decision making

How to Bring a Dream to Fruition in 3 Critical Steps

April 26, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Last week, I shared how my father lost one million dollars and was forced to bankrupt his corporation – all due to the absence of one critical conversation.

If you haven’t seen that part of the story, click here.

Of course, that chapter is a just a snippet of a much larger success story, because the devastation of the loss of funds and ensuing fire sale of Dan Cotton’s business is not the end of this tale.

In fact, my father has always a knack not only for landing on his feet (sometimes literally!), but also for creating abundance that has made a significant impact in the world.

At age 32, he developed the beginnings of a healthcare empire by applying three critical components to create the system that thrives, today.

Most people apply one or two to generate some success, but rarely does someone pull off all three to actually create a legacy of great impact.

Vision, strategy, and execution.

Sound simple? Think, again.

Vision

Dan Cotton started with a vision. He envisioned a retirement and convalescent home that would provide not only healthcare, but the love and warm feeling of family. He had always appreciated and respected the elderly, and saw an opportunity to support them with dignity and care.

It is here that a majority of professionals in leadership positions fall short. In fact, many company CEOs do not lead; they are secretly glorified project managers. Their focus is inward and they get stuck in minutia – a state which is ultimately fatal to business health. Leaders, on the other hand, are outward-thinking. They watch for trends, anticipating needs and making powerful connections in order to keep the business vibrant and sustainable. Yet, keeping the vision in front while managing the daily requisites of business is no small feat.

What is your vision for your business? How does your healthy, thriving business make an impact and contribute to the world?

Strategy

Try to get funding at age 32 to develop such a healthcare complex – to manage builders and permits, recruit physicians and staff, market for clients, learn about compliance, and about a million other things! Dad had been a university theology professor prior to this endeavor. So he had to perform diligent research, lay out all the pieces and assemble them into some kind of plan, network, exert influence to get things done, and find funding without a firm business track record.

At any point, the enormity of this project could have pressured him to fold and return to the university, where his future was safe and sound. But my father is a calculated risk-taker and full of drive. Combined with his strategic eye, he hung in there; and because of this, he met with success – and it paid off.

How is your “strategy quotient?”

This is your ability to see all the pieces that need to come into place, and how to place them so the plan works. Are you relying on others to come up with strategies and direction? What needs to change?

Execution

Here is where the rubber meets the road. Many business leaders are stuck in visioning and planning, and successful execution eludes them. Dad knew how to orchestrate the complex pieces that were required to develop and operate the healthcare system. There were many nights when he dragged home wearily, yet he would continue to work in his study before falling to sleep for a short time, only to do it, again. Perseverance, tenacity, grit – this was him. And it paid off. In a world where most new businesses fail, he pushed through. And succeeded on a major scale.

How high is your “execution quotient?”

This is your ability to get things done. Are you making effective decisions and taking timely actions? Is any part of your business lagging or waiting on you, due to inaction on your part? What needs to change?

In sum, there are just three simple steps to creating a legacy of impact: vision, strategy, and execution.

Where are you in this process?

And what do you need next in order to succeed?

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.

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.

The Time My Father Lost a Million Dollars and Went Bankrupt

April 19, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Your future can hinge on just one critical conversation.

The problem is that many of us don’t like critical conversations.

These often deal with tough issues, and most of us prefer to avoid confronting these, hoping whatever needs to be dealt with will just go away.

It doesn’t.

There was a time, in the 1990s, when my father could have salvaged $1 million and saved his business. Instead, he was forced to sell and declare bankruptcy in the process.

It is a rich case study that bears in-depth analysis and conversation. But for the sake of this topic, let’s focus on the breaking point.

My father’s controller walked in one morning, looking as though she had just suffered a death.

“I have to tell you something,” she said. “It’s not going to be easy to hear.”

My father looked up and said, “Janet, we’ve always been able to talk about the tough stuff. You and I have been together in this endeavor for 30 years. What’s happening?”

“We’ve lost a million dollars,” Janet replied.

“We’ve…what?!” my father gasped.

“We’ve lost a million dollars,” she repeated.

“That’s not possible,” Dad croaked. “Where is it on the books?”

“It’s not on the books,” Janet answered. “The books say we are fine. But it’s not in the bank…”

As the story unfolded, my father watched his business future melt away before his eyes. The billing manager for Medicaid had been stuffing paperwork in her desk drawer, rather than filing for reimbursement. For a year. Over $1 million was lost on the paperwork sitting in her desk drawer.

I’m not going to pretend to know why. There’s so much in this story for analysis that we could hold a week-long seminar on it. Who’s minding the store, protocols and process, checks and balances, accountability…so much…

But the pièce-de-résistance was that Dad’s controller had known about it for some time. She was just afraid to tell him.

The window of opportunity to send in the paperwork for reimbursement had passed. (There was a one-year limit on filing.) The controller knew long before the year was up that this was a problem.

But she had been too afraid to admit to Dad that she had not overseen the billing properly. That she had discovered this months into the process. That when she discovered the problem, she was unable to rectify it by holding the billing manager and the process accountable.

So she figuratively put her head in the sand.

Again, the story is much too long, full, and rich to share here. But my father was faced with having to sell the business because of the loss. And in the process, the buyer forced his hand by requesting that he file bankruptcy or lose the sale.

Dad bankrupted. Against every fiber of his being. Morally speaking, he didn’t agree with not paying his debt (and by the way, bless his soul, over the last 20 years, he has paid back every creditor personally from his own fixed income.)

But he lost a fortune and a future.

Outrageous? Unheard of? Not really. You’d be surprised at the losses in the business world due to just one critical conversation.

What critical conversation are you avoiding?

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.

