success

How to Bring a Dream to Fruition in 3 Critical Steps

April 26, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Last week, I shared how my father lost one million dollars and was forced to bankrupt his corporation – all due to the absence of one critical conversation.

If you haven’t seen that part of the story, click here.

Of course, that chapter is a just a snippet of a much larger success story, because the devastation of the loss of funds and ensuing fire sale of Dan Cotton’s business is not the end of this tale.

In fact, my father has always a knack not only for landing on his feet (sometimes literally!), but also for creating abundance that has made a significant impact in the world.

At age 32, he developed the beginnings of a healthcare empire by applying three critical components to create the system that thrives, today.

Most people apply one or two to generate some success, but rarely does someone pull off all three to actually create a legacy of great impact.

Vision, strategy, and execution.

Sound simple? Think, again.

Vision

Dan Cotton started with a vision. He envisioned a retirement and convalescent home that would provide not only healthcare, but the love and warm feeling of family. He had always appreciated and respected the elderly, and saw an opportunity to support them with dignity and care.

It is here that a majority of professionals in leadership positions fall short. In fact, many company CEOs do not lead; they are secretly glorified project managers. Their focus is inward and they get stuck in minutia – a state which is ultimately fatal to business health. Leaders, on the other hand, are outward-thinking. They watch for trends, anticipating needs and making powerful connections in order to keep the business vibrant and sustainable. Yet, keeping the vision in front while managing the daily requisites of business is no small feat.

What is your vision for your business? How does your healthy, thriving business make an impact and contribute to the world?

Strategy

Try to get funding at age 32 to develop such a healthcare complex – to manage builders and permits, recruit physicians and staff, market for clients, learn about compliance, and about a million other things! Dad had been a university theology professor prior to this endeavor. So he had to perform diligent research, lay out all the pieces and assemble them into some kind of plan, network, exert influence to get things done, and find funding without a firm business track record.

At any point, the enormity of this project could have pressured him to fold and return to the university, where his future was safe and sound. But my father is a calculated risk-taker and full of drive. Combined with his strategic eye, he hung in there; and because of this, he met with success – and it paid off.

How is your “strategy quotient?”

This is your ability to see all the pieces that need to come into place, and how to place them so the plan works. Are you relying on others to come up with strategies and direction? What needs to change?

Execution

Here is where the rubber meets the road. Many business leaders are stuck in visioning and planning, and successful execution eludes them. Dad knew how to orchestrate the complex pieces that were required to develop and operate the healthcare system. There were many nights when he dragged home wearily, yet he would continue to work in his study before falling to sleep for a short time, only to do it, again. Perseverance, tenacity, grit – this was him. And it paid off. In a world where most new businesses fail, he pushed through. And succeeded on a major scale.

How high is your “execution quotient?”

This is your ability to get things done. Are you making effective decisions and taking timely actions? Is any part of your business lagging or waiting on you, due to inaction on your part? What needs to change?

In sum, there are just three simple steps to creating a legacy of impact: vision, strategy, and execution.

Where are you in this process?

And what do you need next in order to succeed?

Patti Cotton helps executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and the enterprise. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, succession planning, and masterful execution. With over 25 years of leadership experience, both stateside and abroad, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across industries, providing executive coaching, leadership development, succession planning, change, and conflict management. She is also a Fortune 500 speaker. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

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.

What Do We All Really Want in Life?

April 12, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

January 15, 2009. It began like many other days in his lifetime – checking in at the airport, taking his seat in the captain’s chair, and running through the pre-flight checklist. He had done it thousands of times in his expansive career. As he took off, he remarked to his co-pilot, “What a beautiful view of the Hudson today!”

Little did he know that, within seconds of making that remark, he was about to make a detour into his ultimate purpose in life. That was the day Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, saving the lives of all on board.

When you are young, your goals are related to learning, experiencing, and advancing in your career. These are the building years – building family, building a career or business, and building community.

But there’s a shift that occurs in mid-life, where you begin to look at life from a broader perspective. You shift from simply wanting to make a living to being compelled to make a difference. Captain Sully writes about this in his book, Making a Difference, where he shares the insights of leaders in business, technology, science, and other industries.

