Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

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Three Micro-Connections to Increase Positive Team Culture

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Three Micro-Connections to Increase Positive Team Culture
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Human beings need connection.

The workplace suffers from a lack of it, due to the demands and pace of the work at hand. Virtual and semi-virtual teams are hit harder than those who occupy the same physical space.

Suggestions such as more team building and socials fall flat. They not only require time from busy schedules, they are often impractical, sporadic connections; and, thus, are not enough to build bonds and trust.

Without bonds and trust – the results of human connection – your team will experience lowered engagement, minimized trust, and a lack of commitment (and you know the kinds of things that come from that!).

How can you rectify this?

The five-minute morning huddle, whether in-person or virtual, is a good start. However, grouping to communicate and keep each other informed does not satisfy the deeper hunger to connect.

Three Micro-Connections

The good news is that there are three micro-connections you and your team can immediately adopt that will strengthen powerful human connection, and which require no more time on anyone’s part.

These micro-connects, when not incorporated into your behaviors, are actually the first things to suffer in a fast-paced work environment. Check yourself on how well you are doing with them now – and seek to increase them in all your interactions.

Here they are:

  1. Increase your eye contact.

When you are in a conversation with others, do you find your eyes wander? Be intentional about your eye contact with the other person. Becoming comfortable with eye contact is a first important step to connecting on a deeper level. It says, “I recognize you. I’m present and paying attention to you.”

  1. Monitor your tone of voice.

Do your tone of voice and pace of your words reflect stress or hurry? If so, you are implicitly communicating that you don’t have time for the person on the other end of the conversation. Take quiet stock of this the next time you speak with people, especially when on the phone.

  1. Begin each conversation with a personal connection before diving into business.

Take 30 seconds to a minute and ask the other team member how they are, how the week is going, or another personal “connection” that shows you care about them as a human being. Re-establish connection before diving into the agenda at hand. This is a big one for most busy executives – and a big “miss” if they don’t incorporate it.

These three micro-connections will support a more positive, caring team culture that says, “You belong. You are important.”

They bring meaningful validation, which is something we all seek.

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 Tips to Boost a Culture of Inclusivity

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Three Tips to Boost a Culture of Inclusivity
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An open and honest environment is important for a healthy company culture.

Fostering this is important to employee engagement and your ability to retain top talent.

But if your employees don’t feel free to express their opinions, you are keeping them from feeling more motivated to contributing their best work.

Why is this the case? And how can you turn this around?

Studies show that creating a sense of belonging in the workplace is one of the top criteria for an employee to feel engaged. A sense of belonging allows employees to feel like they are able to be authentic. And the ability to feel authentic at work affects an employee’s sense of contribution, which in turn, affects their engagement and performance.

Most CEOs pride themselves on creating such a sense of belonging. They cite great on-boarding processes, recognition programs, and intentional cultural markers and norms such as “Dress Down Friday” and the annual employee picnic.

But there is one area affecting employee retention that gets overlooked quite a bit. And this is making sure that you teach your people how to value differing perspectives or opinions.

As your employees come from all walks of life, backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences, they are bound to have various perspectives and opinions. And nothing will curb a feeling of inclusion faster than to discount someone’s opinion.

I’ve heard things in executive meeting brainstorming sessions such as, “Well, John, that can’t work because…” or, “That approach is impossible,” as first responses to someone offering ideas for solutions.

What happens?

Shutdown.

People hesitate to speak up. They are afraid of “getting it wrong,” or of being discounted.

And nothing is worse than sending that kind of message if you are trying to create a spirit of inclusion.

Everyone wants to feel included. Having that sense of acceptance and belonging is key to fueling the desire to contribute and be a part of something.

Here are three tips that will help you boost your culture’s spirit of inclusivity.

  1. Make sure you have a growth mindset.

Do you find your executive team is in a rut when it comes to new ideas? Make sure it hasn’t calcified to a fixed stance of “This is the way we have always done it.” You may not readily hear it, but you will see it in the way that your executives become complacent and comfortable with “what is.”

If this is the case, begin having brainstorm sessions around new ideas by asking the question, “What is possible, here? If we couldn’t do it the way we have always done it, how might we approach this?”

