5 Ways You May Be Driving Your Energy Company Into the Ground
Sure, you may be sitting in the driver’s seat…but your passengers know that your “autopilot” leadership style is driving them away from long-term success.
So, to prevent the leadership equivalent of “highway hypnosis,” ask yourself the following 5 questions laid out in this episode of The Energy Detox:
1) Is my over-reliance on outside resources causing me to take my hands off the wheel?
2) Am I over-investing in one fuel type and ignoring the many benefits of hybrid options?
3) How is my relentless focus on future goals (generally a good thing) causing me to ignore historical information that WOULD be staring right at me if I’d just remember to glance at my mirrors once in a while?
4) Am I ignoring lights and alarms telling me when I need to check my pressure while I unwittingly drive along with a slow leak?
5) While my company (and the energy industry as a whole) drive ahead at 100MPH, do I at least remember to slow down BEFORE heading into a turn so that I don't lose control?
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Transcript
00:15
Hello and welcome to Season 2 of The Energy Detox, a petroleum-based blend of leadership conversations guaranteed to boost your professional and personal output by flushing away the hidden—and often toxic—barriers to peak performance.
00:31
I'm your host, Joe Sinnott, a chemical engineer, executive coach and 15 year energy industry veteran, helping you tap into the same resources fueling today's most successful and sustainable leaders.
00:44
And today we're going to take several lessons from driving, from drilling, and from leading and weave them all together to help prevent you from making some of the common mistakes that can lead to catastrophe—whether you're driving a vehicle, whether you're drilling a well, or whether you're leading a company.
01:01
And we're kicking off Season 2 today "live" for several reasons: one of which is when you're driving, when you're drilling, and again, when you're leading teams, it is very much a live operation; you don't have the luxury of going and flipping through a manual most of the time; you have to make real time decisions—you are live and on camera, if you will.
01:20
And so today that's what we're doing—"live and on camera"—to represent what you have to do on a daily basis as a leader. Another reason we're going live today is because the mission of The Energy Detox has been (and will continue to be) to give you a glimpse into what it's like when you're engaged with an executive coach. And obviously, when you're actually engaged with an executive coach, you're dealing with one-on-one conversations, and you're not going to quite get there through a medium like this.
01:46
But the hope is by giving you an opportunity to engage a little bit more deeply and to ask questions and add comments and enjoy the conversation, if you will, at the end of this, then maybe we can get a little bit closer to giving you a sense of the value that coaching can bring to you—whether it's formal executive coaching or the informal coaching that you can execute upon as a leader each day.
02:10
So with all that being said, I welcome your comments, I welcome your questions, I'd be happy to try to weave them—if not force them—into the themes today of drilling, driving and leading teams. But before we get to that I already have five themes that I want to step through. The first of which is keeping your hands on the wheel. Are you in control? Do you have your hands on the wheel?
02:32
The second one we'll step through is what kind of fuel do you have? How do you choose the right fuel? Are you making a false choice between types of fuel when a hybrid option might actually make more sense?
02:43
The third theme that we'll weave our way through today is about mirrors. With all of the new technology, using your mirrors might seem somewhat antiquated when you have backup cameras and self-driving vehicles. But at the end of the day, are you using the right technology—antiquated as it might be—to make sure you're aware of what's going on behind you?
03:03
The next topic, the fourth one that we'll get to today is about tire pressure...and pressure in general. And whether or not you're paying attention to all of those gauges and lights that are coming on and telling you that your pressure might be a little bit off, or if you're just plowing through with whatever approach you've been taking as a leader.
03:20
And finally, the fifth theme that we'll go through, of course, is speed. We all know how important speed is in business and driving and drilling. And we want to make sure that you are slowing down at the appropriate time. Are you slowing down before you get into a curve? Or are you going too fast, too quick—and at the wrong times—and not leaving yourself any options to peel back a little bit and make clearer, better, more confident decisions?
03:47
So with all that being said, and moving back to that first question, which is, "Do you have your hands firmly on the wheel; are you in control of your situation?"
03:57
And when you're driving, of course, this question is becoming more interesting with the advent of self driving vehicles. Every so often, including a couple weeks ago (I think down in Texas), where a Tesla presumably lost control got into a bad accident. Of course, the first question is, was the driver even paying attention? Was the driver watching YouTube videos while the vehicle was on autopilot? This is a question that is gonna come up more and more. And it's also a question of liability: who's responsible?
