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Three Things Your Team Needs from You Right Now

April 15, 2020 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

As you confront change, the most critical thing you must do as leader is to support the cohesiveness of your executive team.

This means that they must be aligned and coordinated in their thinking and actions.

Having a plan of action is the rally cry to move forward together, but it isn’t the answer.

During the current COVID crisis, I’ve reached out to several of my former clients to see how they are faring. Most report what is probably familiar to you: shock and paralysis, replaced by a scrambling to redirect resources and keep business going.

I talked to Bob, CEO of a software tech company, about three weeks ago. He expressed great frustration around being stuck in place.

“We are so busy putting out fires,” he said. “And they all need extinguishing. But how do we move forward?”

“That’s the question, Bob,” I said. “Most of the world is caught up in a mode of urgency and this is their current way of operating. But they are missing the boat entirely.”

“I hear you, Patti,” he answered. “But how do I get my team to move forward? We have an interim plan – you taught me the value of plotting a short-term direction in times like these. But I’m not seeing the action of which I know they are capable.”

“Bob, having your interim plan is the first of three things your team needs to move, and move quickly,” I said. And I outlined the following for him.

1. Clarity.

Your team needs a short-term, interim plan that plots a clear direction. Centering the plan around a particular theme will serve as a galvanizing rally cry to bring the team together and help them to coordinate more easily. Remember to ask yourself what will best serve your customers at this time and position your business to meet the undefined future.

2. Trust.

How well do team members trust each other? Revisit your trust charter and facilitate discussion around what the team needs more or less of from each other in order to trust and be able to count implicitly on each other in this critical time.

3. Replacing effectiveness with efficiency.

In times of transition or change, people seek comfort in the familiar. This means that you and your team members may find you are focusing on being efficient instead of being effective, because being busy feels like you are moving ahead when you really may not be. Once you have determined your interim plan, be sure to identify those other projects, tasks and activities that lie outside the plan parameters. Decide how you want to handle these in light of the current clime and be ruthless about holding each other accountable.

Bob called back a few days ago to report that moving through these steps did the trick. He first worked with the team to revisit the trust charter to discuss what everyone needed from each other in order to take action. The team then performed a quick audit of activities and identified some of those that needed to be placed on pause. And finally, Bob and the team communicated the interim plan to the entire employee base and have pledged to bring weekly updates on progress to the organization.

Which of these three things does your team need to focus on in order to move forward more effectively? Providing a unified direction and deeper conversations around what is needed to trust more will open doors to a much richer future.

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.

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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.

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.

Leading with Greater Inner Agility

April 8, 2020 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

You are moving an entire business through uncharted waters right now. A lot of people are depending on you.

Grit isn’t enough to meet the challenges you are facing. You need to increase your inner agility in two ways to deal with the complexity occurring right now.

Owen, president of a manufacturing firm, reached out to me some time ago to help develop talent for the company’s succession planning.

“I’m tired,” he began. “And I think the company needs new blood. Can you provide executive coaching for my second in command?”

“I’d be pleased to help you, Owen,” I answered. “But if I can ask, why do you think the company needs new blood? You seem like you have more good years to give.”

“Truth be told, I’ve been perplexed by the business scene,” Owen answered. “Strategies that used to work don’t cut it. The challenges that we are presented with are new. I can’t refer back to anything I’ve dealt with before in order to create a roadmap out that makes sense.”

“Owen, you aren’t alone,” I responded. “Today’s business landscape is changing so fast that it’s hard to stay on top of what’s in front of you.”

“You aren’t kidding,” he shot back. “I can’t catch my breath. It’s one fire after another. I guess I’m just too old for this.”

“You aren’t too old, Owen. You are finding yourself in the same situation as most other executives right now. It’s time to increase your leadership’s ‘inner’ agility.”

“I’m ready for anything that helps me stay sane while I move this business forward,” he said. “Tell me more.”

“Well, there are two parts of inner agility,” I shared. “These are emotional and cognitive, and they both play a part in how well you make decisions and take actions. Emotional agility has to do with how well you manage your thoughts and emotions around your experiences. And cognitive agility has to do with your ability to make complex decisions.”

Owen and I talked for a bit about emotional agility and after exploring a bit, it seemed he was on top of things there. If you are interested in working on this particular aspect of agility, see the article Four Steps to Crisis Management.

We then talked about his ability to make complex decisions in light of the current business landscape, and this is where Owen admitted he was struggling. He had no past success he could reference as he confronted presenting challenges – the things that had worked in the past were not relevant.

