organization

Three-Direction Checklist for Leadership Effectiveness

December 6, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Your role requires that you lead. You may be in charge of a team, a greater area of responsibility, or even an enterprise.

Yet, if you think your job is to simply lead those who report to you, think again.

You need to manage up, down, and sideways.

Why?

Because strong team leadership is not enough to support the enterprise effectively. Research continues to prove this as we examine what works – and what doesn’t – to align culture, increase business impact, and frankly, to ensure your career success.

Effective leadership means that you need to be able to develop trust, forge shared accountability, and strengthen your influence at every level in the organization.

How do you do this? By managing this up, down, and across.

Here’s a quick checklist – can you identify where you need to strengthen your leadership in managing?

Managing Up

Are you aligned with your leader’s agenda? As you work with your CEO, your board, or other leader, are you focusing on strategic issues and demonstrating financial results? Or does your own agenda distract from these key areas, wasting time, energy, money, and brainpower?

Many a seasoned leader has fallen into complacency with what works for their particular team. In doing so, their ability to see the larger picture diminishes. If you find yourself in the latter situation, you will want to acquire or revive your company-wide lens to connect your role and your team’s charge to the organizational agenda.

Managing Down

Have you aligned your reports’ work to the agenda of the company? Or have the growing demands placed on your area strayed from the larger agenda? When I first begin work with a company in growth mode, I frequently discover that teams may be working on things that have little to do with the current company agenda.

Shifting priorities at the top means close communication at all levels to share this so that all are supporting the enterprise in their focus, responsibilities, and assigned work. When was the last time you re-examined your reports’ roles, assigned projects, and accompanying goals and deadlines, to make sure these align with the company’s direction and focus?

Managing Across

Have you aligned with your colleagues, both intra- and inter-team, so that you support shared accountability and success? Or are you shooting virtual arrows at your colleagues and their teams because they are holding you back or interfering with your ability to deliver?

The lion’s share of productivity problems in an organization result from a lack of commitment and ability to solve problems between teams. Forging strong ties and agreeing to keep communication channels open for this are key to keeping employees engaged and motivated, and your customer’s journey an excellent one.

Where do you stand as you review these three areas? What is the one thing you can do now to move forward in this area so that you can capture greater success?

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.

Five Questions to Make a Fulfilling Transition to Your Next Chapter

November 22, 2017 By Patti Cotton 1 Comment

Since life is not static, your situation is also full of change. You may be seeking to change careers or retirement. Some of you have just sent your child to college for the first time. Your marital status or your role with an elderly parent may be in question. But, no matter what shift in life is occurring for you, most certainly you are asking yourself what’s next.

Many of us plan with new activities in mind. We see empty space ahead, and the natural human thing to do is to quickly fill this so that we have a navigable course for our days. As human beings, we don’t like not knowing what to do with ourselves.

Then, some of you are in a contemplative stage in your life where you question whether you’ve made the contributions you wanted to make. You ask yourself if you can truly make this next chapter count, making sure that it is meaningful and fulfilling.

If you are finding yourself in a position of change and you are drawing up a bucket list for your next chapter, take the time to ask yourself the following five questions in order to make your future story most meaningful.

Five Questions to Make a Fulfilling Transition

1. How do I ensure that this next chapter is most meaningful?

It’s natural to seek meaning in our lives. It answers questions such as, “How do I navigate the world?” and “Why am I here?” Human beings seek purpose to understand how they fit in, and as you shape your immediate future, it will be more fulfilling if you can relate what you do to a purpose.

For example, if you choose to shift careers, how will doing this bring more meaning into your life? If you decide you will climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, what meaning might you draw from this experience? At many levels, these two examples will provide new opportunities to learn and grow.

2. How can I make sure that whatever I choose makes a difference to others?

This question becomes even more important as we age. At a certain point in life, we begin to question what difference or legacy we have truly created. This harks back to meaning and purpose, and links it to how we have been able to positively affect others.

It answers the question, “Has my life been of worth?”

This query can be answered by identifying how we have contributed by bringing value to the world. We need not take on Mother Teresa’s commission in order to feel confirmed in this way. One of the greatest human beings who contributed to my life was a high school teacher who simply cared enough about his students to show them that he did.

3. Where in my life do I need to play bigger?

It may be that in your current situation, you have ignored some personal growth opportunities. Some of you may have something in your personal life that needs adjusting. Others may have identified a specific dynamic in your professional life that holds you back. Are you comfortable confronting conflict? Confident in presenting? Where in your life might you decide to finally tackle that one thing that keeps you in a compromising comfort zone? One of the greatest satisfactions we can find is that sense of overcoming and stepping into the success that new growth brings.