04:25
Certainly for now, I think the the operator of the vehicle—even if he's not physically operating it—is responsible. But there's going to be a time when algorithms that drive all this and the technology might bear some responsibility. And it's not going to be a question we're going to answer today. But it is an important topic to be aware of as a leader.
04:44
And so, too, in drilling a well. Again, when you're drilling a well, you have issues on occasion; tools might get stuck down hole, and maybe you have insurance to pay for them (or maybe you don't), but you as the operator have to pay.
04:56
Or if you have some sort of leak or uncontrolled issue that causes an environmental problem, again, you as an operator are likely responsible (or maybe it's the service company...or somebody is going to have responsibility); but you have your hands on the wheel, and so too, as a leader. But the problem with leadership is that with all of these new tools and tricks and everything, it might be tempting to take your hands off the wheel, and to point to new technology that [can lead to] almost "self-driving" companies these days, with analytics and with advisors and all of these other tools out there.
05:25
And you could certainly very easily drop your guard and forget that you are in control. But when I'm working with individuals, the first thing we go through is this whole idea of a GPS framework. And to Grow, Protect, and Sustain at all times requires you to recognize that, as a leader, you have to have your hands firmly on the wheel. You're not going to blame anybody else. Nobody else is driving the car for you, if you will; it's you, and you're in charge.
05:50
And I've seen time and time again, unfortunately, where leaders default to pointing the finger not taking blame. And obviously, many coaches (and many speakers) have addressed this. You can go and read Jocko Willink's book Extreme Ownership that takes this to an extreme and says you will have your hands on the wheel, you will take ownership. But the question for you right now is, "Are you taking ownership?"
06:13
Is your default to look for blame somewhere else, whether it's outside services that you're bringing in that you've you've outsourced things to; whether it's a team that you have, as trusted and as talented as they might be? Are you quick to put them on the spot when things go wrong? Or are you taking ownership?
06:28
And so what I asked you today to do is again, ask yourself, in what ways are you maybe taking your hands off the wheel? Are you aware when you're taking your hands off the wheel? And if you are, ask yourself, "How can I maintain focus?" What tools can you have to HELP you drive to your destination, but not do it for you?
06:49
The second theme to talk through today is fuel. Obviously, when you're driving a vehicle, you're not going to get very far unless you have fuel. But of course, again, just going back to the first point I made about Teslas and the advent of and the proliferation, if you will, of electric vehicles, there is a question of gasoline and internal combustion vehicles or battery-powered vehicles.
07:11
And that's a question that is going to continue because there's obviously hidden costs, there's hidden problems with vehicles, one of the most important of which is how frequently can you fuel up your vehicle? Essentially, if you have an electric vehicle and you're going on a cross-country trip, do you have the option to plug in and quickly charge...or to charge in a reasonable amount of time?
07:30
And, again, batteries will get better and that question will be answered. But it's a very important question that flows into your role as a leader: Are you leaning too heavily on one fuel type or another?
07:41
Or is there a way to bring the two together and make sure that you have the right tool or the right car for the job? Because a long distance journey's not quite ideal for a Tesla right now. But certainly for short trips to and from work (if you're back in the office) or to and from the store, Tesla (or any electric vehicle) can do wonders.
08:03
And, of course, this reminds me--actually 10 years ago this week--where the former CEO of EQT, which has since become the largest producer of natural gas in the country (in fact, today it announced that it's going to be even larger than it is with a $2.9 billion acquisition)....but at any rate, 10 years ago, Murry Gerber, the former CEO, after he stepped down as CEO, began a cross-country trip in a natural gas powered Hummer. And part of the takeaway from that trip (other than pointing out how natural gas could be a better fuel than the nascent battery vehicle industry and even the traditional gasoline powered vehicles) was proving that at that moment--at that point, 10 years ago, it was difficult to drive across the country on just natural gas.
08:52
It was difficult to find enough fueling stations along the way; he had to be very strategic as he and his wife drove across the country. And so, too, now as we look at what many would say is, again, an "ideal fuel," for lack of a better term, and battery-powered vehicles. But the infrastructure isn't there yet. Now, again, with trillions of dollars going towards infrastructure, that might change, but it's something to keep in mind.
