BOOMerang Leadership Lessons From a BUSTed Succession Plan

Oil & gas companies can't avoid industry-wide booms and busts, but they CAN avoid costly BOOMerang leadership changes due to BUSTed succession planning practices.

Tapping into some lessons from Disney's boomeranging of Bob Iger—who replaced his successor Bob Chapek yesterday—this episode of The Energy Detox will help you answer these 3 succession-related questions:

1) In what ways are you settling for a warm body or the "next-in-line" instead of proactively fighting for the best talent possible?

2) How has the narrative about the difficulty "everyone is facing" when it comes to attracting talent (true as it may be) caused you to lower the bar, to stop thinking outside the box, and to change your definition of the "ideal candidate?"

3) What are all the ways that the time, energy, and money wasted on rectifying failed succession planning have caused you and your team to deviate from your company's core mission?

Transcript

(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)

If you know anything about oil and gas, you know that it is susceptible to booms and busts. And if you know anything about current headlines today, November 21 2022, you know that there is a boomerang of leadership that has come as a result of a bust in succession planning. That forest analogy of course, referring to the Walt Disney Company and the return of Bob Iger as CEO of Disney following some time away as his successor, Bob Chapin held the reins and did not meet the expectations of Disney's various stakeholders. That being said, How does this headline relate to you? How does it relate to the oil and gas industry? Well, in many cases, fail leaders failed leadership failed companies busts, if you will, in the best laid plans of those companies come back to a failure of succession planning. And so today we're going to talk about succession planning, whether or not you're in a position to build the talent pipeline and build the future of your company of your team. All of these lessons relate to you beyond the world of business as well. In fact, we're going to reveal a little bit of politics because it's the same in politics to where a failure of succession planning allows for these boomerang scenarios that on paper might seem like a quick fix, in the case of Disney, though, looking at two years to give Bob Iger enough time to write the ship before he leaves again. But in politics, we see the same thing right, where a failure to plan for the future allows elements from the past to come back and harm the long term prospects. The long term sustainability, if you will, of a given platform, just as a given company can be harmed again, when they don't get succession planning, right. And to bring all of this together, we're going to look at three elements of succession planning as it relates to the Walt Disney Company and its boomerang of leadership. And those three elements are here on this crudely drawn Mickey Mouse diagram. And there are two one not settle to to aim for the impossible and three to clarify your company's mission. And starting with this first one, not settling, this is something that is a very important topic from the very top of an organization when the board of directors is choosing who's going to lead a company all the way down to emerging leaders that might have their first team under them, that are building their first team that are excited to grow. Because at either end of the spectrum, and everywhere in between, far too many leaders are content, settling for what's available, settling for the resources that are available for the taking, even if they're not the best. And this comes across a lot when I'm dealing with people who are more on the Emerging Leader side of things. And when I asked, Hey, you know, you're building your team, you're you have an opportunity to add people on board. And what ways are you settling for talent and resources? Are you settling? Do you feel like you have the best of the best at your disposal? And in many cases? The answer is well, no, I'm just happy to have a body, right? Well, we'll figure it out. It's better to have somebody who's who's 80% of what we're looking for then to find that unicorn, right? And obviously, that rhetorical question, if not answered, and is allowed to let that person kind of stew on their own rhetorical question, well, is it better to have somebody at 80% of your ideal candidate than 100%? You know, it's easy to go back to well, you know, you do what you can with what you got. That's a great life lesson, right? Yeah, sure. That's great life lesson for kids. Right? You know, here's what you got, here are the toys you have, make good use of it, go have some fun. You don't need the latest and greatest. You don't need everything you want. But in business, do you need to look at the cost of that? What is the cost of settling? What is the cost of Disney settling on a leader that was maybe just there for the taking that had already been preordained as the next leader had been set up to be, you know, King, if you will, right, as part of a coronation, as if this person was always going to kind of flow in and what happens well, you settled, you settled. You didn't get the best candidate you didn't have the best person in that role. And the amount of energy and money and time at that cost. Disney in that case is astronomical. And from a percentage standpoint, the amount of time and energy and in some cases money that even a small developing team has to invest because they settled for a warm body while building that team. Many cases it's not worth it. And I say this not just you know, with my coaching hat on but as a former leader Who never apologized for surrounded myself with the best teams possible. There were many times where I almost felt guilty or was made to feel guilty, because I had the best people around me as if I was hoarding talent. But at the end of the day, my philosophy and what I share with anybody that I work with is to not settle, everybody should want the best. And when it comes to succession planning, you shouldn't just be settling for next in line. And again, we see this too in the world of politics a lot right now. Right people? Oh, it's his turn, it's her turn, this person is up next. Well, why is that the best candidate is the bet that the best person. And I think I probably speak for the vast majority of Americans who are dissatisfied in many cases with the choices that they have on the ballot. But in many cases, it's true. It's not the best person, it's next in line and you find yourself settling voting for the lesser of two evils holding your nose and voting all of those various things. Why would you be setting yourself up for that in a company when you have far more control than an individual vote or might have when it comes to elections? So ask yourself, in what ways are you settling? And when you answer that question, the next question is, are all of the excuses you're making about why you have to settle? Real? Yes, it's tough to get talent these days. Absolutely. But that brings us to the next thing. Are you least aiming for the impossible? Are you aiming for the ideal? Do you know what the ideal makeup of a team or an individual leader actually looks like? And I don't just mean a job description. I mean, those intangible characteristics, are you looking for that unicorn, you have a description of that unicorn? Because a rule in life, right? If you're not aiming for the impossible, you're obviously not going to hit it, and hecka and quite frankly, some of the inspiration for this came from the email that Bob Iger sent to his employees last night, his new employees are as old employees that his new employees again, but anyway, Bob Iger said, I mean, get the exact quote here. You know, he said, I am an optimist. And if I learned one thing from my years at Disney, is that even in the face of uncertainty, perhaps especially in the face of uncertainty, our employees and cast members achieve the impossible. Well, why shouldn't that apply to talent? Why shouldn't that apply to future leaders? Why shouldn't you be trying to achieve the impossible? So make sure you don't lose sight of that? Are you aiming for the impossible? Are you aiming for that unicorn? Or have you lowered the bar which is causing you on the other ear here to settle? All that being said, if you agree with these two sentiments, then that brings you to the third piece here on Mickey's main head here closer to the mouth, and this is related to communication. And that is clarifying the mission. Are you clear about the ultimate mission of the company so that you can work backwards and determine whether an individual is a good fit? And again, that seems sort of high level right? Talk about mission and purpose all the time? Again, it's not a new topic for the energy detox. It's certainly not a new topic for any number of other podcasts or books or articles or LinkedIn posts. But are you clarifying the mission? Are you coming back to the mission at every point in time? It is that mission crystal clear. Because again, in the case of Disney, some of the the early chatter and analysis this morning about the change is that the other Bob, Bob J. Peck, wasn't clear about the mission. Or if he was clear about the mission, it wasn't demonstrated to other employees and other stakeholders. In fact, some said he was dispassionate, he didn't have passion. And he didn't have compassion. He didn't have passion for the mission of the company, the unique mission of Disney. And he didn't have compassion for the people that are tasked with employing that mission, and making that mission a reality. And again, I come back to an email from Bob Iger last night to his employees, and again, carefully crafted emails, you don't want to put too much stock in them, but you might as well at least get them right, right, better than better to have a carefully crafted email that actually can speak to your employees. And in that he said, your dedication to the company and its mission to bring joy to people through great storytelling is an inspiration to me every single day. And again, I don't know if he wrote that. I don't know if he believes it. I have no reason to believe he doesn't believe it. But think about that for a second, your dedication, speaking to all of his employees, we're in the midst of change right now. Your dedication to this company and its mission to bring joy to people through great storytelling is an inspiration to me every single day. That is a crystal clear message to his people