4. How shall I make this next chapter fun?

A lot of executives and business owners I coach are intent on meeting goals and getting ahead. They should be – this is their commission – to support a healthy enterprise and their own careers.

I see the same in others, whether stay-at-home parents or retirees. It can become somewhat of a dry checklist with little enjoyment, unless we ask ourselves how we can approach our work so that it is fun. When you are in a serious situation such as caretaking, this question may seem odd, but it is even more important. Levity feeds attitude, and attitude feeds soul. How can you infuse fun into your next chapter?

5. Is it possible to “have it all” in this next chapter?

What does “all” mean to you? When most ask this question, they are usually addressing that long list of activities. But if you will take a moment to step back and ask yourself what is most important to you in the coming story, what outcomes you would like to celebrate at the end of that chapter, I think you will find that your list becomes smaller, but more meaningful and full of the essential.

The greatest reward comes not from a full calendar, but from fewer, but deeper and more enjoyable experiences.

Here’s to making an amazing next chapter for yourself! Have fun with these questions, and make sure that your new story counts.

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.

Five Principles to Quickly Align Your Leadership with the Future

November 15, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Many of you have resonated with last week’s article about Sandra and her need to make her business viable for the future. If you haven’t read it, yet, read here.

Some have asked me how to develop the leadership “flex” or agility that is necessary to meet the future successfully. But how to do this – to develop your leadership to reflect purpose and flexibility, exercising highest creativity for best decision-making, continually learning and changing…well, entire books have been written about this!

My private clients and I work over a period of time to help them develop this agility.

But to give you a quick start in this direction, let me share some foundational principles with which we begin our work. Incorporating these into your approach for the upcoming year will make a profound difference in the way you are able to meet the future successfully.

Where in your work or life do you need more of the following?

1. Acknowledge that change requires responding rather than reacting.

It is first necessary to acknowledge that the world tomorrow will not be the same as it is today, and that the unknown holds exciting possibilities far beyond anything we can imagine. This is more challenging than you think. You may admit that things are changing, but if you introspect carefully, you will note that in certain areas of your life or the way you lead, you expect some things to remain the same. When they don’t, rather than to respond thoughtfully, you find yourself reacting with surprise and defensiveness. When this happens, you eclipse using the creative part of your brain to think through how to handle the situation. Identify the areas that tend to place you in a reactive mode so that you can make the mental shifts necessary to overcome this.

2. Dare to explore new and uncharted territories.

This means becoming comfortable with operating with the unfamiliar, stopping to widen your lens to understand the landscape as you go. Pushing the edge means nothing unless you are willing to look at it and to step out onto it in order to move forward with this new reality. How long has it been since you have met with other leaders to discuss what is happening in the world and how it affects the business landscape – and the way you must lead? Exploring new territories means having an executive team that forges ahead together. As you adopt the mindset of exploration, invite others to come with you, so that you can climb with support, camaraderie, accountability, and best collective thinking.

3. Be willing to flex and adjust your approach as you make meaning of the unfolding terrain.

You must develop leadership agility. This is the one thing that will keep you current in your leadership: the ability to “take effective action in complex, rapidly changing conditions. Only 10% have mastered the level of agility needed for consistent effectiveness in our turbulent era of global competition” (Joiner and Josephs, Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change). When faced with new and foreign terrain, mountain climbers must weigh carefully the equipment and approach they will use in order to avoid disaster. Don’t fall into the mindset that what you have used in the past will work in future. Weigh and test carefully as you move forward.

4. Get excited about making mistakes.

You should always be making new mistakes – these indicate that you are forging ahead in the unknown, discovering points of learning that can become part of your roadmap to help you to navigate more successfully. If, however, you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again, this is a clear signal that you have a particular point of learning that has not been addressed successfully. Many persist in approaching something in the same way repeatedly, hoping that after a while, there will be a breakthrough. There won’t. Confront the fact that you need to make a shift – and ask yourself what you have learned from this so that you can up-level your thinking and your leadership.

5. Understand the power and necessity of 360° leadership.

Leadership must be actively engaged in all areas of your life. I often tell my clients that, “You take yourself to work and back again,” meaning that whatever you carry in one area of your life will affect how you show up everywhere and in all situations. Further, leadership must be present at all levels and at all degrees of the team and the enterprise in order to meet and make change effectively. It is generally what people consider “the little things” that count for much. For example, are you an individual, team, or company that promises much and delivers late? You may be saying that this doesn’t matter – that your clients love your product and they will wait for it. However, these are the differences that will make or break you in future vis-à-vis the competition. Do a quick assessment of what improvements need to be made, and tackle the biggest win, first.