09:15
So too, in drilling and completion operations, where many of the equipment that used to run on diesel, of course, can now be powered by cleaner, burning natural gas...or even electricity. But even in those situations, people run into a false choice where, yes, the electricity is great, it's quieter; but again, it comes with limitations. Do you have access to electricity; doyou have access to a grid? Or do you need to have a diesel or a natural gas burning skid out there to go ahead and produce the electricity so that you then you can use it, which, again, all just speaks to being a giant facade.
09:47
And from a leadership standpoint, you don't want a facade. You don't want somebody to look under the hood and realize that you just have a one track mind and you're going to go down one path with one fuel, even if it's not optimal. And that's the real takeaway for you today: Are you leaning on fuels that are over-simplified? Or are you taking an approach that allows you to pick and choose the right fuel...or perhaps a hybrid approach?
10:09
If you happen to follow David Ramsden-Wood, recently--and on the heels of his Uber escapades and his investigation as an Uber driver--one of his takeaways that he posted the other day was that hybrid vehicles may very well be the best option; instead of all of our bickering about internal combustion vs. electric vehicles, maybe a hybrid Prius is, in fact, the the answer to all of our problems.
10:30
I don't know if it will be or not. But, again, from a leadership standpoint, are you leaning on one fuel to get you by? I've seen this throughout my career; I've seen this in my coaching now, where some leaders, they dive into all of this leadership stuff (I was gonna say crap, because sometimes it can be crap). But there's a lot of good stuff out there on leadership; you can scroll through your LinkedIn feed, you can get all kinds of mantras and tips and tricks. And obviously, there's no shortage of books and seminars that you can go to. And you can go away to off site meetings with all of your comrades there for a week or two and, and you can have all these takeaways. But at the end of the day, in many cases, all of those things are not sustainable. Those are not sustainable ways to lead your company.
11:12
And I've had instances...I had somebody reach out to me that had a leader of a company; it was a private equity firm, they have several different companies, and one of the leaders is all into all of this leadership stuff, if you will. But he was completely unaware of how his actions were disconnected from these things. Because he was so blinded, he was checking the box, he thought he was doing all these things. But of course, that comes across as 1) inauthentic and 2) ineffective, because when you're driving, you need access to the RIGHT fuel at all times; you can't afford to be stranded in betwee two major cities because there isn't access.
11:44
And again, in many ways, that's what coaching is; coaching is an opportunity to make sure that at each step along the way, you have the right fuel, the right amount of fuel, and you have ACCESS to it.
11:52
So, again, ask yourself as you're leading your company, as you're leading your family, as you're doing whatever in your business, do you have access to the right fuel, or are you locking yourself in, if you will, to something that might not even be around in 5 or 10 years, or that isn't effective in every situation?
12:10
So moving on to the fourth forced parallel, if you will, or actually the third force parallel (I think I skipped over one here) it is mirrors.
12:21
And nowadays, again, with cars, if you have a backup camera, which there's a good chance to do or, again, if you had a self-driving vehicle, where it's essentially one big camera, you might not be using your mirrors quite as much.
12:33
But it's important. Remember, what mirrors can tell you. Mirrors tell you what's going on, generally off to the sides or even behind you. And if you're not aware of what's going on behind you, and you're just too focused on what's in front of you or ahead of you, you're gonna run into issues. And that makes sense, again, from a leadership standpoint: it's very easy to say, "I'm in the moment, I'm focused on my objective."
12:51
But are you completely ignoring what's behind you because you have all of these other fancy tricks and tools, and you're so focused on your ultimate objective? And it's an important question. And so, too, with drilling; when you're drilling a well, you don't drill a mile or two away from surface, and then just take a snapshot in time and take out your GPS and find out where you are.
13:10
No, you know where you are in a well because of all the points going backwards. You HAVE to use your mirror; you have to look backwards and take all of those points to figure out where you are; you don't have the luxury (in most cases) of just saying, "All right, I'm just going to drill blindly, and here I am."
13:26
No, you need to know what's going on behind you. So again, as a leader, are you too focused on the here and now? And are you losing sight of what went on behind you?
13:35
And this comes in to play in several different areas. One area in particular that I've seen again, in my own career, and I've seen since now as a coach, where employees who might be having some issues are very quickly cast aside because of something that they just did. And for whatever reason, whether it's fear or liability, or this cancel culture, companies, unfortunately, are more quick than ever to cast them aside, let them go, move them to a new position.
