Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

leader

The Cost of Snap Judgments

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The Cost of Snap Judgments
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Are you compromising your leadership by making snap judgments?

Research shows that we use less information than we think when making decisions.

Yet, what can you do when the volume of problems to be solved continues to grow?

If you tend to make decisions quickly without the benefit of “the rest of the story,” your leadership and your company are in jeopardy.

How do you solve this?

Here’s an actual client scenario: (names are fictitious)

Nate, senior manager of operations of Allen, Inc., hurried into Jim’s office. “Our steel inventory won’t meet demands this next month. I’m particularly concerned about making good on our commitment to Shanden, Inc., our biggest account.”

“You are right – we can’t have this,” sputtered Jim, CEO. “I hate to do it, but go ahead and buy the more expensive grade of steel for their current project. I know it doesn’t require it, but we need to keep Shanden. I’ll find the money somewhere.”

Jim and Nate spent a lot of money to procure last-minute inventory – and inventory that was overkill for what Shanden’s project actually required.

Here’s what both men did not consider – and which could have saved them headaches and dollars:

  1. Jim lost trust, which was replaced by resentment.

    Jim lost trust with his employees

And he lost trust with his middle management.

In this scenario, Sam, the relationship manager for the top account was not consulted. If he had been, Nate and Jim would have learned that Shanden’s project had in fact come to a standstill for external reasons. The men could have waited and ordered less expensive inventory.

“I could have saved them a lot of trouble and money,” Sam said. “I may as well be invisible here.”

Jim lost trust with Allen employees who worked directly with Shanden to deliver product.

They became resentful, knowing this kind of steel was overkill and required quite a bit more money. Could this kind of decision-making jeopardize things like their raises that they had been promised later in the year? If the boss had such funding, why had he said the company couldn’t invest in better conditions for them? Did he really care about them?

  1. Jim lost an opportunity to mentor and empower his top talent.

Nate had a habit of knee-jerking and not getting all the facts before panicking – something that Jim had inadvertently fostered in him by doing the same.

And Sam was furious. “I feel like a useless paper-pusher, here,” he told me. “If I were included in decisions that affect my area, I could contribute quite a bit – and save Allen money and relationships!”

Nate should have included Sam in his fact-gathering – and Jim should have asked that Sam’s input be included before making a decision. Getting the perspective and input from all relevant parties would have resulted in a much healthier, less costly outcome and much better team relationships.

  1. Jim weakened Allen, Inc.’s future.

Jim incurred loss for the company. Allen lost money on the Shanden project as a result of throwing money at it. This meant that Allen didn’t have the reserves it needed to invest in some of the company’s top priorities later that year – including the employee raises and some expansion it was considering. These losses definitely affected employee morale and productivity, and Allen’s future opportunities.

What happened to Jim? Jim fell into the psychological trap of allowing his emotions to get in the way of careful judgment.

Ed O’Brien, associate professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has performed experiments with decision-making that point out the following:

“People view the mind as a rational arbiter, assuming that they and others will withhold judgment until they finish flipping through all the evidence. But the mind isn’t just a passive information processor; it’s also emotional. In reality, once people begin to experience…evidence in real time, they will inevitably react to it as they go along. We won’t need to see later information if we already love or hate the very first piece” (“We Use Less Information to Make Decisions Than We Think,” Harvard Business Review, 03-07-19).

Are you too quick to judge?

Losing trust, weakening your business, and limiting opportunities definitely make a case for slowing down, getting the full picture, and diagnosing the real problem.

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 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 to Remedy Mediocre Team Trust

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How to Remedy Mediocre Team Trust
Image Credit: Shutterstock

How much is enough when it comes to trust on your team? You may feel it’s pretty good – and that it’s “good enough.”

But your organization is suffering if you feel this way. The company will be missing out on so many things that ultimately affect its profitability and the return on shareholder investment.

Truth be told, you are suffering, as well. It’s just subtle enough that you may not realize it.

Are you compromising your best leadership because of mediocre team trust? 

Following are some things that high trust can do for you, your team, and the organization.

1. Impact of Trust at the Individual Level

  • You bond with others to enjoy better relationships.
  • You feel personally and professionally protected, knowing others have your best interests in mind.
  • You are assured that you can count on others to inspire you to contribute your best and be a part of the larger picture.

2. Impact of Trust at the Team Level

  • You enjoy more collaboration. It feels safe to process challenges, solve problems, and reach goals together. Conflict is dealt with so that relationships are respected and issues are solved.
  • You reap enhanced creativity and innovation. You feel comfortable sharing new ideas and taking risks. You feel comfortable that your team members have your back, and you are willing to have theirs.
  • Team productivity soars, and morale is high.