As you look at the quick principles above, which one is most pertinent to making a big shift in your own leadership?

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.

How a Silent Marauder Might Be Threatening Your Business Future

November 8, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Sandra was a first-generation business owner. She worked hard for more than 25 years to build a solid company that served customers well.

This was a business that would provide for her family financially, both now and in future.

Or so she thought.

But a business marauder suddenly appeared in the form of new technology that threatened to put Sandra’s company out of business.

Her hard work and her future could be wiped out in the next 36 months unless she took some quick and powerful action.

Sandra was frozen. Her ways of leading and doing were solid – but they were limited, confined to running the business the way she knew how, to what had worked up to this point.

Unless Sandra acquired agility in her leadership, she would not be able to move forward. She could become part of the 90% of executives who currently find themselves and their business obsolete.

If you are an executive or business owner, I can guarantee that technology and other marketplace changes will affect how you lead. You may have a shelf life of just up to approximately 36 months if you don’t have the agility required to work with change. This is about how long it takes before we experience the spiral that results from not shifting with change.

And this happens a lot with excellent leadership.

You are successful for a period of many years, and then suddenly, changes emerge that demand an agility from you and a way of operating that are foreign to your context. These changes and challenges leave you bewildered. You become frozen and overwhelmed, or you dig in your heels and insist on leading in the same way you always have.

You can’t tough this one out. Change is not going to go away.

Sandra had led well. Her company had been a solid contender in the marketplace.

But she was in trouble now. She called me because she couldn’t seem to move forward as she faced this new development.

Having shown herself smart, capable, and competent during her entire tenure, she agreed that the competition was real, but she couldn’t seem to muster the higher gear required to begin wrestling with new structures and processes. She hoped her company product would still be greatly loved by her loyal clients, and wondered if the business simply accelerated some tried-and-true strategies with more sales staff, if she could help the company remain viable.

She couldn’t. The changes Sandra would need to make in order to remain viable demanded a new approach – and an agility to make it happen.

When we met, Sandra pulled out a drawer and showed me several unused strategic plans. She admitted that she had never been able to take the time to figure out how to practically apply any of them. It seemed like there was never enough time, and fulfilling customer orders took precedent over all else. She said that this had served well enough in the past, but she now knew that she needed to take some sort of action fast, in order to save the business from crumbling.

Sandra exhibited what I see in a lot of seasoned leaders.

When one has led for many years, she can become accustomed to focusing on what is working well, and forget to check the horizon for what is coming ahead.

Changing conditions in the marketplace, in the economy, in politics, and in disruptive technology (and more!) can dictate that a leader pay attention. Many, however, just dig their heels in to work harder at doing the same thing, rather than to evaluate strategies and approaches that will best support these changes. This can quickly result in trouble spotted too late.

Sandra was certainly in trouble, admitting that she might need to do differently, but that she didn’t know where to start. It was clear that she not only needed a quick medium-term plan to respond to the looming competition, but that she would also need to develop more behavioral agility in order to flex and adapt to needed transitions and change.

Sandra asked if I wanted to see the strategic plans stored in her office. The latest one was dated two years prior.

“That’s too old,” I said. “These days, you want to revisit and update your strategic plan every year. Changes are coming too rapidly for an older plan to support the future.”

We got busy and went through a quick strategic planning process to accommodate the next 36 months. This plan would need to be clear, concise, and it would need to be actionable. I didn’t want this one to sit in a drawer.

Once we had the 36-month plan in place, Sandra and I worked on a medium-term action plan designed to meet the impending competition.

We were on a tight timeline to stay out in front. With coaching, Sandra was able to develop the necessary agility to execute the plan well.

Those in charge find they operate best if they have someone to help them with this. Tackling a new plan requires not only focus and buy-in from all involved, it also often demands that we operate in new and novel ways to support the future.

This is agility – the one thing that will keep us current in our leadership.

Leadership agility is “the ability to take effective action in complex, rapidly changing conditions. Only 10% have mastered the level of agility needed for consistent effectiveness in our turbulent era of global competition.” (Joiner and Josephs, Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change).

It follows that agility is necessary in company teams and in the entire enterprise, as well.

Acquiring agility demands not only new or improved direction and actions, it also asks that we develop the necessary mental and emotional capacity to implement these actions.

This is why 90% of those in leadership fail. As rapid change and complexity continues to emerge, a lot of very fine business owners and other executives fold. It isn’t from a lack of desire – it’s from a lack of understanding how to meet change effectively and to make the personal leadership shifts necessary to do so.