14:02
And fortunately, I've seen plenty of instances in my own life and my own career where people were given a second chance or--more importantly, and this, I think, at this point is probably more more cliche of a story than anything--but where somebody makes a multimillion dollar error. And, you know, the president of the company pulls them in and says, "Hey, you know what, we're not going to fire you because we just spent, you know, pick a number one or $2 million to train you."
14:24
And there's there's plenty of apocryphal stories like that. I've seen one in my own experience where somebody made a mistake that cost a couple million dollars, and they weren't let go; but again, it's because the leaders were willing to look backwards and say, "This person has tremendous value. Why would we cast them aside?"
14:41
If we were just in the here and now, then, yeah, we might just say they're expendable and pull one of the 1000s of other people that are on the sidelines looking for work.
14:50
But again, that's not a very intelligent--and that's not a very sustainable--approach. And again, I've seen it even on my own particular teams where I had a team and I had an opportunity to bring somebody on board, but that person had several strikes against him. He was, for all intents and purposes, you know, on his last strike, if you will. But I had known from his internship experience before he became a full time employee that he was probably the best intern that we've ever had. And long story short, he came onto my team, he was phenomenal. And he since, unfortunately, moved on to other teams and became one of the most sought after employees at the company.
15:23
But naturally, if we had just taken the approach of saying, well, buddy, you've struck out and you know, you've been, you've been demoted, and you're down to the minors and you're not coming back, that would not have been a very smart move. So those are two employee related things.
15:37
But how are you doing that in your own life? How are you so focused on the here and now that you forget, once in a while to look in your mirror, or even better, to actually turn your head and see what's going on behind you?
15:47
And now getting to the fourth item, and that is pressure, in particular tire pressure when you're driving. And what's the whole reason for having optimum tire pressure? Well, one of them were told, of course, is energy efficiency. Optimal tire pressure might get you better gas mileage, or, again, I guess, battery mileage, if you will. And the other thing is, of course, it could help you handle better, and I suppose it could help minimize wear and tear on your tire. So plenty of reasons when you're driving a vehicle to not ignore those "check tire pressure" lights and make sure that you have the optimal pressure.
16:19
Same thing with drilling: you want BALANCED pressure, if the pressure is too high when you're drilling a well, you can fracture the formation. And that can lead to problems. If your mud weight and your pressure, therefore, are not high enough, then, of course, your wellbore can collapse. And you can find yourself stuck.
16:36
Well, similarly, again, when you're leading teams, do you get into a zone where you've just identified yourself as a high pressure, high intensity individual, that's just the way you are you run at high pressure, no matter what.
16:48
Or maybe you've you see yourself as more laid back, low pressure, and you have this vision because you've taken 4 different behavioral tests or personality tests, and you've either got that red sticker on your hardhat; or maybe you're more passive, you've got the yellow or the green, and you've identified yourself as this; and you're afraid to step out of that zone and apply a little bit more pressure to your teams and sometimes pare back.
17:12
But the reality is, if you don't have the optimal pressure for the situation, you will not be efficient. Again, similar to the tires, you're not going to have energy efficiency in your leadership, just as you wouldn't have energy efficiency while driving, and you're leaving money on the table.
17:29
I've seen this when issues come up with with a project or, in one case, where there is this report that came out every day. And it was a semi-valuable report. And behind the scenes, there was a lot of anger and anxiety gyrations to get this out the door and then to reconcile it. And the angst and the anxiety continued and continued and continued until finally, leadership recognized that there was a lot of anxiety and finally asked the question: "does this report, does this project need to be revisited?"
17:57
Everybody said yes. And there was great relief, the pressure was relieved. And why? Because that leader finally asked a question that could have been asked months prior, but wasn't. And so, too, when you're leading yourself, your team, your company, are you asking questions that can relieve pressure? And that doesn't mean that people are going to rest on their laurels and let their guard down and have inferior results. Quite the opposite...
18:22
Relieve pressure that's not doing you any good so that you don't fracture the formation, if you will; and increase pressure when you need to. And if people recognize that you can go up and down--not in any sort of drastic way where people think you have a disorder of some sort--but recognize the situation, ask the right questions as a leader, and make sure that you're not adhering to some caricature of yourself as either this laid back, low pressure, even keeled individual or this high pressure, high intensity person that's going to get things done and expects their people to work 24/7.
