Now & Later: A Tale of Two "Bold" Leaders
"Net-Zero: To boldly go where every corporation has gone—or said they're going to go—before!"
Do you honestly believe that the predictions or resolutions you're making for the new year are "bold?"
Or do you know that what you're saying or promising isn't much different from the scripted and stale words of a CEO trying to convince his stakeholders that his company's long-term net-zero plan—or in some cases, a "plan to come up with a plan"—is something unique or praiseworthy?
Either way, this episode of The Energy Detox will help you realize that there's nothing bolder than taking action TODAY to help yourself and your company (G)row, (P)rotect, and (S)ustain success. RIGHT. NOW.
That being said—and as you devote time and #energy looking ahead to the new year and beyond—take a moment to ponder the words of Marcus Freeman from his first address to the Notre Dame football team as their head coach a few weeks ago:
"This isn't about the future...this is about right now."
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Well, it's New Year's Eve, which means it is the season for three things. One is making new year's resolutions that statistically speaking, you're probably not going to keep two is watching some college football bowl games, at least the ones that Omicron hasn't already emerged victorious in and forced the cancellation of and three is catching the occasional cheesy corporate message wishing you and your family and your loved ones a happy, safe and prosperous new year. And we're going to take those three things today. And we're going to use the help of two leaders here to help you understand that some of your predictions for 2022 and beyond might not be as bold and as exciting as you think they are. Or at least they're not as exciting as your stakeholders think they are. And to help drive this message. We're going to turn first to this leader here who is the unnamed CEO of a five or $6 billion company with several 1000 employees, who had a cheesy message that he delivered two weeks ago that I happened to catch on LinkedIn, and then in turn on on YouTube, and in his message, he talked about the bold actions that his company will be taking. And when you listen to the words here, and I'll read it verbatim, so that I Don't misquote this again, unnamed individual, because I do not wish to poke fun at any individual leader, of course, but he said, we're committed to set science based targets by 2023, on our pathway to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. So again, in layman's terms, the actions that his company is taking is to come up with a plan by the end of 2022, that helps them achieve their net zero targets, which will be achieved by 2050. And then he went on to say, we're here to accomplish these bold goals. And I had a laugh again, no offense to this individual. But these bold goals sound a whole heck of a lot like every other goal from every other corporation. So not exactly the bold action that you might think when you hear the word bold, not exactly what you might think if you are a Star Trek fan, you're familiar with the, you know, the last line of the intro for all the Star Trek shows or movies or whatever, which is, of course, to boldly go where no man has gone before? Well, again, this leader is saying he's going to boldly go where virtually every corporation in the world is going with regards to net zero impacts. And, again, not to be cynical on this, but my bold prediction is that by q3 of next year, this company will have announced that they do have a plan three months ahead of schedule and pat themselves on the back. And this plan, of course, will be to achieve net zero by 2045 and not 2050. And again, they'll pat themselves on the back. And they might champion this again as as a bold realization of this bold goal of theirs when in reality, it's just like every other goal out there. So again, have this in mind here as we turn to another leader here, Marcus Freeman, the new coach of Notre Dame, and Marcus Freeman right after he was announced officially as the latest coach, the latest leader of Notre Dame football man, of course with his team. And Marcus Freeman's message to his team is very different from the CEO that I just mentioned, because Marcus Freeman's focus was on the present, in fact, and again, I'm going to read this verbatim so that I Don't misquote Coach Freeman. He said, this isn't about the future. Let's be clear, that's a disservice to this group. This isn't about the future. This isn't about next year. This isn't about five years from now, this is about right now, this is about finishing this season off the right way for these seniors. I don't care about anything else, we all got a job to do. I care about us, this group, this coaching staff and this football family finishing this thing off the way we have to. And again, you could say well, what do you expect him to say that, hey, we're going to be rebuilding for the next two or three years. So we're just going to try to limp through whatever bowl game we wind up in and and just like, you know, look forward to next season? No, of