As an executive coach, I meet talented and experienced business men and women every day who express to me a desire to make a difference, to know their lives have made an impact – on their relationships, their community, their business, and in some big or small way, the world. They may have earned the income and positional respect, but it is impact that matters most to them.

It made me realize that I, too, had this perspective. As a busy wife, mother, grandmother, and now care-taker daughter, I want make an impact on my family. As a volunteer with women and children’s organizations, I desire to make an impact on my community. As a business owner, I am compelled to make an impact in the business world. And as a former diplomat, I desired to make an impact even then.

What is the impact?

It differs for each person, but for me, it is about developing leaders for this generation and the next – leaders who, themselves, will make a difference, each in their own way. It is about developing good ethics and values in my grandchildren so they can have a blessed life. It is about developing strong communities by strengthening its people. It is about developing strong and successful business leaders to make an impact, not only in their lives, but in the lives of their people. It is about developing relationships with others, which makes for a better world.

What is impact for you?

What difference would you like to make in these four key areas of your life?

Relationships
Community
Business
World

This is a challenging but compelling question. Taking the time to reflect and explore each area allows you to set goals for the second act of your life that will fulfill your desire to truly make a difference.

You have spent decades preparing for this day. The question is, where do you go from here and how do you make a difference?

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 to Move Beyond Growing and Surviving

April 6, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Your Succession Plan

Are you a business leader struggling to grow and survive? It’s time to get a better game on.

Whether you are a business owner, executive, or other professional, you need a succession plan, now.

What is a succession plan?

Most think it’s simply grooming new leaders who can eventually take over a business or corporation. But it’s much more than that. Succession planning should include getting your “house” in order, making sure that systems, processes, and team are identified and developed to effectively meet the future.

Because of this, succession planning is not something you do when you are getting ready to retire.

In fact, succession planning is something that should be an ongoing process now, if you are a business leader who identifies with any of the following:

You want to move the business and your future from surviving to thriving
You are proud of your leadership accomplishments and you see this as a legacy that others should enjoy
You have a vested interest in seeing that your efforts pay off exponentially, not only now, but in the future (financial gains, heirs, etc.)

Most corporate and business leaders spend their time caught up in the daily worries of running the business or enterprise now. They are in a survival mode, or busy trying to scale the company’s efforts to generate more revenue.

When this happens, it’s tough to get ahead – much less lay the firm foundation for something that will pay off now and in future.

These business leaders may see succession planning as an HR function and not a leadership imperative – to their peril. Planning for the future and laying out the strategies to reach it effectively require vision and global thinking. It requires that you set a clear direction with system-wide goals to carry the business into the future.

This means that if you are in charge of an enterprise or your own business, you need to lead the charge.

What happens if you don’t take action, now? What are potential consequences, if you don’t see succession planning as an ongoing process to ensure a healthy and vibrant business now and in future?

Here are a few scenarios where a lack of succession planning has resulted in rapid business decline and demise:

A leader exits without warning, due to illness or another unexpected event.
A company replaces the exiting executive with someone who is not yet equipped to take over. This happens frequently in family-owned businesses and in cases where the company has hired from the outside without ensuring that the new leader is culturally compatible.
The business neglects high-potential talent inside its doors and the talent goes elsewhere.

What does your succession plan look like? Do you have a system in place to identify and develop high-potential talent, business processes, and systems that will effectively meet the future?

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.

Do You Have a Business Bucket List?

March 29, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

An interesting movie came out in 2007 called The Bucket List. It is a movie about two men coming to grips with the reality of cancer and then making the conscious decision to focus on living life fully in whatever time they had left.

Together, they formulated a bucket list. The rest of the movie details their compelling and insightful journey through that list.

That movie started a movement. Many of us were inspired to create our own personal bucket list, which is our way of deciding to do those things we have only before dreamed about and to value the things in life that really matter.

My question for you as a business owner, leader, and successful career person is this: Do you have a BUSINESS bucket list?

When we are young, our goals are different. They may be about career advancement, growing in our personal development, and increasing income. But as seasoned veterans in the business world, our focus begins to shift. We have advanced our careers, developed our skills to very high levels, and created good income. Some of us have created very profitable businesses.

