspire and motivate their team. Furthermore, without strong social connections, Marc lacked the advocates and supporters needed to champion his vision and initiatives effectively.

I was heartened that Marc reached out when he did. Social interactions play a critical role in the learning and development process for all leaders, providing feedback and diverse perspectives that drive improvement. For Marc, isolation meant a lack of exposure to new ideas and constructive criticism, leading to stagnant growth.

Proactive Steps to Combat Social Isolation

The good news is that leaders like Marc can take proactive steps to combat social isolation. We integrated the following strategies in addition to team and cultural strengthening:

  1. Prioritize Regular Social Interactions: Make time for face-to-face meetings, even if virtual, and engage in meaningful conversations with your team and peers.
  2. Seek Mentorship and Peer Support: Build relationships with mentors and peers who can provide guidance, support, and diverse perspectives.
  3. Encourage Open Communication: Foster a culture of open communication and collaboration within your team.
  4. Engage in Industry Events: Participate in industry conferences, webinars, and networking events to stay connected with the broader community.

For Marc, implementing these strategies led to a gradual but significant improvement in his professional effectiveness. Although we captured some quick wins, turning around the minds and hearts of many took a good 18 months. During this time, he reinforced trust and appreciation with his team, rekindled his passion for innovation, and rebuilt his strategic networks.

Social isolation is a silent but formidable adversary for business leaders. It undermines decision-making, stifles innovation, weakens team dynamics, and creates strategic vulnerabilities. I invite you to reflect on your own social connections and identify areas where you may be experiencing isolation. Implement the strategies discussed to foster stronger connections and enhance your leadership effectiveness. Share your experiences and strategies for combating social isolation in leadership roles, and together, let’s build a more connected and effective leadership community.

© 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.

Keeping Your Head in the Game: Leadership 2021

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Keeping Your Head in the Game: Leadership 2021
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It’s a new year, and the pundits are calling 2021 the Year of Transition. If anything has changed, it has been that we have acclimated to a new way of working and living.

There are definite perks to this, but there have also been major drawbacks which have caused us to abandon much of what we know and adopt a learner’s mindset out of necessity.

Admit it – it’s been rough. Many of you reading this are tired. And some of you have called me, asking me how you can get your head back into the game.

What does it take to reenergize and motivate you as leader so that you can lead your life and work in 2021?

I work primarily with top executives to recreate future, working with their respective teams and companies, and also in small leadership groups where CEOs can put their heads together to share experiences and ideas. When we work on meeting the future, motivation of self is a hot topic.

And here is what we know: the head game of motivation requires that you focus on three things:

1. Purpose

Energy and engagement come from purpose. After weathering the initial shock and challenges of 2020, your physical and mental stores may be depleted. Revisiting your purpose is a first necessary step to picking back up. Why do you lead? What impact do you hope to make? What legacy are you seeking to create? If you keep pushing forward but cannot answer these questions, you will be headed for burnout. I invite you to take time to reflect on this. Call a coach or trusted advisor and talk through this. Because anything sustainable starts with purpose.

2. Direction

Know where you are headed. It is true that long-term planning is no longer valid due to the volatility and uncertainty around the future of work. Instead, one must use shorter-term planning to head in a general direction, and continuously bench against the changes in the business landscape. Keep your organizational vision at the forefront as you acquire the personal agility needed to meet goals and objectives. This particular step requires that you also open up to the perspectives of others. Seasoned leaders are comfortable doing things in the familiar way. And the word familiar is one that will not be used often in 2021.

3. Synergy

Leadership has been lonely, but then, we haven’t learned how to share it very well. Leading forward now requires the shift from “me” to “we,” for connection, mutual support and collective accountability. Inviting your executive team to share the vision is a first step, but the next is to allow them to share in greater responsibilities – the kind that ignites their purpose, as well. Raising the tenor of team energy is the magic we need to create great things together. Where do you start? Begin with a conversation around this topic. Ask for their ideas and feedback, ask what it would take for them to get excited around the idea. I believe this might be one of the most meaningful brainstorming you will have experienced for a long time – and it can yield great fruit.