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course no coach is going to say that one of the worst things a coach could do, of course is allow his team to, to look forward right until the past games and to let their guard down and not to be in the present and whatever, again, hokey motivational speech, you want to give about, you know, going play by play minute by minute, whatever the case is. So again, you wouldn't expect him to be looking into the future and telling the current players that, you know, it's going to take a couple years to get the program where he wants it to be. However, it is worth noting that he was adamant. He was adamant that he wasn't the coach of the future. This wasn't to build the team of the future. It was about right now a stark contrast to the CEO that I just mentioned, whose focus again was on 2050 or, you know, even the short term focus was on the end of 2022 when they're going to put in a plan to get to where they need to be. And I'm not saying that they can or should be at Net Zero any sooner than 2050. I'm not saying that what he put in place as a CEO was Bad, right. In fact, it's what he's expected to do. It's what his shareholders likely want him to do. It's what public pressure wants him to do. It's now what's going to drive much of his compensation and his employees and compensation. Nothing wrong with that. But I want you to recognize today the stark contrast between a leader who is focused clearly on the now Marcus Freeman focused on the now and for his players to gear up for tomorrow's game against Oklahoma State, in the Fiesta Bowl, and not to be focused on the future, not to allow them to think that he's going through some motions, and he just going to talk now he's taking action now, because now is bold. It's not bold to talk about goals that are, you know, gosh, however many years out into the future, quite frankly, that's just not bold. That's not the definition of bold. So for you, the question is, are you taking bold actions that reflect what you can do right now, or you allow yourself to fall into the trap of making predictions and resolutions and using language that pushes everything into the future. And again, we're not talking about this necessarily, for you and your own resolutions and your own growth and development as a leader. But we're talking about the people that you are tasked with leading, whether it's your family, whether it's a football team, whether it's a corporation, and to get and to maintain the attention of those individuals, you need to take some sort of bold action today. So to help you do that, we're going to take a page from the last 30 Plus episodes of the energy detox. And we're going to give you three questions that you can ask yourself today and every day that will help you grow, protect and sustain success for all of your stakeholders. And the first of those questions today is, what can you do today, to grow and develop. And again, if you're looking from a personal standpoint, instead of signing up for a gym membership, or making commitments or taking some small steps, the one thing you can do today, of course, is to just get up and you know, from a health standpoint, go for a run, go for a jog, if it's 30 degrees, where you live, and it's snowing or raining. So what you want to be bold, you want to take bold action, go do something today, don't sign up for something that's gonna get you whatever. Yeah, there's there's value in that. But let's be real 92% of people fail to achieve their New Year's resolutions are based on some recent survey that I read from the University of Scranton recently 92% failure rate on New Year's resolutions. And even if you looked at some other studies here, bouncing around the internet, again, maybe best case scenario 80%, fail and 20% succeed in some portion of the resolutions, the odds are not in your favor. So make a resolution to do something today. That's bold. It's not bold to say that you're going to do XYZ over the next 365 days necessarily. And from a team standpoint, again, what bold action can you do today? What action can you take today? Okay, maybe it's not today? Maybe it's Monday, but what can you do to actually generate excitement among your employees? I mean, you might not be able to go so far as hilcorp, who, you know, a couple of weeks ago announced that they were giving $25,000 to each of their employees so that they can contribute to the community $25,000 To do what they want to from a from philanthropical standpoint, from a charity standpoint, that's bold, that energizes their employees that helps grow and develop, again, morale excitement, not just among employees, but then in turn among their communities and their other stakeholders. That's bold. So again, maybe you can't do that as the leader of a company. But what else can you do that has immediate impact on getting the excitement, the morale? Because guess what, it's not some cheesy corporate video. It's not some canned message. It's not some ESG talking point, that sounds like everybody else that is not bold. So ask yourself, what can you do today? What action can you take today that has an immediate impact? That is bold, that is immediate, that is timely. And that actually will have results that you can measure right now.
