Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

ceo

A Powerful 5-Step Planning Tool

By Leave a Comment

A Powerful 5-Step Planning Tool for Executives to Finish Strong

A Powerful 5-Step Planning Tool for Executives to Finish Strong

It’s September.

If you are an executive in charge, acting “on purpose” to guide your team or entity to this year’s finish line is crucial.

I know it’s already on your mind.

Yet September is usually when I see executives start to slide.

 They have pushed hard during the first couple of quarters, and have allowed the summer’s workplace to slow things down.

Psychologically, it’s pretty tough to pick back up after ramping up and slowing down. It can cause stress, a feeling of overload as you try to get back on track, and a sense of being behind that can follow you through December 31st.

In fact, you may feel just a wee bit tired and demotivated just reading this, because you know what I mean.

Are you ready to get in front of this so you finish the year strong, avoiding the stress and overload that comes with year-end frenzy?

It’s time to get intentional.

I can help you do that so you finish out the next quarter in a strong and productive way that helps you and your team celebrate effectiveness and achievement.

It’s something I use with my private clients, no matter what time of year, to ramp up their success.

The 5-Step Powerful Planning Tool

1. Review your business foundation.

Gather your team and review your mission, vision, and values statements. Together, these should comprise a strong and exciting philosophy that does not change. These share the inspiration, the “why” of what you do that will fuel your motivation and drive over the next 90 days. Get clear on these before proceeding to step 2.

2. Assess your progress to date.

Review your current goals and strategies. Are these currently meeting and exceeding your business objectives? How well? Refer to any milestones and benchmarks associated with them to see if you are firmly on track, or if you need to adjust or shift any approaches you take to finish out the year. Celebrate the wins, cut the losses, and above all, quickly eliminate any work associated with that which is not working. Clear the deck for your last quarter.

3. Determine your priorities for the next quarter.

What priorities rise to the top? Identify or review the initiatives and projects associated with these. If you find it difficult to triage, do a quick analysis of priorities and projects so that you don’t hang on to the misnomer that “everything is equally important.” Take the lean and mean approach so you can finish strong, allow your team to be recognized well, and save your sanity.

4. Outline your 90-day action plan.

Working a 90-day action plan is incredibly effective at keeping you and your team motivated and energized, if you will include incremental milestones and short-term wins. So, as you identify major projects and activities, responsible parties and key stakeholders, ask yourself: What are the incremental milestones we can celebrate at the end of 90 days? Where are the best short-term wins to be captured that will support longer-range goals? And finally, do a quick assessment to ensure that the plan and its tenets support the enterprise’s mission, vision, and values. This is a great team-building exercise.

5. Up-level your ability to execute.

Use this 90-day action plan to perform a “personal 360°” on your plan and yourself. Have your team do the same, and then come together to discuss so that you can best support one another.

Here are questions to ask yourself:

  • As I look to the end of this next quarter, what commitments, activities, and calendar items do I need to shift, put aside, and/or eliminate in order to accomplish the 90-day action plan’s objectives?
  • What are those personal leadership behaviors I need to adopt in order to do well?
  • What needs eliminating?
  • What needs shifting?
  • What does meeting with my team to assess progress look like?
  • And how shall we celebrate our success at the end of these next 90 days?

I hope you enjoy this process as much as have my clients. They have used this for team-building, heightening performance, productivity, and morale.

What are your biggest barriers to meeting year-end goals? How do you move past these in order to succeed?

Taking Your Manifesto to Work

By Leave a Comment

Taking Your Manifesto to Work

Part III of Making Your Leadership Work

Is your leadership only in your head? You should be taking your manifesto to work.

Here’s a pet peeve of mine: anything that sounds great in theory, but doesn’t teach you how to use it.

This is especially true of leadership. There’s a lot of “feel good” stuff out there and heady theory about what leadership is, who you ought to be, and how it should work.

But what do you do with this?

Unless you can apply your knowledge practically, on the job, knowledge is not power, contrary to the old adage. You just walk around thinking about it and living off the warm and fuzzy feelings that thinking about leading can generate.

You and your leadership will just sit in your head.

How do you fix this?

You learn how to make the powerful connections that put your knowledge to work.

The power in possessing knowledge is always the same, whether it’s learning how to lead or perfecting your backstroke in the swimming pool.

You have to practice. You actually have to take your knowledge and apply it to learn how to master it.