  1. The first responder to someone else’s opinion must be a cheerleader.

Develop the “carrot approach” to encourage people contributing their ideas and perspectives. Adopt the group norm that when a person comes up with an idea, the first one to respond must offer something positive.

He or she doesn’t have to agree with the opinion, but should at least laud the other person for thinking outside of the box. This kind of immediate response will develop a culture of acceptance and inclusion. No idea is a bad one – let’s consider it.

  1. Ask questions instead of making pronouncements.

When exploring the opinions and perspectives of others, take an open-minded approach by asking questions to dive deeper. “Tell me more,” or “Let’s talk about how that might work.” This keeps you on your toes to consider new possibilities, and at the same time, creates a spirit of togetherness as you work through toward a solution.

The next time you are tempted to share why a particular idea won’t work, pause and redirect. You’ll find that your team will become more engaged, animated, and willing to contribute at much higher levels.

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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.

Five Best Tips to Instantly Increase Productivity

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Five Best Tips to Instantly Increase Productivity
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Are you ready to feel more productive and organized? There are so many books and systems out there that it’s hard to know where to start.

Let me share five top tips that my clients say have eliminated a feeling of stress and overwhelm, changed their ability to focus, and increased their ability to get things done:

1. Insert blocks of work time into your calendar.

Even the most powerful executives report stress due to a lack of time to work on major projects and initiatives. Invariably, when I review their physical calendar with them, time to work on these is not reserved.

If you are in charge of much, but you aren’t reserving the time to work on the most essential, you are setting yourself up for chronic stress and overwhelm. The problem is that most leaders assume this simply comes with the territory. It doesn’t.

Try the following experiment: Block off a two-hour timeframe each workday, preferably mornings. This is reserved for working on the most essential.

2. Schedule a maximum of two to three times daily to respond to e-mails.

Some of you are cringing right now – you know who you are!

When you aren’t responding to these e-mails, please turn off your alerts (and yes, that includes your mobile devices). You will instantly heighten your ability to focus and remain on task. This is the habit that most of my executives ignore. When they finally experiment with it, they are astounded at the difference it makes.

3. Start with the most challenging projects first.

Human beings usually have the habit of beginning with the easiest and most mundane tasks first. The challenge is that these tasks seem never-ending – and time seems to run out before you can turn to the most important priorities. Use the time blocks in #1 above wisely – tackle the big ones, first. You will develop a sense of accomplishment and avoid the stress that accompanies procrastination.

4. Schedule project timelines into your calendar.

It is likely that you have already developed a timeline with deadlines for each of your major projects so that you are working at your smartest. Once you have done this, transfer these deadlines into your calendar. It’s a quick and easy way to remind yourself so that you stay on target.

5. Show up fully organized for your day.

Develop the simple habit of taking time at the end of your day to look ahead. What do you need to accomplish tomorrow? If yours is a running list, prioritize it.

Begin by dividing it into “urgent-essential;” “urgent-non-essential;” non-urgent and essential,” and “non-urgent and non-essential” (Note: If you actually have things listed in that last category, we need to talk!).

Then select the top three items which will be your focus for the time blocks in your calendar. (Note #2: If you have a list of more than 6-8 projects or initiatives listed in your “urgent-essential” category, it’s time to reassess for potential delegation).

Most productivity challenges at the senior levels come from a lack of self-organization. These five tips, when integrated into your way of working, should yield great results. I look forward to hearing how these tips worked for you.

The Clockwork of Excellent Leadership:   3 Essential Gears

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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.

When Your Feedback Doesn’t Work

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When Your Feedback Doesn’t Work
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Feedback is crucial.

It is necessary for aligning expectations, solving problems, improving performance, and developing talent – all the things that increase the bottom line.

But often, feedback doesn’t work.

In fact, more than half of your managers may not be having the difficult conversations needed to hold people accountable.

What’s the problem?

A survey of 750 HR professionals by Sibson Consulting and World at Work revealed that 63% of executives believe that the biggest challenge of performance management is managers’ unwillingness to have difficult conversations.

And this may be because when managers do deliver feedback, it is poorly received.

According to a study by Globoforce (2011), even when managers tackle these conversations with the best of intentions, employees are often left feeling resentful or discouraged – 55% of employees believe their review is inaccurate or unfair, and one in four say it is the thing they dread most in their working lives.

