Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

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Three Reasons to Stop Focusing on Your Strengths and Weaknesses

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Three Reasons to Stop Focusing on Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Are you focusing too much on your weaknesses – or just as bad, are you focusing too much on your strengths?

You can actually arrest your own leadership development by doing so.

Here’s why:

Before the rising of the popular strengths-based coaching approach, workplace mentoring and coaching focused on helping its workforce to strengthen identified weaknesses. But we discovered after some time that the results were poor. In fact, employees were showing negative outcomes.

Focusing on weaknesses in leadership development can result in the following:

  • It can give a false sense of ineptitude and negative self-image. By giving weaknesses too much attention, the executive in question may begin to feel inept. Little discussion is made about what is going well, and so a negative self-image may begin to form, diminishing confidence.
  • By neglecting to bring strengths into the process, an imbalanced approach to getting the work done may actually result in an even poorer performance.
  • The weakness in question needs to be relative to the role the executive plays. Is the weakness in question hindering performance or hampering company goals? Or is it simply a result of a list that has no relevance to the job?

Face it – it’s more fun to focus on strengths! But there’s a drawback to swinging over to focusing on strengths, as well.

Focusing on strengths in leadership development can result in the following:

  • It can give the executive a false sense of competence, paving the way to neglect what might be hampering his or her best work.
  • By neglecting to address what is not working, focusing on strengths can give just as imbalanced an approach as focusing on weaknesses. In fact, focusing too much on developing a strength can actually render that strength a weakness. For example, if an executive has great ambition, developing that to the point of exaggeration can actually send wrong messages and behaviors and derail a career.
  • The strength in question needs to be relative to the role an executive plays, or it doesn’t matter how special that strength is! Is the strength key to performance? Is it aligned with company goals?

A balanced approach to your personal and professional leadership development with methodologies that are evidence-based – proven to work – is the first step.

If you are working on this to improve your performance and your career trajectory, make sure that what you are doing is actually relevant and supportive of where you are – and where you want to go!

3 Things a Leader in a New Role Needs to Know

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3 Things a Leader in a New Role Needs to Know

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.

When Your Team Member is Stuck in Story:

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When Your Team Member is Stuck in Story

Helping Them Take Back Control

Do you love stories? So do I!

Stories are entertaining – and they help us make meaning of our world.

Some of my favorite stories are of the Sherlock Holmes type, where solving the mystery to bring solution is key.

But some tales are frustrating, like the kind in which your employee seems stuck. This kind affects everyone on the team. It slows down productivity… energy… motivation…

Is one of your team members holding you hostage to the same script? If you hear any of the following lines on a regular basis, you need to help your team member turn the page:

  • I can’t because…

  • It will have to wait until…

  • That would be nice, but…

  • I would have/could have, but…

I am often called to coach teams, and once coached a small, but key team to help them perform at a higher level. The talents were there. The desire was there. But the numbers were down. And the energy was low.

At one point early on, I asked them to walk me through a current project to see how they would describe the process of working together. And we hit the jackpot.

Terry, Laurie, and Martin began laying out the pieces of the project, and shared who was responsible for which part of the whole. Then I asked them to draft a timeline to show me how this would happen, and at what pace. At a certain point in the process, Laurie revealed that she was “stuck in story” – that she was unable to work around a chronic issue to move at a more acceptable pace.

“I can’t meet that deadline, Terry, and you know it. It will have to wait until I complete my part of the Blue project we are currently working on.”

“Oh– you still have that piece to complete?” asked Terry.

Martin joined in. “Can’t we figure out a different way to pace these things?”

“It’s not that – it’s just all the interruptions I get during the day. I can’t just tell people to go away.”

At this point, I interrupted.

“Are you saying that the interruptions are what is holding you back from being able to complete your work in a more timely fashion?”

“Yes,” Laurie answered. “The guys here know that my office is the first on the hallway, and that I’m seen as point person for the team. That means people coming in and out all day.”

I turned to Terry and Martin. “How does this slow down what you are able to complete?”

“Are you kidding?” said Martin. “We are constantly telling leadership they will have to wait because of this.”

“Okay,” I answered. “So what’s the solution to this?”

“You mean to the interruptions?” asked Laurie. “There is none. Like I said, my office is first, we are asked to be responsive, and if it isn’t office visits, it’s e-mails and phone calls. All day. I could be much faster – but I can’t because of this.”

Laurie was stuck in her story – the story that she had to operate in a certain way because of her role, even though it held her work back – which held back the entire team.

It was time to rewrite her story.

“Laurie, let’s brainstorm,” I said. “We need Terry and Martin’s help, here. If you weren’t there in that office to field interruptions, what would happen?”

“Good grief, if they couldn’t find me, they’d barrage me with e-mails and phone calls on my cell.”

“Your cell?”  I asked. “Colleagues here call you on your cell for work questions?”

“Well, yes – if they can’t find me. They know they can chase me down on my cell. And then, the e-mails keep coming.”

“Laurie, what would happen if you turned off your cell and scheduled time twice daily to look at your e-mails?”

Terry sat up. “I said that months ago!” he said. “Why does the entire work floor have to hold you hostage, Laurie?”

“Hostage?” responded Laurie. “That sounds like I’m a prisoner.”

“Well,” I said, “The way you describe things, you have pretty much said so. I mean, you’ve said you cannot control it. But…”

“But, what?” she said.

“But – you can control yourself and what you choose to do with the barrage coming your way.”

“But if I do that, I’ll have piles of e-mails and calls to return – and that will put me farther behind.”

“Laurie, it sounds like people are depending on you to drop everything and help at any time,” I countered.