18:54
So look for your indicators, look for that "check pressure light," listen to your people, and ask the right questions. And occasionally just do a walk around your vehicle. Look and see if there might be a leak. See if you see a nail gleaming in the sunlight or you hear the slight hiss. Because if you're not doing that, you're asking for trouble, and you're probably going to be leaving some money on the table.
19:15
And finally, speed, can't talk about driving, of course, and not talk about speed. And one of the most important things that I learned years before I drove was my father constantly telling me that you want to slow down before you get into a curve, before you make a turn; that's the time to slow down. Not when you're in the turn. When you get into the turn, it might be too late.
19:38
So with that in mind, it's the same thing while you're drilling. There's a time and a place to go as fast as possible. If you want to join the what is it the mile a day club now or the two mile a day club and yeah, when you're hit that sweet spot and you're the right point in the formation and you know the dogleg that are suitable for everything you need. everything lines up perfectly. Go ahead and go as fast as possible. You're on that nice, straight Get away on the road. Similarly, go go fast, you can use your judgment. But when you get into a turn, it's a whole different story.
20:06
But many leaders who are "go go go" and go super fast, they slow down too late, or they don't slow down at all. And again, slowing down can be a dirty word in industry that is as fast paced as the oil and gas industry. But it's important for you to as leader to recognize when it's appropriate to slow down, and to make sure that you're doing it before you get into the curve. Because the reality is, again, that you as a leader, in many cases might be going fast for no reason. And you might be putting pressure on your people to go fast, for no reason. And perhaps the best example of this doesn't necessarily come from from a leadership standpoint. But it's one of the best stories that I recall from from being offshore, and it was a roughneck. And he perfectly captured the idea of going fast for no reason.
20:52
And fortunately, it wasn't related to anything that was going on on the rig. It was in his personal life, because he shared with me when casual conversation that his wife was due, but their second baby, he was very excited, clearly a proud father of his first child, and very excited about the second one that was coming up. And he shared that he had a scheduled c section, of course, or his wife had a scheduled c section, I should say. And obviously that makes sense. Because, you know, his his schedule working to on to off, it makes sense to schedule it so that he could be home most likely for the birth of his child. And he shared that, you know, it's a wonderful experience when you're going to be having a child because you can drive as fast to the hospital as possible. And if an officer pulls you over, he's not gonna do anything, because you're going in the hospital to have a baby.
21:35
Of course, you know, putting two and two together, I asked Well, okay, but in your case, I mean, you have an appointment, you're going for a scheduled c section. So there's no reason to go as fast as possible, right? No, he said, No, no, no, no, it doesn't matter. As long as you're going to the hospital, you can go as fast as you want, you can drive as crazy as you want. And if an officer pulls you over, he's not going to do anything, because you're going to have a baby.
21:54
And I think I tried one more time to say, "Well, yeah, but but you have an appointment like you leave whenever you want, like this is you know this, now you're three weeks out." And again, it never quite clicked for him. But it does have parallels, of course to you and your life where there may be times where you're go, go Go and you're going fast. And it really doesn't serve any purpose. In fact, it could be detrimental to the health and well being of you, your family, your team, your company.
22:18
So all that being said, again, ask yourself when you're going fast, if it makes sense. And ask yourself if you need to take a pause. Before you get into a turn before you go into a transition, you might be looking at some sort of deal or some new project and it makes sense to go through the motions very fast. But just before you're ready to wrap things up, take that time to take your foot off the gas, maybe tap the brakes, and then proceed because once you're in the turn, that's when you can lose control, of course, and with all these themes with all of these leadership themes that we've talked about today, ask yourself:
22:56
"In what ways am I ignoring the rules of the road as I help my team, my organization and my family navigate the constant hazards standing in the way of my ultimate destination?"
23:11
And as you ponder that, please allow me, your host Joe Sinnott, to thank you for being a part of this live kickoff to Season 2 of The Energy Detox.
23:19
And to learn more about how I help leaders like you navigate the demands of the oil and gas industry, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or head on over to theenergydetox.com.
23:33
And until next time, remember to keep your hands on the wheel, choose the right fuel, check your mirrors, monitor your tire pressure, and watch your speed.
23:46
Thanks again.