I shared the following 5 steps to help him begin to develop greater cognitive ability:

1. Stand still while moving.

It’s important for a leader to find time for pause, but it feels impossible when the challenges keep coming non-stop. Yet, pausing is what provides self-awareness, reflection, and a moment to replenish one’s emotional and mental stores. Some executives practice breathing meditations, journaling, a walk around the building once or twice daily, or another habit that creates a moment where they can regroup.

2. Adopt uncertainty.

We are creatures of comfort, and when challenges arise, we run to what feels familiar and safe. Yet, with the world’s volatility and its effects on business, we must learn to embrace what feels new and trade in the hat of “expert” for that of “explorer.” If you find yourself using language like, “When this is all over,” think again. Our mindsets and rhetoric need to change to, “Let’s explore this challenge!”

3. Change Up Your Questions.

Begin by asking yourself where you need to go. Avoid gravitating to “how do we do this?” too soon, and replace this impulse with “What if we could…?” By remaining in the visionary portion of your questioning for a longer brainstorming period, you can begin to think outside the box about the way to accomplish it at a later time. Involve your greater management team and line employees. Tell them what you want to accomplish and get their feedback about what they think needs to change in order to accomplish this. And don’t be afraid to ask, “What am I missing?” Be open to thinking about different ways of moving forward and accomplishing your goals.

4. Focus on the journey, not the destination.

The destination you head for today may not be there tomorrow. Set shorter-term strategies to continue supporting your customers and their current needs, using your values as the foundational rudder that keeps you, the team and the organization grounded in who you are and what you are about.

5. Work on the who of your personal leadership and not the how.

Hard skills and competencies are no adequate to support the business of tomorrow. Your leadership character – your personal values and integrity – along with your agility to move through the unfamiliar – will be what count now and in the future.

I was pleased that Owen decided to work on his inner agility, focusing on the cognitive piece, to help move the company forward. As we shouldered this together, he became more confident, able to read the business landscape and connect the dots to make complex decisions, and at the same time, reported that he was less stressed than he had been in years.

Now is the time to step away from old habits to embrace the new and uncertain as exciting, uncharted territory, full of promise. The landscape continues to shift and evolve. How about you?

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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.

Leading in a Time of Crisis

March 18, 2020 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

We are faced in this moment with a crisis that stretches around the world. It is affecting every aspect of our personal and professional lives.

You, as a leader, are being tested with every fiber of your being. The work challenges you were dealing with a few weeks ago have been eclipsed or compounded by COVID-19 and its effects on your business.

How do you lead through this?

The real test of leadership – a leader’s behaviors and actions during a crisis – are what help a company to move through successfully. At this time, you are no doubt being asked to make critical decisions that affect the livelihoods of many.

How can you encourage confidence and stability to bring your people along as we move through this critical period?

1. Educate yourself and others.

Make sure you are aware of federal and state requirements vis-à-vis the current situation so that you are abiding by that which is requested. Additionally, seek trusted sources to learn more about how you can protect your employees, clients, and key stakeholders. Check in with these sources on a regular basis and ask your executive team to do the same. Make sure you are communicating well and often. Dealing with a crisis means that others need to hear from you often and with reassurance.

2. Check your attitude.

The way you see and approach the crisis is critical. It is difficult to use the word pandemic as I write, but we are currently experiencing one. Focus on the things you can control as you lead forward and check your language when talking with others to make sure you are not inciting panic, fear, or stress. Your attitude bears great weight and influences many. In the not-too-distant future, we will look back to see how we made it through. Lead with this in mind.

3. Exercise self-care.

Stress and anxiety can certainly soar during these times. Yet, frequenting public places to exercise and get self-care services may not be your first choice at this time. Think about replacing these rather than foregoing them. For example, if you feel uneasy about going to the gym, find some recorded videos for workouts at home. Avoiding spas or other self-care centers? Create your own spa experience at home with music, hot tub soak, and other ideas.

4. Be decisive.

As you and your team make critical decisions, move forward with conviction to take action. Don’t wait to be the last company on the block to make a move you know you should be making. Part of keeping the employee and client base calm and developing trust is sending a message of strength through taking precautions when you know you should.

5. Feed your executive team.

Don’t forget that your executive team needs increased connections with you during this time. Think about incorporating a daily huddle for updates, a weekly briefing with discussion around next steps forward, and frankly, even stopping by their office during the day to check and see how they are doing. Your team is carrying great weight with you, and they deserve the reminder that they are appreciated as they carry this responsibility. Where you cannot meet in person, collaborate virtually.