My wish for you in 2021 is to know that you have what it takes (I know some of you question this at this time). My challenge to you is to rediscover your purpose and direction, and to create that synergy that will lift you up, as well as your team, so that you can move confidently to meet the future.

© 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 Safe is it for Your Team to Make Decisions Together?

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How Safe is it for Your Team to Make Decisions Together?
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When making decisions as a team, do you have a few dominant voices and others that shrink back?

Though you are hoping for collective genius, it may turn out that your team suffers from giving in to the squeakiest wheel. In other words, it isn’t so much that the decision-making process is faulty – it’s more often the way the team interacts in order to reach answers.

What do you do?

That’s what Johann asked me.

“Here’s how it goes. First, a situation or challenge is presented. And then I open it up for brainstorming. Jack will always have an opinion, and Daniel will want to argue for arguing’s sake. The other four have learned to sit back and just let it happen. And I’m tired of refereeing. How can I help the team work together better to make decisions?”

“Johann, you are missing two-thirds of your team brainpower. That’s significant.”

“Yes, and I’ve tried asking the others what they think, to give them space to talk. But they just don’t want to enter into the fracas.”

“I don’t blame them,” I said. “Nobody wants to jump in to talk when it doesn’t feel safe.”

“What do you mean, ‘safe’?”

“Well, my guess is when the others have tried to speak up that they are cut down, their opinion is discounted or diminished, or they get the feeling it wasn’t worth speaking up. Am I right?”

“Yes, I guess so,” Johann said. “So how do you make it feel safe to participate?”

I shared 3 steps with Johann to begin creating psychological safety for the team.

Psychological safety allows team members to take risks, voice innovative ideas, and speaking one’s mind. When it is absent, team members begin to shut down and go along with the dominant voices in the group to feel safe. It doesn’t feel good to stick one’s neck out with a possible new concept or solution, only to feel shot down by someone else in the group.

What happens over the long term is that those team members whose voices are overshadowed by the more dominant voices simply default to the prevailing opinion. In other words, they take the easy road out by agreeing with the majority. In this way, they avoid conflict or feeling shot down. The problem is that those team members who give in may not really endorse the decisions made. They will go along with it, but their engagement will be low.

And when engagement is low, results are sub-par. You’ve lost the power of the potential talent on the team.

What to do?

1. Begin with a team charter around decision-making. Have the team list out what they need in order to give their very best to the process. Talk about what gets in the way, what prevents them from participating or bringing their top ideas to the table. Then, turn this around to a shared agreement about how you will operate going forward. If no one speaks up about the quieter voices, provide your own feedback on how you have observed this.

2. Shake up the process. For example, if presenting a particular problem to be solved, make the rule that there will be a question period before opinions are proffered. Make a game of it. Only questions for 10 minutes to get the information they need, and then open the floor for recommendations. This question period will allow those who have been reticent to participate to jump in. You might even have people write down their recommendations, hand them to you, and have you read them.

3. Break up old dynamics. Appoint a devil’s advocate (or two!) and charge them with countering the group’s consensus. Invite them to challenge and to ask the difficult questions. Research has shown that challenging in this way can improve group outcomes and the quality of the decisions made. Appoint a time-keeper and limit the team members to 1 minute apiece as they go around “popcorn style” to provide their input. Make a rule that the first person to speak after someone has providing an idea must say something positive about the idea. You are shifting dynamics to allow participation in safe space.

Johann agreed to try out developing the team charter and reported later that this revealed deep feelings of which he had not been aware. The team was able to talk frankly and to decide how they wanted to do differently going forward. Further, when he integrated more of the ideas into the decision-making process, it was enough to help the team move out of a limiting dynamic and into a healthier, more inclusive one.

How would you rate your team’s ability to make decisions together? Although I can’t promise that this approach will help your team to make better decisions, I can tell you with confidence that when you improve the interaction between your team members during the process, that it will boost your chances of a better outcome.

© 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.

