Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

executive teams

How to Align and Coordinate Your Team

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How to Align and Coordinate Your Team
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Many a leader has overseen sound strategic planning, only to come to a grinding halt in just a few months.

“I find we get quickly into the weeds,” said Michael. “I really like how you and I just worked on focusing on what matters, and the plan is great (see the previous article on how Michael and I refocused to help him rise above the weeds.) But we’ve planned many times. I share the vision and set the goals, and we hit the ground running. But then, somehow, the team starts bumping heads on projects…Pretty soon, it’s back to business as we’ve always done it – good, but not great. How do I bring my team along in the process?”

“That’s our next step, Michael,” I responded. “And you are spot on. Unless you can align and coordinate your team in actionable and measurable ways, you won’t get far. Let’s roll up our sleeves.”

Michael and I met with his executive team the next week. During this time, he unveiled his business imperative – the top goals and priorities, as well as the quantifiable impact as shared in my last article.

“Team, it’s time we tighten up and get more focused,” he said. “And I admit, I am a chief culprit in keeping us from having done so until this point.”

I chimed in. “What we want to do today is to review Michael’s business imperative for the company for the next 12 months.”

“No offense,” said Candace, the CFO. “But we’ve done this a few times before. And we don’t seem to get anywhere.”

“I understand,” I responded. “Strategic plans and business imperatives usually sound great, but few get far. One important reason is because the executive team isn’t invited to align and coordinate to support the plan.”

“Go on,” said Candace. “I’m listening.”

“Michael will share the business imperative for the company. This imperative identifies the key priorities for the next 12 months, supporting the company’s strategic plan. This imperative is measurable and actionable.”

“From here, however, each of you needs to ask yourself what this means for your own areas of responsibility – and develop your own business imperative. This should support Michael’s imperative. Your imperative should have the measurables and actions to support Michael’s. Make sense?”

“It does,” said Max, COO. “We’ve often listed out who owns what when it comes to the strategic plan, but we haven’t made it as actionable as you are talking about.”

“I can see a more workable plan in the making,” said Sandra, the Marketing Vice President.

“I’m glad you do,” I answered. “It does work.”

“Just a minute,” Max hesitated. “If we are all going to do this, what about all those other initiatives we are working on? What if they don’t fit into the plan?”

“Exactly, Max,” I answered. “Once you develop your business imperative, you will need to ask yourself what to do in order to remain focused. But that’s for our next step. For now, let’s have a good discussion on what Michael’s imperative means for you. And when we reconvene next week, bring your draft business imperatives and we will have some critical conversations. We will not only be talking about what to do with initiatives that don’t support the focus; we will also be talking about what shifts in culture and leadership behaviors you may need to make in order to succeed.”

“Culture shifts? Leadership behaviors?” asked Michael.

“Yes, Michael. You and your executive team are a system – all parts of a system need to work together in the same way. If not, you won’t get any traction.”

Next time, I’ll share details of the next meeting and the tough conversations Michael and his team had to have in order to break through chronic underperformance – and finally become a high-performing, aligned, and coordinated team.

© 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.

Keeping Your Team Energized in a Fast-Changing Environment

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Keeping Your Team Energized in a Fast-Changing Environment
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You don’t know how powerful your executive team truly is until they are put to the test in extreme conditions.

It doesn’t take a single event to create this kind of scenario. We are in now in a fast-changing environment full of twists and turns that keeps conditions extreme.

How do you keep your team energized and engaged so that you can flex and pivot with ease?

Help normalize fear.

“My CFO has checked out,” Sam said. “As hard as it is to think about, I feel it’s time to replace him.”

“Mark has been with you for years,” I said. “What are you experiencing that makes you think you need to replace him now?”

“He doesn’t speak up in meetings. He holes up in his office. The other execs are asking if something is wrong with him,” said Sam. “The last thing I need is to drag him around by my ankle.”

“Sam, Mark has shouldered many changes with you in this business,” I offered. “Don’t you owe it to him to have a deeper, thoughtful conversation about what you are seeing, rather than to just chalk it up to disengagement?”

Sam did talk with Mark. And here’s what he found: Mark was afraid. He admitted that in light of the pandemic and its effect on the marketplace, he felt “frozen in place.” It was hard to think, to make decisions. Mark was feeling alone and paralyzed.

Later, Sam recounted, “And here is what I told Mark: Mark, I’m here. Yes, this is crazy and we don’t have a roadmap. I’m so sorry you have felt alone with this. Why don’t we meet for the next few mornings and talk through where we think we need to pick up in your area of responsibility?”

“Sam, you gave Mark a great gift,” I responded. “These are unprecedented times. Having you recognize where he is, that it’s okay to feel that way, and that you will be on hand to work through this with him.”

“Well, Patti, thank you,” Sam said. “Truthfully, I should have thought to talk with him much sooner. Guess I was wrapped up in my own stuff. And really, to replace Mark would have been challenging for so many reasons – and evidently, unnecessary.”

Ferret out denial.

Cindy recognized that Jim had been making excuses for many weeks, now. He was missing key deadlines and behind on other projects. Each time she confronted him, he chalked it up to the pandemic and unforeseen developments. I urged Cindy to inquire as to what he was working on since he was held up in these areas.

“Patti, I found out that Jim has been focusing on a couple of initiatives that are really back-burner for us,” she reported later. “And when I asked him how he thought this might help us get ahead, he couldn’t answer me. Seems he has been keeping himself busy on things that really don’t matter. And I have just discovered that there are several things he could have been working on that would have helped us at this time. Now what?”

“Cindy, it’s not unusual to go into denial about things when the going gets tough,” I answered. “Jim appears more comfortable focusing on easier initiatives.”