But there is a yearning…a sense that something is missing. Thankful for the outward success, we now are looking for something deeper. We are looking for the purposeful meaning to our lives, and we want to know that what we have done has made an impact on the lives of others.

If you don’t have a business bucket list, I encourage you to create one today. Here are some questions to consider as you do:

What do you want to accomplish before you retire?
What do you need to plan for now that will help you have a meaningful retirement?
What kind of legacy do you want to leave?
Who would you like to mentor?
How would you like to “give back” or “pay forward?”
What would you like to do for those who come after you?
Are there business goals you want to meet in order to help you reach your personal goals?
How do you want to be remembered in business?
What impact do you want to make…on your family, community, business, and peers?

I have been approached several times in recent weeks about the subject of succession planning. For example, someone who started a successful family business wants to shore up planning so future generations will be able to carry on his legacy and be supported by it for generations to come. He wants to structure his business transition so that he can begin to travel more and work less. He wants to mentor the younger leaders so they are equipped to carry the business forward. He is beginning to formulate his “business bucket list.”

Are you ready to create yours?

Patti Cotton helps executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and the enterprise. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, and masterful execution. With over 25 years of leadership experience, both stateside and abroad, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across industries, providing executive coaching, leadership development, succession planning, change, and conflict management. She is also a Fortune 500 speaker. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

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.

3 Things a Leader in a New Role Needs to Know

March 15, 2017 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Congratulations! You did it. You got the position, the title, and the salary telling you that you have arrived.

They gave you the team and the commission to change the world.

But did they tell you that you aren’t really in control?

That your hard-earned expertise is now for naught?

What do you do, now?

If you’ve done your research, you will have put together a game plan, and you are working on your “first 100 days” in office. You will be gathering and triaging information, building your new tribe, identifying short-term wins and long-term wins – the whole enchilada.

And this is absolutely necessary for so many reasons – you’ll be closely watched by those who chose you for the job. The two times they look most closely are during the first three months of your tenure, and at the end of your first year. A lot of judgment is going on. For you, these days are also critical – you need to quickly build trust with your team, identify and forge your operational network, and above all, avoid political landmines…

But – here are three things that you may not hear, and that you need to know right now:

1. What got you here won’t get you there.

You have been recognized for your success to this point. You were in charge of a certain area of responsibility, and that landscape has now changed. By extension, it’s important to know that your present knowledge base may no longer be useful – that the reasons for which they promoted you are not necessarily the reasons that will help you succeed, now. Your operational network – the network that helps you to get the job done – will now change. And even if you are highly skilled at spinning multiple plates, you will now need to develop the ability to manage the new, different pieces that this promotion brings. In short: ask yourself what the new pieces are – which are “need to manage,” “nice to manage,” and simply “nice to know.” Keep it streamlined.

2. You aren’t in control – but you are in charge and therefore accountable.

It’s a changing world, and therefore a lot of external factors exist that you cannot control, both in the marketplace, and inside your company. Strategies and tactics will come and go as the company attempts to keep up and remain viable. To be successful so that you do your part to help the enterprise remain profitable and sustainable, you will need to re-examine your own beliefs and how you manage your environment. Why? Because at the end of the day, you can blame the externals for failure, but you are still accountable for what you did to help your area succeed. In short: don’t make any assumptions. Ask questions, stay abreast of trends and what is required to meet this – and ask yourself how this affects you, your team, and the company.

3. Your best game is only as accountable as your weakest link.

Get to know your team, its strategies and ways of operating, and be candid in asking them what has worked in the past, what has not worked, what could be better. Ask them where the team as a whole hesitates – what team behavior holds them back from their best envisioned performance. Ask them what tools and support they need to do their best work. Many team action plans are stuffed away in drawers, unused, because of counterproductive behaviors that keep these from reaching set goals. And many of these counterproductive behaviors are due to not having the resources and tools to do their best job. In short: find out what they feel they need to excel.

Here’s to a successful next professional chapter for you!

Patti Cotton helps executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and enterprises. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, and masterful execution. With over 25 years of leadership experience, both stateside and abroad, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across industries, providing executive coaching, leadership development, change, and conflict management. She is also a Fortune 500 speaker. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

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.