Back to Sandra: I’m happy to report that after we rolled up our sleeves and quickly got going, she was feeling confident about her direction, her company’s future, and her ability to meet it successfully. We hit some bumps as she expanded her agility, but we laughed a lot and she grew exponentially, setting up the company to meet the future successfully.

Sandra noted that not only was the process rewarding and energizing, she also enjoyed less stress – a great bonus. She decided to invite me to help coach her team and other key players in agility, at that point, as part of her succession planning.

How strong is your leadership agility? Are you able to survey the landscape, identify potential threats and opportunities, come up with a strong plan of action, and effectuate this well?

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.

Ten Character Indicators

November 1, 2017 By Patti Cotton 1 Comment

“How you do one thing is how you do everything.” ~ Madeline Albright

Thirty years ago, a business owner named Dave found himself in a critical position. A key employee had been found embezzling, and the company faced a $1 Mil shortfall. To Dave’s business, this was the difference between surviving and sinking.

After examining his options, he felt the only thing he could do was to sell the business or find a partner who would invest money to help stabilize the company. As luck would have it, he found a man named Ed who owned quite a few businesses similar to his, and who was willing to become a partner with Dave to save the enterprise’s future.

One day, as they were finalizing terms of the partnership, Dave and Ed went to lunch.

During the meal, something happened that should have tipped Dave off about Ed’s character. But he ignored it. He was desperate for funds and reasoned that the incident had nothing to do with how Ed would conduct himself in business. And because he chose to ignore this incident, it wound up quietly hurting Dave for the next 30 years.

What was the tip-off to Ed’s character during that fateful lunch?

When it was time to settle the $48 food bill, Ed offered to pay. The server brought change from Ed’s two $20 bills and the men left for their cars. As Dan and Ed stepped into the parking lot, Ed chuckled as he folded his money into his wallet.

“That gal needs to pay more attention,” Ed said. “Instead of giving me $2 change, she gave me a $1 bill and one of my $20 bills.”

“Ed – that’s obviously a mistake on her part! You’re going to return it, right?” asked Dan.

“Are you kidding?” said Ed. “If someone is going to be that careless, it’s money for me and a good lesson for them.”

Dave felt terrible. He went home and wrote an apology letter to the restaurant. Without disclosing who the offender was, he enclosed a $20 bill as repayment.

The next week, Dave and Ed signed partnership papers. Ed contributed the agreed-upon cash infusion to the business and thus saved it. He brought in a managing administrator to manage the company as agreed. Over the next 30 years, Dave enjoyed residual income from the business without having to manage it, and Ed’s appointed administrator operated as per Ed’s directives.

One day, Ed fell terminally ill, and Dave was called in by a key executive to talk about the future of the company and the partnership interests. As Dave and the executive went over opportunities, it slowly came to light that the business was charging Dave a disproportionately higher amount for expenses in facilities, upkeep, and business development for 30 years. The amount of money that should come to him as profit was staggering. Dave felt physically sick. These funds could have made a great difference to him and his family over the 3 decades that had passed, but he was now a weary 87-year-old widower with little energy left to fight the battle.

It was then that he thought back to that first lunch with Ed and heard his words, “If someone is going to be that careless, it’s money for me and a good lesson for them.”

The fact is, character does matter. Madeline Albright’s quote “How you do one thing is how you do everything,” rings true.

Now, most of you reading here will quickly say that you would have given back the $20 on the spot. I am confident that you would have done so. But no matter how honest you are, might there be other areas in your personal conduct or ways of doing that need fine-tuning?

Character does matter.

Here is a list of 10 common character flaws that have significant repercussions in life and work.

Are you punctual and thus respectful of others and your time together, or are you perpetually late, signaling to others that they are just “not that important”?
Do you respect good boundaries with others, or do you tend to blur the lines to the point where you become entangled in problems that aren’t yours?
Are you careful as you commit to others, or do you tend to overpromise and under-deliver or default?
Do you seek always to understand first, or are you prone to snap judgments before you investigate fully?
Are you respectfully honest when asked for feedback, or do you gloss over the truth as you seek to please others?
Are you open to constructive criticism, or do you take a defensive stance as you find excuses for the behavior in question?
Do you seek to reconcile or release undesirable stress in healthy ways, or do you tend to carry resentment around like a boulder, compromising your relationships (and your health)?
Are you quick to support others when they are a topic of gossip, or do you jump on the injurious bandwagon with the crowd?
Are you respectful of what’s yours and what is company property, or do you find yourself taking home a few pens or empty file folders for your own use, because you tell yourself “it really doesn’t matter.”
Do you operate from a place of generosity, or do you race to get that proverbial front parking spot before the other person does?

Can you think of others? What is the one area that you would like to work on that will make a difference to your life and to those around you?

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.