3. Impact of Trust at the Organizational Level

  • Heightened employee engagement and satisfaction override decreased turnover.
  • There is increased productivity and profitability.
  • The company enjoys a higher return on shareholder investment.

How do you begin to build greater trust on your team?

1. Review with your team the anatomy of trust.

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

Become well-acquainted with what makes up trust so that you can begin to identify where the team needs to grow.

2. Use this as an opportunity to begin building trust.

Have all team members rate the team as a whole (as if the team were one individual).

  • Where does the team do well?
  • Identify the top three areas where the team has a growth opportunity.

Then, brainstorm together on a plan to work on these.

  • What are first steps?
  • How will you measure success?
  • And how will you hold each other accountable?

The benefits of high trust on a team are many. I challenge you to get excited around this and to build additional trust on your team. Let me know how it works!

© 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.

Why You Need to Get Personal with Your Team

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Why You Need to Get Personal with Your Team
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Many years ago, I oversaw the development for five hospitals. It was a great joy to develop the team for some near-impossible goals that my area had been given, and to reach these successfully.

I loved my team and would have done just about anything for them. But sadly, they didn’t know that. In fact, quite the contrary.

Sharon sat down one afternoon and closed the door.

“You don’t even know us,” she said. “I bet you don’t even know that Alex has gotten engaged. Do you even care about us?”

Are you connected with your own team?

How do you know?

You can imagine that I was crushed. My introvertish nature coupled with a high drive for results had been seen as aloof and uncaring – far from the truth.

The effects of not being personally connected with your team can be devastating – a low level of trust resulting in poor performance and a host of other undesirable behaviors. The symptoms are such that you may blame these on the larger culture of the organization or on other external factors.

Yet, the culprit may simply be that your team doesn’t feel connected with you.

Leaders struggle with this, and we play a lot of head games.

We may want to appear in control to assure the team all is well. We may ask ourselves if being seen as vulnerable is risky to our position of being “in charge.” And some of us question the relevancy of connecting beyond the professional framework.

Yet, without humanizing ourselves, we can appear cold, uncaring, wooden, untouchable…the list goes on. Somewhere along the way, someone has taught us to appear as though we have it all together in order to reflect confidence in leadership.

Not true.

Becoming human allows others to do so – to identify with you and connect.

Human beings need to feel a sense of connectedness. This comes from knowing others on the team and feeling known and accepted as a member.

In order to have this happen, we must become real.

Highest-performing teams know this – and work on it regularly.

Here are three things you can do right away to “get personal” with your team so that you can engage with each other on a greater level:

  1. Take your teams members to lunch.

During your time together, tell them you don’t want to talk about work, but just want to get to know each other better. Have some questions ready – why did they pick France as a vacation last year? Where did they grow up – and how did this affect the way they see things today?

  1. Develop an understanding about each other’s gifts and talents.

There are some great assessments out there for this: StrengthsFinder, Enneagram, and others. Have each team member take the assessment, bring their results, and talk about how these show up in their work and life.

  1. Take some time to learn each other’s lives.

What does this mean? Who are you outside of work? What is your favorite movie? How do you handle surprises? Make up a list of questions and share the answers as part of your team-building. Do this over time – knowing each other personally should be intentional and consistent in order to create bonds and connectedness.

Have fun with this. It has become a joy for me personally to connect with others in this way and to develop deep relationships.

As a bonus, when people feel you care about them, they also care about you. When the going gets tough, the team will pull together in a new and more concerted way to succeed.

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 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.

Three Ways to Jump-start Team Creativity

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Three Ways to Jump-start Team Creativity
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Creativity is essential to any organization if you want to move your business forward.

But what do you do when you’ve taken great pains to foster a supportive culture for this, but your team doesn’t seem to follow?

Often, it’s a matter of just one small shift in the way that you put your heads together.

Here are three ideas to help jump-start team creativity.

 1.  Champion the new idea.

What happens when a team member comes up with a new idea?

Most often, others on the team will respond with a cautionary response, or reasons why the idea will not work.

Research shows that when this happens, the subtle message is that bad things happen when new ideas are expressed. Instead, get your team to commit to doing the following: when someone shares a new idea or possibility, the first person to speak up must say something positive about the idea. This doesn’t mean the speaker has to endorse the idea; he or she must simply make a positive statement. An example might be, “That’s one I’ve never thought of! I’d love to sit down to explore how it might work!”

Research is showing that this one shift is allowing the safe psychological space in which to incubate innovation.

2.  Play the “what if” game.

When brainstorming on a new idea, spending time on reasons why something won’t work can stall creative energy. Frustration sets in, and the brain’s frontal lobe (where we do all our best thinking) shuts down – and usually ends the conversation.

