Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

meeting

Is Your Company Culture Too Nice?

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Is Your Company Culture Too Nice?
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Is your company culture “too nice”?

As a leader, you may think you are doing your business a favor by encouraging politeness. But sometimes, emphasizing this too much may send the wrong message entirely.

How can you tell if you need to toughen up your culture?

Larry was quick to share with me that the culture at his company was warm and friendly, with a “family feel” to it.

“People are very courteous around here,” he said. “But we are in trouble. That’s why I’m calling you for help.”

“What kind of trouble are you experiencing?” I asked.

“I’m discovering that what our people say in meetings is not what they are saying in the hallways. We have quite a few employees that are under-performing, and their supervisors are not willing to hold them accountable. Our deadlines are not being met and we’re not even working on priorities. What’s going on?”

After sitting with Larry and some of his key executives, I discovered what kept his company from being a healthy, high-performing business. And as I shared, Larry’s face showed its dismay.

“You mean the very thing that I emphasized has created the problem?” he asked.

“Not exactly, Larry,” I answered. “Being kind and polite is important. But you need to make sure they don’t take this to mean an unwillingness to set expectations, be transparent, and hold people accountable.”

“I thought I was motivating the staff,” he answered. “After all, you ‘catch more flies with honey than vinegar,’ as they say.”

“Unfortunately, leaders over-emphasize politeness for a variety of reasons, Larry,” I said. “Some may not like conflict. Some might think, as you, that it will motivate people. Others may feel this will foster inclusion. But look where we have wound up, here.

“In fact, I’m willing to wager that you have people agreeing with each other on decisions when you should have healthy debate with different perspectives. This means you are killing possibilities of innovating. You probably have some people who were hired at a high-performing level who have now slowed down their pace to ‘meet the herd.’ And you probably have hidden conflict because people aren’t willing to address critical issues that keep the company from moving forward.”

“You are right,” Larry answered. “I can see that, now. So, what do I do?”

Here are some key steps I outlined which reflect the work we did together over the next few months to turn around Larry’s poor culture.

1. Set new expectations.

When it’s time to shift gears to foster a healthier culture, know what you want – and set these expectations very explicitly. This means defining what your cultural norms are and how they appear in action.For example, if one of your cultural norms is “respect,” what does respect look like when people work with each other? Instead of avoiding tough issues, it can mean confronting these issues by providing timely, critical feedback that supports growth.

2. Foster psychological safety at every level.

There is no high-performing team without psychological safety. Your team members must have each other’s back, support differing perspectives, ensure that everyone has a voice, and more. These are part of team norms – and if you haven’t done this work yet, it’s time now. You will see a huge difference in the way that your team is motivated, how they produce, and how they work together.

3. Hold people accountable for the right things.

Most businesses hold their people accountable for deadlines and for goals reached. But they seldom build in the system and processes they need to support human behavior. What this means is that if you want your people to be respectfully candid and talk about real issues, you need to encourage and reward this.

How does your company’s culture measure up?

  • Are you happy with how motivated and engaged your staff are?
  • How well do they brainstorm to innovate?
  • Do you reward supportive critical feedback that fosters greater development?

Focusing on your company culture means exponentially increasing your business revenues. If you find, like Larry, that your company isn’t where you want it to be, commit to making this a priority.

© 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 Hidden Factors Resulting in Meeting Stalemates

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Five Hidden Factors Resulting in Meeting Stalemates
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You’ve reached an impasse in the meeting. Emotions are high.

It’s another stalemate, and this is becoming habit on your team.

Why does this happen? And how do you break through this and reach consensus?

Meeting shutdowns happen for a variety of reasons. And all the tips in the world to facilitate meetings will not work unless you move past the five most common hidden roadblocks that impel people to leave the conversation.

When a meeting stalemates, it is often because team members leave the “window of tolerance,” a term coined by Dan Siegel in his book Mindsight. The window of tolerance is the zone in which people operate optimally, functioning, managing, and thriving. It is the space in which we can do our best critical thinking, exchanging, and considering ideas because when we are in this zone, we are able to use our executive brain – the part of the brain where functions such as creativity, reasoning, critical thinking, and more are centered.

When people leave the window of tolerance, they move to one of two states.

  1. Hyper-arousal

Here, a person will want to fight or flee. They may feel anxious or angry. Emotions run high, and any thinking is based on survival and safety.

  1. Hypo-arousal

Here, a person will shut down, and feel spacey or numb. The body might want to freeze or shut down, and it is difficult to think at all.

How does this work in meetings?

Team members may become heated and even irrational in their attempt to drive home opinions or resist those presented by others. Other team members can shut down and leave the conversation entirely.

When this happens, meeting effectiveness comes to a halt. Most often, the group will decide they need to meet at a later time to revisit the topic. Important decisions are placed on hold. Executives and areas of responsibility are held back. The organization is in limbo.

How do you handle this?

Here are five of the most common inhibitors and some ideas to help the team break through to move forward.

  1. A lack of clarity about the idea or concept presented.

Is the idea or concept being stated clear to others? Has the presenter explained this in a way that everyone understands? If you have a person who cannot state ideas succinctly, this is enough to cause others to discount their message. If you have someone on the team who takes too much space in explaining concepts, here is a “cheat sheet” to help them frame their message in a way that is more concise and convincing.

  1. A lack of understanding as to the business impact or benefits to the organization.

Do people understand how the topic at hand impacts the business? When exploring ideas to support decisions, it is important to connect the dots. How will the idea being presented benefit and impact the organization? What negative realities will need to be dealt with if the overall concept is of value? Asking these questions can help your team think beyond the immediate.