Cindy went back to Jim and had a pointed, but supportive conversation about priorities. She asked him if he had what he needed in order to move forward. After reviewing things with her, Jim sheepishly admitted that he did.

“We’ve agreed to meet a couple of times weekly until we feel things are firmly on track,” Cindy shared. “I’m not sure why this happened.”

“Cindy, when crisis occurs, the stress can be great. Going into denial by carrying on ‘business as usual’ feels comfortable. Unfortunately, it doesn’t meet the company needs. At the same time, when events such as this pandemic take place, it’s important to huddle a bit more closely and offer support – more than usual. You have a good executive in Jim. And it sounds like you have figured out how to get him moving.”

Identify roadblocks to learning.

“I can’t wait till things get back to normal,” the CEO said. “I’m having a tough time making decisions that work for the current crisis.”

“May I suggest that you may have to acquire some flex in the way you are making decisions,” I countered. “I promise you that we are headed into new territory and that we are not turning back.”

When Harrah’s Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman talks about the difficulty successful executives face in learning, he often quotes from a 1991 Harvard Business Review article by Chris Argyris: “Because many professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure.”

Learning new ways to do business in order to respond to changing conditions is necessary. Yet many top executives feel that “once we get over this hump,” that things will fall back to normal. Untrue.

We are already seeing changing customer demands, rapid transitions in the workforce and how it operates, shifting regulations, and more. All this requires that we learn how to do business differently.

The question is not therefore, “When will things get back to normal so that we can breathe easily?” Instead, it is, “What are we learning from this and what skills and abilities do we need to acquire in order to meet the ‘next normal’?”

Where do you need to grow in order to meet the next normal and thrive?

© 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.

Are You Playing Favorites on the Executive Team?

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Are You Playing Favorites on the Executive Team?
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It’s natural for us to favor some personalities more than others. When we feel a comfortable energy and alignment, it makes conversations and common experiences flow. No doubt, you have one team member with whom you hit it off more easily than others.

Then, there’s “that other one” on the team with whom things seem a bit more stilted. You feel a small undercurrent of resistance or tension when they bring forth ideas. You don’t enjoy conversations with them, and you find yourself dismissing their contributions.

These relational dynamics can give the impression that you are playing favorites (and maybe you are!). And this damages your team’s ability to work best together. Because if you are noticing your bias, so are they.

What do you do?

1. Get perspective.

Talk to a mentor or colleague outside of the team and check your intolerance. Allowing someone you trust to give you some outside perspective might help you to flush out hidden biases that need reconciling on your part.

2. Shift your focus.

Find things you appreciate about the person. Begin to look for ways you appreciate this team member on a personal and professional basis. Notice unique qualities she contributes. Ferret out ways he lends positively to the team or outcomes. This will help you rebalance your view of the team member.

3. Build bridges.

Begin to call on your “unfavored” team member first when asking for opinions in meetings. Chances are, if they have not been speaking up, you haven’t been encouraging it. Think about instituting individual coffees or breakfasts with your team members, and be sure to start with this particular team member. Seek to identify projects and other discussions which will allow you more face time with them so that you can practice engaging differently with them.

Finally, remember that as leader, you are the role model for the team and, in turn, the rest of the organization. Making the conscious decision to turn a problem into an opportunity can only be a great learning lesson, and a win for all of you.

© 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.

Five Steps to Charter Team Values

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Five Steps to Charter Team Values
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Are you and your colleagues living up to your team’s core values?

Core values serve as a GPS to shape culture, drive better decisions, and sharpen best behaviors and attitudes.

Sadly, most don’t understand why they need core values at the team level, nor how to use these to move from average to high performance.

How do team core values differ from organizational core values? And how do you make your team’s values come alive?

I work primarily with leaders and their executive teams who are ready to either merge, realign, or grow. They know they need to improve the way they work together in order to tackle new vistas.

Part of the work I do is help the team create its own identity, establish a safe psychological space in which to work and play, and recognize its personal team power. These three factors are what go into creating a highly emotionally-intelligent team – one which outperforms others.

Without getting into the weeds in this article, part of the work we do together to accomplish this involves creating a team charter – a set of operating rules that the team creates together, and which are based on its core values. In other words, we define the attitudes, behaviors, and ways of doing that reflect the team’s values.

For example, if a team’s core values include honesty, the charter might define what honest conversation looks like, what honesty looks like in the face of conflict, etc.

Chartering your team’s core values in this way makes them come alive. It is powerful and serves as the foundation of your team culture.

What is important to remember as you develop active core values?

Here are five steps to keep in mind.

  1. Develop your values with full team participation.

Every person on the team needs to be involved in the process of defining your values. This creates buy-in and ownership. Do you have someone who is reticent to participate or to speak up? Make sure you include them and let them know their weigh-in is important.

  1. Hold a discussion with your team on what these values mean for you.

It is not enough to pick a word to represent each value – you collectively need to come up with a definition that reflects what you mean by that word choice. Craft together two or three sentences that expand on the value’s meaning until you feel it reflects clear definition to the team.

  1. Identify attitudes and behaviors that support these values.

Take some time to talk about how you should relate to each other (and other teams) in light of your values. If one of your values is integrity, what kinds of attitudes and behaviors reflect this? What needs to change in order for you to fully embody each value?

  1. Assess your systems, processes, and protocols to ensure these support your values.

Do a review of these to see if they support your values. What changes need to take place in order to have these align with your values? This is truly systematizing a team culture.

  1. Accountability as a way to fully integrate your values.

How will you hold yourself and others accountable for the way you embody your charter? I suggest you define this, and then do a spot check-in at least once monthly. Be candid in rating the team – and if you are courageous, ask an external stakeholder to review your values, their definitions, and to share with you any gaps or growth opportunities they see in the way your team lives these.

Are you and your colleagues living up to your team values? Where do you need to start?

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© 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.