6. Stay connected with your life team.

These are the few close people in your life who care about you and who will be supportive and present for you. As a leader, it is hard to ask for this kind of support. It can be difficult to find people with whom you can share not only feelings of celebration, but also feelings of doubt and uncertainty. This is a time to call on your life team even more often to fill your own cup as you continue to care for the well-being of so many others.

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.

Three Steps Necessary to Success

January 29, 2020 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Most of my work is helping executives and their teams make the shifts they need to make in order to successfully meet bigger goals. It is no easy task. Getting a group of people on the same page to make change sometimes means overcoming several personal agendas before the team can agree to shared goals.

Therein lies the challenge!

Making a change, whether individually or in a group, requires more than commitment to a goal and just “going for it.”

A study conducted at a nationally recognized health clinic revealed that only one in seven people will make the changes they know will make a difference to their quality of life or life itself. This has little to do with commitment and everything to do with the personal ability to make the leap necessary to succeed.

Making change means overcoming deeply engrained habits that feed emotional needs.

Such a shift requires that

You are energetically committed to your goal.
Your plan has the right steps to help you move forward.
You have the right kind of support.

Goal

Let’s say you want to become a better listener, and this is the goal you set.

These would be the requirements.

1. Commitment

First, you would need to assess your commitment to becoming a better listener. On a scale of one to five, do you rate your desire at a four or above?

If not, you will not succeed in your efforts.

If you find you are lukewarm about a goal, your energy around change will not be enough to help make the change. Perhaps a coworker or family member is after you to make this shift, or it just sounds good to be a better listener. But this is not enough. The goal you set must reflect your agenda, and it must be a strong priority for you.

2. Micro Shifts

Second, your plan must reflect micro shifts toward the goal. Too often, the gap between a vision and where one currently is leaves too vast a gap in order to move forward. In other words, we may have a clear picture of what success looks like, and a good understanding of the gap between where we are and where we want to be. We may even have incremental milestones we want to reach that will tell us that our efforts are succeeding. But these are not yet adequate for a sound plan.

A change journey must be broken down into bite-sized moves forward so the brain recognizes success and is encouraged to keep going. In the example of wanting to be a better listener, it may be too big a jump for you at first to leave your personal agenda aside when listening to others.

Perhaps a first micro shift would be to pause five seconds after the other person finishes talking before you jump in.

Or maybe you decide that you must ask one question about what they are saying before assuming you know what they are talking about.

Bite-sized pieces allow you to feel that you are succeeding, and it is a carrot to the brain to move forward instead of retreating to comfortable old habits.

3. Support

Finally, the right kind of support is needed in order to feel one is reaching success. This can come in many forms. You can hire a coach, and/or ask two or three trusted friends or colleagues to encourage and hold you accountable. For some, it is enough to surround yourself with positive people who believe in you and your efforts. Whatever means of support you seek; you must make sure you remove negative roadblocks in the form of people who don’t want you to change.

This may sound odd. However, we are all creatures of habit, and if someone in our circle begins to behave differently, we will subconsciously feel the difference and attempt to calm the disruption. So be careful of those in your circle of influence who may subtly attempt to sabotage your efforts.

In the example of becoming a better listener, you may have someone who makes fun of you wanting to change. Or they may be someone who possesses a closed mindset, and this is reflected in something like, “Oh, give it up. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Be careful of these underground currents that can push you back, and avoid or eliminate them.

If you will give careful thought to these three steps, you can reach goals you never thought possible. Every time you replace a poor habit with a better one, or you shift a behavior that allows you to operate at a higher capacity, this elevates you to a new altitude, allowing you to see greater vistas and opportunities that were once not visible to you.

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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.

Does Your Lack of Authority Make You Anxious?

January 22, 2020 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Does the thought of using your authority make you anxious?

This can really get in the way of moving the business forward.

Susan was the CEO of a small company, who found it challenging to manage her people with authority. And it was costing her considerably.

I first met Susan at a CEO forum. She was instantly likeable – people flocked around her to laugh and joke with her, and it was clear that she made friends easily.

Later, when she called me to work with her, I found that her employees also enjoyed her humor and engaging manner.

“Susan is a great listening ear,” one of her executives said. “And she’s always good for a lift in spirits.”

“Yes,” I said. “Everyone seems to appreciate her.”

“Appreciate her? Not as a leader. They like her,” the executive responded. “But as a leader, she could do with some spine. She needs to stop letting her executive team push her around.”

Although I didn’t let on, this was exactly why Susan had invited me to meet with her.

“I’m noticing that the executive team is making key decisions without me,” Susan shared later. “And I have to confess that I feel some frustration when we hold our team meetings. I feel like people are riding all over me.”