Three Behaviors of Best-Performing Teams

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Three Behaviors of Best-Performing Teams
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Many teams can produce great results for a while, but fewer can sustain such high performance over a longer period of time.

Why?

It’s in the way they operate as a group.

Behaviors are key.

Here are three nuancing behaviors you will always find in groups that outperform the rest.

  1. Clarify

Brainstorming should be a creative process, but it often shuts down quickly due to snap judgments such as, “We’ve tried that before, and it didn’t work,” or “The budget won’t allow it.”

Become an observer, and see if you can head off this thwarting behavior by doing the following:

  • Listen carefully. As ideas are put on the table, ask the team member to say more. Use clarifying phrases such as, “talk more about that” to allow them to expound on the concept and how it might play out.
  • Take the idea further by working with them to identify the positive business impact this might have beyond what seems immediately apparent.
  • Only after you have explored the positive business impact should you move on to identify potential roadblocks. Many great opportunities have otherwise been lost.

  1. Bridge

The improv philosophy of “Yes, and…” is a great way to position common ground and build on an idea when you may differ in opinion. Questions such as, “Can we do this?” can be met with a “Yes, and” response, outlining what would need to happen in order for the idea to work.

  1. Connect

High-performing teams connect personally. Instead of limiting your interactions to work topics, remember to delve more deeply into conversation to learn about their lives, what makes them tick, their passions, and more. When people are seen and known as human beings and not just as work machines, trust and camaraderie are built, and biases diminish. Performance thrives on this!

These are just three of a few nuancing behaviors that make the difference between good and great.

What others have you experienced that help your team perform at their best? If you aren’t sure, it’s time to assess.

© 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.

Three Ways to Jump-start Team Creativity

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Three Ways to Jump-start Team Creativity
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Creativity is essential to any organization if you want to move your business forward.

But what do you do when you’ve taken great pains to foster a supportive culture for this, but your team doesn’t seem to follow?

Often, it’s a matter of just one small shift in the way that you put your heads together.

Here are three ideas to help jump-start team creativity.

 1.  Champion the new idea.

What happens when a team member comes up with a new idea?

Most often, others on the team will respond with a cautionary response, or reasons why the idea will not work.

Research shows that when this happens, the subtle message is that bad things happen when new ideas are expressed. Instead, get your team to commit to doing the following: when someone shares a new idea or possibility, the first person to speak up must say something positive about the idea. This doesn’t mean the speaker has to endorse the idea; he or she must simply make a positive statement. An example might be, “That’s one I’ve never thought of! I’d love to sit down to explore how it might work!”

Research is showing that this one shift is allowing the safe psychological space in which to incubate innovation.

2.  Play the “what if” game.

When brainstorming on a new idea, spending time on reasons why something won’t work can stall creative energy. Frustration sets in, and the brain’s frontal lobe (where we do all our best thinking) shuts down – and usually ends the conversation.

To avoid this, confront the perceived roadblock when identified by stating, “And what if _____ (identified roadblock) were not an issue?”

This will quickly reanimate the conversation and, quite often, promote other ideas to work around the roadblock when all is said and done.

3.  Practice “brain-writing.”

Brain-writing is an effective alternative to brainstorming, which was popularized in the 1970s. The genius behind it is that it helps participants to step out their normal mental framework to explore greater possibilities.

There are variations of brain-writing, but one example is to pass out Post-ItTM notes or index cards, and have each person write down an idea. These are then passed to the next person on the right.

This receiving person can do one of three things: use the written idea as a catalyst for a new idea, modify the original idea, or pass the card along to the next person. After a set time agreed upon by the team, ideas are gathered up, grouped, and evaluated. For more on brain-writing, click here.

As you begin to recognize the sparks of creativity begin to fly, remember to encourage this so that momentum grows. Think about rewarding the best suggestion or solution with something the team has previously agreed upon, such as gift card for dinner out, a pair of movie tickets, or extra time off. These are small prices to pay for the benefits creativity brings – increased engagement, motivation, problem-solving and productivity, just to name a few.

© 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.