I work with companies to develop leadership and align culture. If a particular company’s management is struggling to hold its people accountable, I find it is usually due to poor feedback delivery and follow-through.

Here are five top reasons likely to keep a manager’s feedback from working:

1. The feedback isn’t timely.

I hear more dismay and resentment from employees who have just received their yearly evaluation. They cite being surprised and hurt at hearing for the first time a dissatisfaction with their performance dating back 12 months.

“Why did he wait so long to tell me?” asked one employee. “I feel like I’ve been judged for a year on something I could have fixed long ago.”

Another said, “I rectified that situation 10 months ago – why am I getting cited for it as though it’s still a problem?”

The answer to this is timely feedback. Teach your managers to address problem behavior quickly so that the employee in question can benefit most. Not only will the situation be fresh in their minds, they can also get on track to course-correcting much sooner. And instead of writing this up 12 months later as a problem, your manager can talk about the employee’s improved behavior.

2. The feedback doesn’t seem clear or relevant.

When addressing problem behavior, your manager needs to remember to:

a. Be specific about the behavior. It is not enough to say, “You need to stop acting like a drill sergeant,” which is a judgment and open to many interpretations. Instead, the manager must point out specifics about the person’s presence that require change. To use the drill sergeant illustration, is it language? Tone of voice? The closed or intimidating body language using folded arms, leaning into someone’s face, etc.?

b. Relate how the behavior has a negative business impact. Your manager needs to coach his employee – not just course-correct. Part of this is to relate the problem behavior to a negative impact on the business so that the employee can understand cause and effect.

For example, “When you use that harsh tone of voice, it can feel intimidating or offensive to others, which causes them to refrain from collaborating with you. If we don’t have a team that can work well together, we won’t be able to produce the results we need in order to support the business.”

3. The feedback doesn’t offer a clear picture of the desired behavior that should replace the current problem behavior.

Sometimes, employees just don’t want to change. But the more likely scenario is that they want to do well, but they simply don’t know how. Just because your manager has identified the problem behavior doesn’t mean the employee knows how to replace this with one that is acceptable.

Be sure your manager describes in detail the new behavior they want to see. For example, if an employee has been conveying disapproval or aloofness in meetings with body language, the manager should give a very specific behavioral alternative. For example, give details such as, “Instead of crossing your arms and leaning back during meetings, try leaning forward just a bit (which connotes interest), and keep your arms at your side. This will eliminate the appearance that you don’t care or that you disapprove of the message you are currently hearing.”

4. The employee doesn’t trust the person delivering the feedback.

This is a tough one. If your manager is perceived as not having the best interests of his employee in mind, the latter will not receive the feedback well, due to a lack of trust. If your manager has effectuated steps 1-3 above and is still not getting anywhere, it’s time for the manager to check in with a different question, such as, “Sandra, you and I have talked about your tendency to overlook deadlines, and you have pledged to correct this. Yet, the problem persists. Help me to understand what’s happening. Can you shed more light on this?”

This approach should reveal whether there is something else behind the lack of change, such as a basic resentment and feeling of unfairness on the part of the employee, or another problem of which the manager was unaware.

5. The employee’s identity is at stake.

It can happen that feedback simply doesn’t register because it threatens the employee’s sense of self.

Hearing feedback that doesn’t register with that sense of self can cause an employee to become defensive or feel overwhelmed and unable to respond. The employee may insist on disbelieving the feedback since they cannot “see” their behavior being a problem or having a negative impact.

A standoff will not be productive.

Instead, consider having your manager engage the employee in a series of small experiments as a way to coach the latter into more awareness and better management of self.

For example, if Max frequently ignores his fellow employees in the workplace, your manager can help him with a small, but focused goal to connect with each of them once daily. Have the manager ask Max to observe how his fellow employees react to him over the next few weeks and report back. Most likely, Max’s coworkers will begin to warm up to him and include him in more conversations. Debriefing with the manager will begin to help Max develop more awareness around how his lack of connectivity has adversely affected his work relationships – and a way to turn this around.

Teaching your managers the gift of honest and productive feedback is manifold. Far beyond outlining standards, it can provide your employees with a growth path that benefits them, their team, and your organization. Take charge of this process by modeling this with your executive team so that you can begin to integrate true accountability into your culture.

© 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.

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.