So when it comes to your leadership manifesto – your beliefs as to who you are as leader, what is important, and how you intend to act on these beliefs, there’s a big hole.

And it’s taking your manifesto to work – seeing how it can make significant change.

How do you do that?

Well, first you must have developed your leadership manifesto. If you haven’t crafted your manifesto, click here.

And then, you need to put your manifesto to work by defining the impact it can make on the enterprise. This powerful visioning will serve as your inspiration for all you do.

To do this, you’ll need a piece of paper and pen or pencil. And then…

  • Position the paper so that it is in “landscape” mode.
  • Draw lines to make three columns on the paper.
  • Across the top, your column headers will be (left to right): “Manifesto Statement,” “The Enterprise,” and “The Transformation”
  • In the left-hand column, under the heading “Manifesto Statement,” list out the key statements from your manifesto.
  • Across from each statement in the “Manifesto Statement” column, and under the heading “The Enterprise,” write how the enterprise can be positively affected because of the statement.
  • Example: If your manifesto statement reads, “Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart,” then across from that, your statement about how it can affect the enterprise might be, “We have created a culture that cares and is involved.”
  • Across from each statement in the middle column, “The Enterprise,” list the resulting transformation in “The Transformation” column. “My employees are more creative and engagement, resulting in a superior product.”

Here it is so that you can see the relationship between your leadership manifesto and how you can impact the enterprise.

 

Manifesto Statement The Enterprise Transformation
Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. We have created a culture that cares and is involved. Our employees are more creative and engaged, resulting in a superior product.

 

Continue with each statement from your manifesto until you have exhausted the list. As you review your paper, congratulate yourself. You have just outlined the impact that your unique leadership can have on the enterprise – and the world.

Once you have defined the unique impact you can make with your leadership, you will identify those strategies that will best support this intended impact, and then, the actions necessary to effectuate them.

How will you put your leadership manifesto to work?

How to Create Your Leadership Manifesto

By Leave a Comment

 How to Create Your Leadership Manifesto

Part II of Making Your Leadership Work

Does your leadership count, or are you just the next “suit in a seat” in a succession of many?

If you want to make a significant impact on the world around you, you need to take a stand.

It’s time to revisit your leadership manifesto.

Don’t have one? It’s time to craft yours.

A manifesto is a declaration of principles that include your:

  • Intentions – what actions you intend to take
  • Key beliefs – your stance on things
  • Vision – the world as you wish to see it

There are a few reasons formulating your leadership manifesto is important.

It’s a formidable exercise in authenticity.

Authoring your manifesto forces you to identify your most important beliefs – a “stop and think” exercise for most of us. Then, it requires that you create a powerful vision in response to these beliefs, and to outline your intentions about how to create the change. If you think about it, this is a formidable exercise in stating who you are and what is important to you above all.

It brings focus to your work.

Your manifesto brings tremendous focus, helping you to reflect on what aligns – and what does not – in your work and life.

It helps you to stay the course in turbulent times.

Your manifesto serves as a GPS, supporting your ability to move toward your vision, even in the midst of significant challenges.

Ready to craft your leadership manifesto? Sit in a quiet place and reflect on the questions below. Many executives with whom I work go through these questions twice. During the first round, they answer the questions in the context of life; during the second round, they relate it to the workplace.

  1. I believe in ____
  2. I want to live in a world where ____
  3. Here is what I know for sure: _____
  4. The one problem I want to solve during my life _____
  5. The changes the world will see as a result ______
  6. What is at stake here is ______
  7. I will show the world ____

As you review your answers, what becomes clear for you? And what, in your life and work, needs to change?

A Multi-Million Dollar Company with No One Leading

By Leave a Comment

A Multi-Million Dollar Company with No One Leading

Mediation and Conflict Resolution

All names and other identifying information have been changed to protect confidentiality.

I was called to work with one of the largest construction companies in the Midwest, which was a recent merger of three very successful smaller construction companies.

“I want you to find out what’s wrong with these employees of mine,” said the president, looking at me across the desk. “These people aren’t putting in the sweat equity they should. In fact, I think a few of them are lazy – some need to be fired. Most are complaining that they haven’t gotten a raise in a long time, but before I go handing out candy, they need to show their stuff and get these back orders out.”

“Back orders?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “We have $40 Million in back orders we cannot fill, and the bank is telling me I have 90 days to get it fixed, or they are calling in the loan. We may fold before spring if these lazy employees don’t get cracking.”