To avoid this, confront the perceived roadblock when identified by stating, “And what if _____ (identified roadblock) were not an issue?”

This will quickly reanimate the conversation and, quite often, promote other ideas to work around the roadblock when all is said and done.

3.  Practice “brain-writing.”

Brain-writing is an effective alternative to brainstorming, which was popularized in the 1970s. The genius behind it is that it helps participants to step out their normal mental framework to explore greater possibilities.

There are variations of brain-writing, but one example is to pass out Post-ItTM notes or index cards, and have each person write down an idea. These are then passed to the next person on the right.

This receiving person can do one of three things: use the written idea as a catalyst for a new idea, modify the original idea, or pass the card along to the next person. After a set time agreed upon by the team, ideas are gathered up, grouped, and evaluated. For more on brain-writing, click here.

As you begin to recognize the sparks of creativity begin to fly, remember to encourage this so that momentum grows. Think about rewarding the best suggestion or solution with something the team has previously agreed upon, such as gift card for dinner out, a pair of movie tickets, or extra time off. These are small prices to pay for the benefits creativity brings – increased engagement, motivation, problem-solving and productivity, just to name a few.

© 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 to Revitalize Your Team Meetings

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How to Revitalize Your Team Meetings
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Team meetings can be a source of frustration and an incredible waste of time. When I address execution with executives, needing more time is the biggest factor they cite.

Here’s what I hear:

“HUGE waste of time. We don’t get anything done!”

“We address things we could have taken care of by ourselves.”

“The same people always talk – and the same people always zone out. What am I here for?”

How do you make sure your meetings are productive and effective?

Here’s a quick checklist to set a firm foundation:

1. Determine the purpose for your meeting.

Are you meeting to keep your team informed of the trends in your industry? To problem-solve? To build rapport with one another? Be sure that you have this firmly in mind as you build your agenda. Take care that you do not turn team meetings into work sessions when this could be handled more efficiently outside the meeting.

2. Have an agenda with defined objectives.

Please select topics for your meeting that affect the entire team. Other issues should be held back for a time when you can meet with only those who are involved. Then, for each item listed on the agenda, list what you need from the group. Are you sharing information, seeking input for a decision, or needing to make a decision during the meeting? It’s challenging for team members to concentrate on the item at hand if they don’t know what you need from them as you address it.

3. Action items and accountability.

As you address the agenda items, make sure you bring each to a successful conclusion by listing any actions needing to be taken, the person/people taking those actions, and a deadline by which they will complete the action identified. Then, decide whether they need to report back to the group in a next team meeting, or if it is more effective simply to report back to you or the others involved in the issue.

4. Cut down on the attendee list.

Who really needs to attend? And if someone is invited because they are giving a spotlight presentation only, schedule this at the beginning or end of the meeting and let them know when to be present. Don’t have them wade through your entire meeting when it isn’t necessary. Take a quick sweep of your meeting agendas and check your attendee list. This needs to be done periodically so as to make sure that those who are invited really need to be there.

5. Prepare your attendees.

Send out your agenda at least 24 hours in advance and let them know to expect this as a rule of thumb. When you send this out, identify for them what you will be needing from them in the meeting. For example, do you want them to problem-solve a certain issue confronting the organization? Include some background beforehand.

6. Start on time.

This seems elementary, but I’m going to flag this as one of two biggest time-wasters with the world of meetings (the other one is found next, in #7). Waiting for one or two people sends the message that your time and the time of others is not valuable. It also reflects on you as being less than effective. Do you have someone who is chronically late? Address this with them privately. If they are allowed to arrive late on a regular basis, this also sends the message that your meeting is not of top priority.

7. Stick to the agenda.

Allowing team to stray from the agenda reduces effectiveness. If someone brings up an issue or problem that needs solving, but is not part of the agenda, place this in “the parking lot.” Have someone keep track of any parking lot issues by making a note of them. Then, if urgent and relevant to the team, address these at the end of your meeting if there is time or announce the plan to address these before you adjourn.

8. External check-in.

Ask your team to assess the meetings on a scale of 1-10. What will make them better? More relevant? More effective? If you are receiving feedback that your team meetings are a waste of time, you may discover that you seek to meet simply out of habit or out of a false sense of accomplishment from having met. Be honest with yourself – and go back to defining the purpose of your meeting.

Finally, as a team-building exercise, you may want to gather up the team and ask them what they would like to get out of these meetings. Such a session will no doubt surface ideas that will be helpful to you going forward.

The Clockwork of Excellent Leadership:   3 Essential Gears

What makes up excellent leadership? The essential components that go into leadership must all work together, or they begin to wear on one another and bring things to a stop. Learn how to keep them running like clockwork. Sign up to receive the  complimentary infographic.

© 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.