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that they are important. That is that compassion that he understands the mission. There's that passion. And there is in that email in that one sentence Something that apparently was lacking in prior leadership. That's what you want in your succession planning? It's not complicated. Can people clarify the mission? And Are they consistent with it? Are you looking for that unicorn? Who can execute on that mission and check all of the generic leadership boxes that you want any leader to employ? And then finally, are you settling? Are you settling for next in line? Are you settling for a generic mold of, of somebody else that's out there just thinking that you can pull somebody off the shelf? Or are you finding somebody that's truly differentiated? answer those questions honestly and openly, again, for yourself, whether you're a brand new leader with a brand new team, or whether you're on the board of directors, and you're tasked with finding the next person to lead a company, because if you don't, you're gonna find yourself in this boomerang scenario, that cost a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of energy, all because of a bust in succession planning, that in many cases can be avoided by simply asking yourself these questions. So I encourage you, ask these questions, whether you're in the formal succession planning period of time for your business or not, be mindful of them, as you go throughout your personal life as well, to make sure that you're not settling that you're always aiming for the ideal, if not the impossible, and that at every point in time, you're able to articulate and clarify and succinctly convey your mission, as Bob Iger did last night to his employees. So with that, I appreciate your time as always tuning in and listening to this conversation. I welcome your feedback, as always, and of course, as you head into Thanksgiving week here, I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving. And hope you have a great safe long weekend. Take care



Leadership, Management, Coaching, Energy, Envronment, ESG, SustainabilityJoe SinnottLeadership, CoachingComment