The president (we will call him Max) gave me a bit of background about the company. He was formerly the owner of a smaller construction business. Two years prior, he had purchased another construction company, and then invited the president of a third company, Jim, to join him so that together, they formed the largest company in the industry in the Midwest.

As Max gave me more details about this very critical situation, I proposed that we meet with the other owner, Jim, as well as their new COO, Tom, to design a quick, impactful plan to get the back orders out and avoid the bank’s loan recall.

“Oh, no, I don’t want Tom in this. I’m still teaching Tom the ropes of the business, and I want to see how well he does before I give him more responsibility. And Jim and I aren’t, uh, talking to each other right now. He isn’t interested in this side of the business, anyway. He just stays out in his warehouse office and works on his invention.”

“His invention?”

“Listen,” Max shot back, “The co-owner doesn’t care about anything but sitting in his office down the street all day playing with some new product that is supposed to revolutionize the industry. I hate to admit it to you, but he hasn’t seen the financials for more than a year. I’ve been busy putting out other fires. It would be a little embarrassing for me to let him in on what’s happening right now.”

“You mean your co-owner doesn’t know the bank is threatening to recall the loan? That you have $40 Million in back orders you can’t fill?” I stammered.

Max just grinned sheepishly and stared at me.

At this point, dear Reader, you may be thinking this story is fabricated. After all, a real company cannot operate like this, can it? Yes, it can. I was there.

But it was due to fold – with problems obviously starting and ending at the very top.

“Max,” I said, “Before we do anything else, we have to let the co-owner and the COO in on the problem – you are going to need help and buy-in with the solution.”

“It’s all over, then,” he buried his face in his hands. “You don’t understand these guys – they don’t know how to run a business like I do. And they are difficult to deal with.”

I sat in stunned silence. Of course, you know that what was running through my mind was that Max didn’t know how to run a business either – and he was difficult to deal with, too.

How did the company come to this point? It starts and ends with leadership, doesn’t it? The health or lack of health in leadership is felt at every level of any enterprise. And there are several key factors that fell short in this particular case.

But I’ll talk about three important ones here:

1. Lack of clear roles and responsibilities.

Max and Jim had decided that Max would operate as CEO, but they didn’t know what this meant. And they never defined any responsibilities for either of them. Max fell into running the company because he liked being the boss. Jim busied himself with doing what he loved best – tinkering to invent a product that would put the company on the map. Max brought Tom in to fix the “employee problem,” but hadn’t allowed him to get near any employees, yet, except for a small satellite office at the other end of the state. Max said he “wanted to test Tom’s abilities, first.” This had been going on for months when I got there.

2. Lack of accountability.

As you can see from #1 above, none of the executive team was holding themselves or each other accountable. Max loved to sell and make deals, so this is what he was doing with investors – and yet, he wasn’t managing the directors and managers so that the company could run effectively.

Tom, the new COO, had tried to insert himself several times by proposing to oversee the management team, but Max shut him down each time, saying “You need to do what I’ve given you to do first so I can cut you loose.”

Max had, in fact, made the fatal mistake of assigning Tom to a small area of the company that had little to do with production and the problem at hand. And Max wasn’t investigating the real problem, either.

And then, there was Jim. Jim loved to tinker. Alone in his office all day. I still don’t know how he survived his original business before Max brought it on to combine it with his own.

3. Lack of communication.

How in the world did three men who held such high responsibilities find themselves in a place where no one knew what the others were doing – and the company was going down?

A multi-million dollar company with no one leading.

Why didn’t Max communicate? Max claimed that he couldn’t talk to Jim because the latter had a temper, so Max avoided keeping Jim up to date with financials, challenges, and other vital pieces of information. And Max claimed that Tom was too new to know what he was doing and so withheld information from him that could have helped Tom to help the company.

Why didn’t Jim communicate? He told me he thought Max was an arrogant idiot who was so hard-headed that it was impossible to talk with him. Jim said that Tom was a nice fellow, but he wasn’t sure he trusted him because Tom was always in Max’s office.

And Tom? Tom didn’t communicate with Max because he had asked too many questions too many times and been shut down to the point where he was silently contemplating quitting and moving his family back East. And he didn’t communicate with Jim, because Jim always had his door closed down at that warehouse office.

At every turn, there were unspoken conversations and unresolved conflict because people weren’t asking the hard questions, and providing tough information to each other.

Avoiding these critical conversations had resulted in one giant fiasco.