“What do you think is happening?” I asked.

Susan looked blank. “I’m not sure. But, Patti, I’m scared. How did I get here? Maybe I’m not fit to lead. Can you help?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to attend one of your executive team meetings,” I said. “Perhaps I can glean some insights that might help. Let’s talk afterward.”

When they next met, I was present. Susan introduced me as her new executive leadership coach. “If I expect all of you and the organization to grow, I need to grow first,” she laughed.

The meeting adjourned two hours later, and we met back in her office. I shared what I had observed.

The team was not aligned in any of the discussion, and they fought for personal agendas. Further, when Susan gave a recommendation on an item, two of the other team members argued her down. Finally, one of the team members seemed to dominate the entire meeting with his ideas about how things ought to run. Susan finally sat back and remained silent.

“So, I can see why you are frustrated, Susan,” I said. “It was pretty chaotic in there, and you didn’t move any one of your agenda items forward.”

“Things are just out of control,” she said. “Where do I start?”

“Pretty simple, really,” I responded. “When did you first become uncomfortable with your authority?”

During the rest of our meeting, Susan shared how she transitioned from a competitor to become CEO of her current company. When she first onboarded, the outgoing CEO warned her to play small and allow the team to acclimate to her. It seems one of the executive team members had interviewed for the CEO position and lost. Over the next few months, Susan fell into allowing the team to decide by consensus. She became anxious each time she thought about asserting her authority and backed off.

“I became a fly on the wall and became frozen, Patti,” Susan told me. “I didn’t used to be a highly anxious person. But I am, now. And the stress is overwhelming.”

Susan had taken the path of least resistance, and it had backfired.

People on the team started making key decisions without her.
She felt she was losing footing.
She became vague and unclear whenever she provided direction.
Other executives pushed back, and she backed down again.

“The anxiety has become overwhelming,” she told me. ”And I’ll do whatever it takes to remove the stress.”

“Well, get ready for more anxiety, then,” I countered. “But this time, it will be worth it.”

I shared that, whether you make a change or not, when you are not comfortable with where you are (and in Susan’s case, with exerting her authority), you will experience anxiety.

“Right now, you are experiencing chronic anxiety. Chronic anxiety comes from putting up with a situation that is stressful rather than taking the painful steps to resolve it. So that’s where you are, because you find yourself frozen and unsure as to how to move out from this space. Yet, should you choose to confront and make the change you need to make, that also creates anxiety. This kind of anxiety is acute. And we don’t like the thought of more anxiety. We put up with the chronic anxiety of inaction, so we don’t have to go through the acute anxiety.”

“That’s sounds crazy,” Susan said.

“It is, in a way,” I said. “Any attempt to change is going to make us feel the disruption of the familiar. A mentor coach of mine once explained it to me with the following example: chronic anxiety would be if you walked around with a pebble in your shoe and you just kept walking with it because it’s too much effort to take off the shoe. You don’t want to face the challenge. Acute anxiety would be if you are in a 10k race, and you have a pebble in your shoe. You realize that, if you stop to take it out, you will go a lot faster. But you will also lose time. And you will now have to face compensating to win the race. But you choose to do so; and, thus, face the challenge.”

“So, in order to get peace and reclaim my effectiveness, I will need to get off the path of least resistance, and face this. Stand up. Take back my authority.”

“Yes,” I answered. “But it’s easier said than done. There are a lot of people out there who know they need to face change, but they won’t. They need a thought partner to help strategize and implement, someone who can support them through the acute stress. The difference between them and you is that you are willing to take action on those needs.”

“Makes total sense,” said Susan. “When and where do we start?”

Susan and I worked over the next six months to help her reclaim her authority in a respectful, yet firm manner. There were some eruptions along the way, but Susan dealt with them well, which made room for the team to come together and begin to build cohesion and trust.

A year later, she called me.

“You wouldn’t recognize us,” she said. “We are moving forward together on all cylinders. Our conversations are different, and we are getting things done. I’m feeling comfortable leading, and the team is taking great pride in each of their areas of responsibility. Thank you.”

“You did the work, Susan,” I responded. “You decided a bit of acute anxiety was worth the prize. Congratulations!”

Are you identifying with Susan’s dilemma in this story?

Where in your own leadership are you feeling chronic anxiety?
How much is it costing you, your team, and the company?
And the most important question: Are you willing to go through the acute anxiety needed to take back your authority?

—

This article is part of a series of real-life scenarios that leaders face in today’s business world. The names and details are modified to preserve confidentiality and may represent multiple occurrences.

The Clockwork of Excellent Leadership: 3 Essential Gears

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.