“Hey,” said Martin, “Patti’s right. Actually, you have a bunch of people who look to you to help them out all the time when it’s actually not your job or place.”

“Well…” Laurie got still. “I guess it’s true.”

“What are you getting out of fielding these cries for help all day long, Laurie?” I asked.

She got quiet.

“Laurie,” I moved forward gently, “Are you getting some satisfaction out of helping?”

“Well, yes,” she said. “And if I am honest with myself, I guess that most of it isn’t even related to our department. I know I said I was point person – but it’s much more than that. In truth, maybe it’s just a way to feel valuable.”

“Valuable?” asked Terry. “You think you aren’t valuable to our team?”

And then, our real work began. And although we had to do some deep work, it paid off.

I’m happy to report that a few months later, the team members were working at top performance, with all members understanding and appreciating each other’s value.

Don’t you love a story with happy ending? I certainly do!

Patti Cotton helps women 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, women’s 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.

Are You Tired of Visioning?

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The Importance of Short-Term Wins

Sometimes I get tired about visioning the future and setting long-range goals. These are certainly important – but they aren’t enough to keep me on track.

How about you?

Short-term wins and intermediate goals are the fuel for getting there. And you can leverage this with your team to keep them motivated and inspired.

Years ago, I sat with a CEO and talked about how to keep his healthcare system viable and vibrant.

“I’m tired, Patti,” he said. “Look at this,” and he pulled out a heavy drawer full of notebooks. “These are all strategic plans. Through the years, we’ve hired expensive consultants to come and walk through the process with us and all we have to show for it is…paper.”  He sighed. “The more I look at these, the more tired I get. The future seems so far off – and we aren’t moving forward. What good is a strategic plan, anyway?”

He shut the drawer. “I’m beginning to believe we’ll never get there. We’ve set up 3-year action plans, designated responsibilities – but, somehow, we all get too busy doing the day-to-day stuff that this place requires.”

This guy looked pretty tired. Bone tired. Discouraged.

“What about your short-term plan?” I asked.

“Short-term plan?”

“Yes, a plan that sets key milestones and success indicators in 3-4 month increments.”

He paused. “Why would I do that? I know very well what to do to get there.”

“Well,” I responded. “How’s that working for you and your executive team?”

It’s not just a matter of knowing how to get there – if you don’t have a plan that has intermediate goals and milestones, you not only lack measurements to show you how well you are headed there, but you also miss out on a key secret to staying motivated – and keeping your team motivated, as well.

And when motivation is gone, nothing happens.

So how do you set these?

Take your one-year plan and reverse-engineer it – what are the major projects and steps to get there? What should you be seeing if you are on course by the end of Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4? In other words, how will you know you are on the path to success?

When you are able to make these indicators tangible so that you can see you are hitting the mark, then you are on your way to sustaining momentum and energy. And you need that. Not only you, but your team needs it. It helps them to know that they are doing well, on the right track, and meeting motivation.

No small potatoes. Because keeping a team motivated when you have huge goals can be challenging.

So here’s my challenge to you:  get with your team and look at your one-year plan. Break it up, assigning major projects, deadlines, the people responsible, and key indicators that show these projects are successfully meeting the goals of the one-year plan. This is a great team-building exercise, and you will have set in place the motivators that will keep you and your team on track.

Patti Cotton helps women 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, women’s 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.

Why Most High-Potential Executives Over-Promise and Under-Deliver

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Are you over-committed and feeling behind the Eight Ball? Even though it’s stressful, why you do this may shock you. In fact, you may also be getting some secret gratification from it!

The problem is, your professional (and personal!) reputation is suffering because of it. Your credibility is low, and you are missing out on bigger, better professional opportunities.

Ready to make a change?

Let’s take a look at why you may be over-promising and under-delivering.

Which of these scenarios fits you?

1. You want to look good.

If this is you, you may be worried that you are not seen as competitive, or that you aren’t pulling your weight. If so, it’s time to have a conversation with the decision-makers that are allocating your workload, to see how they feel you are doing, and what you might do more or less of, in order to be at your most effective.

2. You are eager to please.

If this is you, you may need to look like a good person. Signs are that you are volunteering to help others with their work when it compromises your ability to accomplish yours, or that you accept work allocated to you that isn’t really your area. If you see yourself here, it’s time to examine whether or not you are seeking to be liked, rather than to be respected.

3. You want to feel like you are accomplishing more.

If this is you, it may be that you have unrealistic expectations of yourself, or you receive your sense of self-worth from achieving. Bad news. This will never stop. You will never reach the point when you feel you are doing “enough.” Time to shift how you receive your self-worth. Not sure what you bring to the table, or need additional confidence, credibility, and currency? See my Leadership DNA program and get on the list.

4. You really don’t want to do what you promised.

This is the hidden deal – you may be suffering from Self-Completion Theory – completing your identity by engaging in activities that reinforce this. And often, people get gratification from simply promising to help others without follow through simply because they already got what they came for – the feeling that they are a good person. Is this you? Time to examine your self-image and the criteria you use to define it.

5. You haven’t confronted the time and energy it actually requires to complete the project.

Okay, face it. If this is you, you keep trying the same way of estimating the time it takes, and you keep coming up short. The problem is, others know it, too. You come up with excuses. You dodge offices and conversations, until you can provide something that you know is sub-par – all because you either under-estimated your own time, or the availability of others to deliver on their part of the project you need to complete. Get realistic. Add 10% more time than you would normally estimate, and test this. Need 15%? Make the change.

Under-promising and over-delivering is always a good way to build your credibility – and get back on track, if you need to do so.

Where in your work or life are you over-promising?

Patti Cotton helps women 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, women’s 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.