How to Move Beyond Growing and Surviving

April 6, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Your Succession Plan

Are you a business leader struggling to grow and survive? It’s time to get a better game on.

Whether you are a business owner, executive, or other professional, you need a succession plan, now.

What is a succession plan?

Most think it’s simply grooming new leaders who can eventually take over a business or corporation. But it’s much more than that. Succession planning should include getting your “house” in order, making sure that systems, processes, and team are identified and developed to effectively meet the future.

Because of this, succession planning is not something you do when you are getting ready to retire.

In fact, succession planning is something that should be an ongoing process now, if you are a business leader who identifies with any of the following:

You want to move the business and your future from surviving to thriving
You are proud of your leadership accomplishments and you see this as a legacy that others should enjoy
You have a vested interest in seeing that your efforts pay off exponentially, not only now, but in the future (financial gains, heirs, etc.)

Most corporate and business leaders spend their time caught up in the daily worries of running the business or enterprise now. They are in a survival mode, or busy trying to scale the company’s efforts to generate more revenue.

When this happens, it’s tough to get ahead – much less lay the firm foundation for something that will pay off now and in future.

These business leaders may see succession planning as an HR function and not a leadership imperative – to their peril. Planning for the future and laying out the strategies to reach it effectively require vision and global thinking. It requires that you set a clear direction with system-wide goals to carry the business into the future.

This means that if you are in charge of an enterprise or your own business, you need to lead the charge.

What happens if you don’t take action, now? What are potential consequences, if you don’t see succession planning as an ongoing process to ensure a healthy and vibrant business now and in future?

Here are a few scenarios where a lack of succession planning has resulted in rapid business decline and demise:

A leader exits without warning, due to illness or another unexpected event.
A company replaces the exiting executive with someone who is not yet equipped to take over. This happens frequently in family-owned businesses and in cases where the company has hired from the outside without ensuring that the new leader is culturally compatible.
The business neglects high-potential talent inside its doors and the talent goes elsewhere.

What does your succession plan look like? Do you have a system in place to identify and develop high-potential talent, business processes, and systems that will effectively meet the future?

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.

Do You Have a Business Bucket List?

March 29, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

An interesting movie came out in 2007 called The Bucket List. It is a movie about two men coming to grips with the reality of cancer and then making the conscious decision to focus on living life fully in whatever time they had left.

Together, they formulated a bucket list. The rest of the movie details their compelling and insightful journey through that list.

That movie started a movement. Many of us were inspired to create our own personal bucket list, which is our way of deciding to do those things we have only before dreamed about and to value the things in life that really matter.

My question for you as a business owner, leader, and successful career person is this: Do you have a BUSINESS bucket list?

When we are young, our goals are different. They may be about career advancement, growing in our personal development, and increasing income. But as seasoned veterans in the business world, our focus begins to shift. We have advanced our careers, developed our skills to very high levels, and created good income. Some of us have created very profitable businesses.

But there is a yearning…a sense that something is missing. Thankful for the outward success, we now are looking for something deeper. We are looking for the purposeful meaning to our lives, and we want to know that what we have done has made an impact on the lives of others.

If you don’t have a business bucket list, I encourage you to create one today. Here are some questions to consider as you do:

What do you want to accomplish before you retire?
What do you need to plan for now that will help you have a meaningful retirement?
What kind of legacy do you want to leave?
Who would you like to mentor?
How would you like to “give back” or “pay forward?”
What would you like to do for those who come after you?
Are there business goals you want to meet in order to help you reach your personal goals?
How do you want to be remembered in business?
What impact do you want to make…on your family, community, business, and peers?

I have been approached several times in recent weeks about the subject of succession planning. For example, someone who started a successful family business wants to shore up planning so future generations will be able to carry on his legacy and be supported by it for generations to come. He wants to structure his business transition so that he can begin to travel more and work less. He wants to mentor the younger leaders so they are equipped to carry the business forward. He is beginning to formulate his “business bucket list.”

Are you ready to create yours?

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, 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.

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 it is Hard to Leave When You Have Been in Charge

March 22, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

My grandfather was a multi-millionaire in the 1920s. With nothing but a third-grade education and a keen mind for coming up with new solutions to problems, he was the consummate inventor, investor, and innovator.

He also lost quite a bit, all part of the entrepreneurial journey. But he always landed on his feet, and eventually, he and my grandmother built a convalescent home empire that saw them and countless families through the Great Recession and beyond.

Years later, my father decided to take a break from his university teaching to carry the entrepreneurial legacy forward. He developed his own successful healthcare system. But a strange thing happened. My grandfather resurfaced, and seemed to appear at the most inopportune times – during meetings, negotiations, and other sensitive situations.

One day, my father had to ask him to leave the premises.

Why did it come to this?

It seemed that even though my grandfather had left his business ventures behind, he hadn’t learned how to let go.

This dynamic is more common than you may realize. Whether you are leading a family-owned business, or hold a corporate CEO position, it’s just hard to let go.

What makes it so difficult for the chief in charge who is preparing to move on?

A fly on the wall might hear this:

1. I built the baby. Who will take care of this business after I’m gone so that it continues to thrive?

I have put my blood, sweat and tears into this and it works well. It’s a matter of pride – I’m leaving a legacy, here.

2. Will the business take care of me?

Have I put the leadership and strategies in place so that the business will continue to provide me with a return? I have invested in it, and want to make sure it supports me well in my next chapter.

3. Who am I without my CEO hat?

What will I do with myself after I step away? What will the next chapter look like for me? I’m not sure who I am without this position, and I want to look ahead with excitement and anticipation to my new role, whatever that may be.

Are you in a decision-making position and thinking about releasing the reins? What holds you back?

Patti Cotton helps executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and enterprises. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, 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, 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.

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.