decision making

Are You a Bull in a China Shop?

January 4, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

5 Ways to Approach a Problem

My friend Dana (not her real name) prides herself on confronting problems head on.

“I used to be a pushover,” she says. “People trod all over me, and I just rolled over and allowed it. Not anymore!”

Unfortunately, people now describe Dana as a “bull in a china shop.” She has developed quite an overtly aggressive stance that is now costing her relationships and opportunities.

When do you confront? And if you don’t, do you simply have to roll over and allow others to take advantage of you?

Knowing how to resolve a problem effectively requires some discernment. Where do you start?

Before jumping to a quick conclusion, ask yourself the following:

Is the issue symptomatic of a larger root cause, or do you need to gather more information in order to make a best decision?

Your best approach is to avoid the problem until you have the information you need in order to correct it appropriately.

Are you outmatched or losing ground on the issue? Or do you need to build goodwill by acceding to others, since the issue is more important to them than to you?

Your best approach is to accommodate others by allowing them to decide, even if what they choose is not your first choice.

Do you need to reach long-range solutions?

Do you need to find an integrative solution so that all sides can come together to work more effectively? You will want to take a collaborative stance in problem-solving.

Sometimes compromise is your best option.

When you need to settle complex issues temporarily or to reach quick solutions when you are under time pressure, compromise can be greatly beneficial.

An aggressive stance can be necessary under certain circumstances.

I wish Dana had learned when to use this, rather than to adopt it as her default mode. But aggression is absolutely necessary in an emergency, or when issues are critical and you are absolutely sure you are right.

Knowing you have options in problem-solving approaches and learning to exercise these strengthens your ability to lead and influence others.

What problem are you currently confronting? Which approach do you feel will work best? Join us (LinkedIn)

Patti Cotton helps women 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, women’s 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.

Why Women Leaders Are Losing Their Jobs

December 21, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

3 Ways You Can Avoid This

Fortune Magazine’s December 13, 2016 blog, “The World’s Most Powerful Women,” reports that women business leaders around the world are losing ground.

“This year has been a doozy for supporters of gender equality and women’s advancement, even beyond Hillary Clinton’s defeat and Donald Trump’s victory.

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, was ousted from power, and
South Korea’s first female president, Park Geun-hye, now seems poised to meet that same fate.
The IMF’s first female chief, Christine Lagarde, is currently engulfed in a trial that could jeopardize her future.
The number of female CEOs in the Fortune 500 sank from 24 to 21.
And some bright, still rising business stars – Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer – have plummeted like fireballs back to earth.”

The unfortunate consequence of these disappointing events is that because this is occurring on a larger, public scale, your brain is subconsciously telling the following story:

“Hey, You, women just can’t hack it. See what happens when a woman is placed in a position of leadership? Don’t try it. It doesn’t work. Be safe. Be warm. Stay where you are. Don’t try to reach higher goals. Don’t speak up. Don’t speak out.”

In fact, most all of these situations Forbes describes were avoidable – and that’s what your brain doesn’t stop to examine. The women mentioned in the Forbes blog have lost their positions for many reasons, and some are as follows:

poor decision-making, difficulties in taking action
not asking for help or an inability to listen
surrounding themselves with the wrong people
difficulty in building the influence they need to get support and get things done
staying too long in the same position when they should have made that next move or change

Of course, politics can sometimes derail. And, in at least one disappointing case, compromised ethics were at issue.

But for the most part, the plummets these female business leaders have taken were avoidable. And that’s just plain disappointing after all we’ve worked on to move forward.

So, how can you avoid the same kind of ending?

These recent events with other women of high visibility can hurt you and your future, if you are aspiring to greater leadership and larger opportunities.

The simple answer is to get the right kind of help to check you on your ability to lead and do it well. This involves a few things.

1. Be willing to examine your own leadership.

How well do you lead yourself – your emotions and the way you manage these, as well as your decision-making, action-taking, and more. Take an assessment, and review whether you are meeting goals effectively, if you have rock-solid confidence, and if your business or company recognizes your value.

2. Be willing to ask a few trusted colleagues and mentors where you need to grow.

How well are you leading others? How do you relate, build influence, and get things done with others? Take the basal temperature by getting sound feedback so you know what to work on. If you are great talent, but you can’t communicate this to others and influence them to take action, your leadership will stall here.

3. Get the right kind of help to grow your leadership in the right places, and through the right way.

Don’t be shy, and don’t short-change yourself. This is what kills most women leaders “in the making” – not asking for help, and not investing in the right kind. You must make the investment in yourself to course-correct and camp on your abilities so that these work for you, and work extremely well. For more on this, see my special report “Coaches, Mentors, and Sponsors: The Differences and the Benefits.”

In thinking about your own leadership aspirations, where, in your own leadership, might you need to grow? Join us on LinkedIn to share, and for more discussion.

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.

Getting Your Bold On

December 7, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Are You a Gambler or a Calculated Risk-Taker?

There’s a fine line between taking a calculated risk and being a reckless gambler – and you can win or lose big, either way. However, in today’s business world, it is necessary to take risks in order to remain competitive and ahead of the game.

How do you do it so you don’t lose your shirt?

Whether you are an executive, business owner, or other professional, risk-taking is a key factor in your ability to lead yourself and others into the future. It affects your direction, decision-making, choices, and actions. It is the difference between becoming a Vera Wang or Elon Musk – or a Jane Doe or Joe Blow.

Can you become a calculated risk-taker – and win?