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And the second question to ask yourself is what can you do today to protect yourself or your stakeholders? What actions can you take that will layer on some extra protection when it comes to your health, your well being your legacy and all of the results that you have achieved and your team has achieved? Your company's achieved or families achieved? What can you do to protect that? Certainly, from an individual standpoint, with many resolutions surrounding health, instead of trying to, I don't know, say that you're going to give up X, Y, or Z heading into the new year, whether it's maybe drinking related, maybe it's some habit that is not terribly beneficial to take action today. Maybe you go so far as tossing out all your booze before New Year's Eve actually arises and whatever party you might be going to tonight, and you make that commitment. Now, that's bold. It's not bold to say I'm going to start tomorrow. We'll just say you're going to start right now. Maybe you do. Something that is completely against your DNA and you take a nap, because you need to protect your health and your well being and your, you know, your, your, all the synapses that you need to be firing at all time, whatever the case is, do something bold that, you know, normally wouldn't do. Because the reality is, for some people, especially the oil and gas industry, taking a nap is a pretty bold action, right? Taking it out to be something that again, I mean, I kind of dream as a parent. And I do have on my wish list, I think for 2026. But the reality is, for a lot of people, it's seen as a sign of weakness. So if that's you go ahead and be bold, take a nap, protect your health, protect your brain, protect your well being, and then you know, moving on, of course to your employees, then what action can you take that will protect them? Is it announcing that you're going to give them an extra day or to offer an extra mental health day, if you will, and 2022? Is it announcing some sort of new safety bonus initiative, whatever the case is, I don't know, use your imagination. But think about something that you can do today that will actually have an immediate impact on people's ability to protect themselves protect what they built, and protect, again, their health, their well being whether it's physical or psychological, and protect their ability to continue contributing to whatever goals you have for yourself and your company, whether they're short term goals, or whether they're long term your 30 year goals, like those that we talked about at the outset. And the third question for you today is what action can you take to sustain momentum heading into 2022? What action can you take to introduce some sustainability to your life, again, to be able to keep moving forward, because many of the resolutions that people have, of course, is around decluttering, and cleaning up and freeing up more time.
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But what can you do today that will actually accomplish that, instead of having a plan, say to declutter your house and to sort everything and figure out what you're going to donate, or you're going to sell or you're going to give away, or you're going to throw out whatever the case is, maybe actually take the bold step to say, You know what, I'm going to take all that stuff today, and I'm just gonna get rid of it, I'm just going to toss it, I'm actually going to get it out of my house, I'm either going to throw it out, or maybe I put it in the trunk of my car so that there's no chance of it staying in your house, whatever the case is, that is bold action, it's not quite as bold to again, put a plan in place that's going to ebb and flow. And that's going to lead you quite frankly, to the same spot you are which is unsustainable, it's going to continue to be a drag on you to have all of this clutter around if you're one of those people that say falls into that category. You know, another example, of course of this is the unsustainability of meetings within the workplace. So you want to take bold action today, go in and look at your meetings over the next couple of weeks of, say 2020, to look at look at the month of January and go through and every meeting that you have some say in either you call or you're you know, in a position of authority, go ahead and shorten that meeting by 50%. Or propose to the person that you shorten the meeting by 50%. Or go ahead and start canceling meetings and be intentional and say, Look, I don't think we need this meeting. My intention is to reduce time. And you're gonna go ahead and do it. I'm just going to talk about cutting back on meetings and the time that's invested, if not wasted in those meetings, take bold action, because the reality is that, of course, many meetings and time sucks. And certainly zoom meetings, if you're still in that work from home realm. They can be exhausting, they can be unsustainable, so take drastic action today that people can see as not just words, not just flowery preaching, if you will, but as actions that you can and will and have taken that actually have a immediate bold impact so that you're focused more on the today, the the Marcus Freeman approach, who says that, again, I don't care about the future. It's not about the future, it's now and he wants to see results now, or at least tomorrow when Notre Dame takes on Oklahoma State, and make sure that you're not necessarily just parroting the approach of the CEO that we talked about at the beginning, who is again, doing his job doing what he's asked to do, but who again, is coming across as someone who is following a script, and is doing anything but being bold. And so with that, I encourage you to remember that bold is now bold is not necessarily putting a plan in place, and putting in resolutions for the new year and beyond bold is taking action now using the knowledge, the wisdom, the experience and your position as a leader to make an informed conscious decision that has an immediate positive impact now. And so with that, I certainly encourage you to continue asking these questions as you head into 2022 I hope you have a safe, enjoyable, prosperous, healthy, happy new year. And I thank you for tuning in to this episode of the energy detox and I encourage you to visit the energy detox.com where you can find all prior 55 episodes and where of course you will be able to find Season Three as we head into the new year here. So with that again, thank you and have an excellent rest of the year.