  1. Bias around the message bearer.

It is important for team members to check in on this. We all carry bias. The question is, how do we choose to handle it? Notice if you discount messages coming from any particular team member due to your personal bias about them. How can you give space and compassion to that person and consider the idea they are presenting? This is perhaps the toughest of the five roadblocks, and yet, the most beneficial when we begin to adopt a stance reflecting more empathy and compassion.

  1. Conflict with a personal agenda or conviction.

If a concept is presented that moves counter to the way your own area of responsibility operates, it is enough to cause internal conflict and an aversion to remain open to possibility. Most of us are inclined to respond with statements such as, “Well, that will never work because…” or “We just don’t do things that way…”

Consider replacing these kinds of statements with those such as, “How would that work? What might the benefits be?” This helps you and others stay in the conversation and play with possibilities that could be game changers for your business and the impact it has on the world.

  1. A lack of willingness to embrace change

Change is really tough, and it is not fun. Why? We are creatures of habit and love our comfort zones. Yet, change is when exciting things can happen, and we can take advantage of the opportunity to grow. Check yourself when you feel resistance to change. Recognize where you are in the change cycle on the particular issue being addressed. Then ask yourself what possible benefit you and the organization might enjoy if the change takes place. Awareness around your own resistance and how to manage it if you see benefit are empowering.

Only after these roadblocks have been addressed can you actually move forward to play well as a team and make good decisions together. I challenge you to discuss these factors with your team to begin a new way of approaching and implementing your decision-making together.

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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.

5 Ways to Cut Your Meeting Time in Half

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5 Ways to Cut Your Meeting Time in Half
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Ask anyone in management about how much they love meetings, and I can guarantee you will hear a loud groan. Chief complaints are that there are too many, they waste time, and little gets accomplished during these. A top upset is when meetings rehash the same agenda items without any move forward.

How can you minimize the time spent on your meetings, maximize the focus and outcomes, and get back to work quickly?

Here are 5 ways you can make sure your meetings are effective, stay on track, and keep the organization moving forward:

1. Prepare your attendees for the meeting.

Make sure your meeting has a clear purpose, an agenda, and any background information to brief people. Send this out ahead of time and alert attendees that they need to review the info before the meeting is held. This one move can eliminate a lot of time in your meeting wasted on bringing people up to speed and risking conversations around things that have already been decided.

2. Clarify what you want from your attendees.

Is this meeting informational, for consideration, or for action?

a. If the meeting is for information only, make it clear that you are sharing for awareness, and decide during your meeting what information from your time together needs to be shared with the larger employee base or select management.

b. If the meeting is for consideration, make sure you define what is up for consideration and what outcomes you would like for the meeting. This kind of meeting is most likely to be typed as a time-waster unless you facilitate for the outcomes you request, identify next steps with deadlines, and share this with all involved to pull things forward. It is important especially for this type of meeting that you as leader facilitate and allow other team members to speak and weigh in. Your job is to conduct the meeting and keep it on track to desired outcomes – not to dictate opinion by reason of your position.

c. If the meeting is for action, be sure that you have identified and have present all decision-makers who need to be in the room. This avoids having to chase down and reintegrate any new views or opinions coming from those who were absent (and which can often cause another new meeting on the same subject, rehashing the same agenda). As with the meeting for consideration, articulate clearly the decisions that were made, the actions you have determined, who will follow up on each, and a deadline for reporting back.

3. Go lean on your attendee list.

Do you have tourists in your meetings? People who have climbed “on the bus” by virtue of association, but who really don’t need to be in there? Review your agenda carefully and decide who from your regular attendee list no longer needs to be involved. This can be touchy as you may send the wrong message by simply disinviting them. Be sure to explain why – that the agenda isn’t something to which they need to devote time, and you are revamping in order to minimize meetings and time spent on these so that they can do the work at hand.

4. Avoid highjacking.

Three major ways this can happen to your meeting are when Parkinson’s Law of Triviality is activated, when side-barring occurs, and if you have a personality who tends grandstand or hold court.

a. Parkinson’s Law of Triviality is where people spend a relatively large amount of time, energy, and focus dealing with relatively minor issues. How does this work in a meeting? People will stay with trivia inside of a more major decision because they are more comfortable with that. They may not understand the larger issue at hand, or they may not be fully engaged with it. When this happens, and they begin to “major in minors,” the more important issue being neglected, and a whole team diverted to a side conversation. If you notice this happening, be quick to call people back to the larger focus at hand.

b. Stopping your own meeting to side-bar means that the rest of your team has to wait while you do take care of things that should be cared for in a 1:1 meeting or other forum. It sends a poor message about your own leadership abilities and causes people to lose their focus and engagement during your time together. That’s a hard thing to recapture – so don’t do it!

c. Do you have a grandstander? A personality who considers meetings the place where they can make sure everyone else is impressed with their opinion? This person tends to takes up all the air in the room so that others aren’t able or willing to participate, or interrupts loudly to show expertise. If so, you need to have a critical conversation with this person to help them to understand the behavior you are noticing, how it is adversely impacting the team, and the desired behaviors you want to see instead.

5. Recap of your meeting.

Send out a recap of your meeting notes with appropriate action steps, designated people in charge of them, and deadlines. These notes should be taken by someone other than you to allow you to focus on leading and facilitating. If you have an assistant, this is optimal. If you have a leaner team in attendance for this one, ask one of your members to capture what you want on the agenda so that you can have your assistant type these up later for distribution.

What are your pet-peeve time-wasters in meetings? I’d love to hear more about it.

For more about making your meetings more effective to promote better decisions and outcomes, see McKinsey’s May 2019 article “Want a Better Decision? Plan a Better Meeting” by Aaron De Smet, Gregor Jost, and Leigh Weiss.

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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.

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.

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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.