Deborah Perry Piscione, author of Risk Factor, says yes. Piscione, a member of former congressional and White House staff, as well as a media commentator for several key news channels, now supports some of the greatest risk-takers in Silicon Valley where technology history is made. She and some of her colleagues have conducted research that reveals the “DNA” of bold risk-takers, and they have discovered several key attributes – all of which can be cultivated.

These traits include such things as refusing to accept the status quo, being in touch with a much greater purpose in life, valuing talented people and understanding how and when to collaborate with them, and being able to effectively execute an innovative idea or direct others as they do it.

Indeed, in my coaching practice, I’ve observed 5 ways accomplished risk-takers differentiate themselves from gamblers:

But at the foundation of all of this is to have a lower level of fear than most people, or even an absence of fear. Because it is fear that keeps us from considering those decisions and actions that are outside of the box, and that will take our business and career from safe and small to extraordinary.

So we tell ourselves that people must just be born with a risk-taking quotient, and that it doesn’t run in our family. This is our excuse for removing ourselves from the equation. We then step back into our ordinary space, playing it safe and small, while others take the leaps and celebrate the rewards.

However, risk-taking isn’t a genetic trait – it’s acquired. You can, at any age, acquire the tools, skills, and knowledge to become a calculated risk-taker, and learn to avoid the pitfalls of those encountered by the reckless gambler.

So it’s back to confronting and overcoming the fear, because the approach to risk-taking can be learned. I’ll be writing about a specific method I use with clients to do this in my next article.

But meanwhile, what fear is holding you back from getting what you want? And how do you move past it? Join us on LinkedIn to share, and for more discussion.

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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 Effective Is Your Decision-Making?

August 31, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Can you afford to make poor decisions?

I doubt many of you feel that you can. In addition to the immediate results you seek, the decisions you make today have bearing on the opportunities you enjoy tomorrow. Moreover, if you are leading others or even an entity, the decisions you make affect a great number of lives and futures.

So how do you check in to see whether your decision-making needs a tune-up?

The simple answer is to ask yourself the following questions:

Are you reaching your goals?
Are you outperforming the competition?
Are you influencing others at a high level?
Are you ready to meet the future?

Rate yourself below to see if you need a tune-up in your decision-making process.

I use a well-defined process to make my decisions.
I seek to identify the real problem before I begin to make a decision.
I weigh the pros, cons, and risks carefully before making decisions.
I include key stakeholders in the decision-making process, even if this will slow down the process or require a great deal of consensus-building.
In my thought process, I tend to use language such as “how might this happen,” rather than, “this can’t happen because…”
If I doubt the final decision, I stop to re-evaluate my assumptions and decision-making process.
Others see me as an excellent problem-solver and seek to include me in significant decisions.

Where do you need to tune up your own decision-making process? I’d love to hear about your own experience!

Click here to join the LinkedIn discussion on this topic.

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.

You Have a Great Vision and an Aggressive Plan: Why Are You Stuck?

July 6, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

You are a seasoned professional who is intelligent and skilled. You have a world of opportunities ahead, and have set some high goals for greater success.

You’ve envisioned what you want success to look like, and you have drawn up a great action plan to get there (many of you have actually hired someone to help you with this!).

Yet, you find yourself stuck and unable to move forward. What’s more, you aren’t sure why. Here’s what we know: When there is an internal conflict or fear that you have not yet confronted, you will not move forward easily.

And here are 5 possible reasons why:

1. Your vision doesn’t align with your values.

Surprising, but true. Many times, we don’t cross-reference our vision with our values. When this happens, and our values collide, the internal conflict that follows keeps us from moving forward. We may not even understand why – it just simply “doesn’t feel right.”

Coaching tip: Find a list of personal values, and determine which top five you hold in highest regard for your life. Now review these as you look at your vision. Is there anything about the latter that does not align with one or more of your values? If so, what needs to shift or change in your vision to support you?

2. You just aren’t that into it.

When you created your vision and considered the change it would make in your life, how important was succeeding to you? Many times, we set goals because these are important to others in our intimate circle, and we want to please and keep the peace. This doesn’t work in the long run, and it doesn’t ignite passion for achievement, even in the short term.

Coaching tip: Revisit your vision. How important is reaching this to you personally, on a scale of 1-5? If you respond with a number less than 4, odds are that you are not going to achieve your goals.

3. You are listening to too many voices.

Everyone has an opinion. When others hear about your work, some will be quick to share how strategy A never works – strategy B is always best. The next person will tell you the opposite. Every opinion will begin to sound right – and you can’t go down two paths at once. Result? A confused mind does nothing.

Coaching tip: If your plan reflects sound strategies, then give those a chance. Work them for at least 90 days, then assess to see if they are working as they should.

4, The payoff is too great right where you are.

Let’s face it – change is uncomfortable. And if you are receiving some sort of intrinsic reward or emotional payoff for staying stuck, you are not going to move forward.

Coaching tip: What’s comfortable about your discomfort? Are you on top of your responsibilities, and afraid of failing if you move forward? Are you getting emotional sympathy from others about your current situation? What payoff are you receiving for remaining right where you are?

5. You are afraid to succeed.

This one is challenging. It means you are afraid of losing something you currently have – a key relationship, a lifestyle, or even your identity.

Coaching tip: Acknowledge your fear, and then ask yourself what you will lose by not moving forward. What will yield the greater return for you? Staying where you are – or moving toward goal?

What keeps you stuck? And what do you need to change in order to move forward?

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

Learn the two vital parts to trust and how they can help you become a more highly effective leader.

GET THE INFOGRAPHIC

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.