You can guess that the initial meeting with the four of us was not a gentle one. Tempers and voices flared, and it took some mediating to reach an agreement as to how to talk with each other and work through the problem so that we could get to the issues at hand. We finally reached consensus on what strategies to take, who would be responsible for what, and how to hold self and each other accountable through this critical process.

I frankly breathed a sigh of relief. Mediating and coaching conflict in such a situation are not easy, but we came out linking arms.

Sometime later, after leadership diverted the crisis, I would fire Max (yes, I have fired a couple of clients). I would have loved to stay on to help shift culture, and help the company excel. But Max was not willing to be transparent with Jim and Tom about some critical issues, and he wasn’t willing to work on his own leadership. He just kept blaming everyone and everything else. Shortly after I fired him, his board fired him as well.

I’m glad to say that Tom has taken over running the company, and has really turned things around. And Jim? He is still inventing things in his warehouse office that are bound to revolutionize the industry.

What poor style of leadership have you witnessed or heard about in the past?

Curious about your strengths in leadership?
Click below to take the Impact Assessment.

TAKE THE IMPACT ASSESSMENThttp://inspireinfluenceimpactquiz.com/

Patti Cotton is a CEO and former foreign diplomat. A sixth generation business owner, Patti not only coaches leaders – she has extensive experience in actually being one. Her experience, record of unprecedented success, and extensive training and certifications make her uniquely qualified to bring value to you and your team in the areas of leading self, leading others, and leading the enterprise.

Patti’s areas of focus include leadership and talent development, with specialization in leadership behavior and communication, conflict management, executive presence, succession planning, and strategic personal, leadership, and organizational growth.

With over 25 years of proven leadership experience, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across diverse industries. As an executive coach, trainer, and Fortune 500 speaker, she will inspire, influence, and impact your organizational leaders to reach new heights of success in their personal and professional growth, and to improve performance across your organization.

For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

How to Navigate Office Politics

By Leave a Comment

How to Navigate Office Politics

Are you a victim or perpetrator of bad office politics?

Sooner or later, you will find that you play both roles – unless you know how to navigate the waters.

What are office politics, and why are they hated?

Office politics get a bad rap, when they actually should be embraced as part of business expertise.

The problem arises when we don’t know how to work with office politics, or worse, we use them to seek advantage at the expense of others or the greater good. This is when things can turn ugly, personal, and damaging.

If you think you can simply avoid becoming involved, think again. When two or more people are gathered together, there will be politics. Politics are strategies people use in order to gain advantage. As human beings, we do this naturally, in order to get what we want, or to advocate for a larger cause.

At best, we call it “influence.”  And since reputations, relationships, and careers are made or broken because of office politics, we should learn to master them so that results turn out to be “win-win.”

We often find it difficult to deal with office politics effectively because we don’t know how to approach them. Because of this, we may unwittingly be promoting them, despite our insistence that we don’t play.

When we realize that office politics are here to stay, we can come out on top and make them work for us.

How?

By following these 3 rules:

1. Strengthen your own circle of influence.

Instead of approaching office politics as damage control, see them as useful dynamics to help everyone get ahead. Focus on the positive by strengthening key relationships on a continual basis to expand your influence. When things get hot, you will be well-positioned to emerge victorious. On the other hand, if you are someone who doesn’t have the advantage of guidance or a support network, and you are constantly trying to prove yourself, you are in a vulnerable position and can be shot down easily, whether you are in the room or not.

2. Avoid dysfunctional patterns.

Don’t take sides. When you do this, you polarize people and cloud the issues. Ask yourself – and others – what the issues are, and avoid disparaging remarks about personalities. Make sure that if things get personal, you are the one who pulls the conversation back to the issues. Don’t climb into the pit with others who want to hurt or discredit.

3. Shift the larger culture.

Select a few key colleagues of integrity, and agree that you will be positive PR for each other. I have worked with many groups of professionals, both in the business world and in international government relations. This one strategy has worked to turn entire company cultures around. Are you in the room when an absent colleague is being discussed? Put in a good word for this colleague. Talk about their latest success with a project, initiative, or the way they approach their work.

I challenge you to see office politics as a way to influence a win-win situation!

Patti Cotton helps executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and the enterprise. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, succession planning, and masterful execution. With over 25 years of leadership experience, both stateside and abroad, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across industries, providing executive coaching, leadership development, succession planning, change, and conflict management. She is also a Fortune 500 speaker. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.