What's more toxic: fossil fuels or C-SPAN?
If you watched coverage of yesterday's House Oversight Committee hearing with the leaders of several #oilandgas majors, you were likely subjected to the same political theatre and posturing that make up a sickening portion of these types of hearings. But even if you count yourself lucky to not be a part of such performances, go ahead and use yesterday's headlines about this hearing as an excuse to ask whether you're unwittingly sounding more like a politician on camera to your stakeholders than the thoughtful, apolitical, self-aware leader you THINK (or hope) you are.
The headline: Oil giants deny spreading disinformation on climate change (by Matthew Daly of AP)
The goal: to (𝐆)𝐫𝐨𝐰, (𝐏)𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 (𝐒)𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 success by pondering these 3 questions throughout your day:
💡 Do your questions unlock meaningful answers or induce defensiveness?
💡 Are you unwittingly asking questions that protect a narrative and/or your ego?
💡 How much time and #energy are you wasting on fruitless "dialogue?"
For an example of some of the non-productive questions posed during yesterday's hearing, check out this exchange between Mike Worth, CEO of Chevron, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
And for an expanded conversation on the topic of corrosive communication, check out episode 19 of The Energy Detox.
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Hello, and welcome to another rendition of the energy detox a petroleum based blend of leadership conversations guaranteed to boost your professional and personal performance by flushing away the hidden and often toxic barriers to peak performance. I'm your host, Joe Sinnott, a chemical engineer, executive coach and 16 year energy industry veteran, helping you tap into the same resources fueling today's most successful and sustainable leaders. And today, we're going to look at a couple of leaders within the energy industry who found themselves on Capitol Hill yesterday, answering a number of questions, or at least responding to a number of political statements disguised as questions in front of the House Oversight Committee who brought these energy executives to them at least virtually to answer questions about climate change, and in particular about the knowledge that some of these companies may have had regarding the potential impacts of climate change. And more importantly, the impacts that their operations and the fossil fuels that are being extracted and burned might be having on the planet. And all that being said, there are no shortage of articles out there where you can dive into the nitty gritty. And you can of course, go into a rabbit hole about the science behind climate change, and about the theories behind what's some of these companies and individuals in the companies, especially those that have been around for 2030 years, which is was part of the the focus of yesterday's conversation, if you will, you can go and explore some of that. But today, we're actually going to focus on the questions that were asked yesterday or not asked, and we're going to talk about how today's most successful leaders are adept at not just answering questions under the spotlight and the intensity of being on Capitol Hill. But how those leaders are able to ask good questions and frame those questions in a way that actually leads to progress. And doesn't just adhere to some narrative and doesn't just, you know, create noise and talking points and sound bites and everything, but actually moves things forward. And jumping into the first question for today, because of course, what have we been doing all week? Well, we're asking you questions that you can ask yourself, that's what I do as a coach. And that's what we do here on the energy detox. We arm you with questions to ask yourself and others so that you can keep moving forward. There's no shortage of content out there that talks at you. And that postulates and offers opinions and everything. And we're not here to compete with that we're here to help you move forward in the same way that I help other people move forward as a coach by asking questions. So that being said, the first question today is, do your questions, unlock meaningful answers? Or do they induce defensiveness? Because of course, again, if you went and watch some of the clips from yesterday on C span, or any of the others news outlets as they chop up things to make it sound, you know, more exciting than it actually was yesterday, you're going to find a lot of questions that weren't really questions. They were designed, of course, to either confirm what whatever biases were already in the minds of the questioner, or they were there to trap people or they were there to create, again, some sort of visual or some sort of soundbite that fuels whatever narrative is out there. So the question is, how often are you doing that? How often are your questions already a foregone conclusion in your mind of what you expect to hear or want to hear? And you might be sitting there thinking? Well, no, I asked you questions. I'm open. I'm honest. I'm curious. Yeah, that sounds good. But in the heat of the moment, are you really asking questions that allow you to grow closer to what your ultimate objectives are? And two answers that might deviate from what you expect. And again, this is if you listen to any sort of leadership talk or read a book or, or anything regarding the the idea of active listening and all of this, you know that asking questions is important. But ask yourself today, as you go through your day, that is the point of this daily detox, if you will, to ask questions that you can focus on today. So today, as you go about your day, don't just ask yourself how many times you can say day within 60 seconds as I just did, but ask yourself, each time a question comes out of your mouth, whether it's a fruitful question whether it actually helps you move forward or help for stakeholders move forward to some objective, or whether it's somewhat self serving, and it's just allowing the other person to get defensive and in turn, not answer the question in a way that's fruitful. The next question today is related to the first one and that is, are you unwittingly asking questions that protect a narrative or your ego? So again, just as we asked in the first question, you know, are you are you asking questions that are actually you know, fruitful and inducing meaningful answers. The deeper question there is when anything is coming out of your mouth, mouth, is it simply to promote and protect some sort of narrative. And again, we can go back to yesterday on Capitol Hill. They're the Congress, men and women ask them those questions.
05:13
didn't care what the answers were. There's a clip linked here in the show notes, the description for today's episode between Mike Werth the CEO of Chevron, and representative to eat from Michigan. And again, it was not exactly a back and forth, it was a it was clearly a show. And it was clearly intended to either trap, Mike worth or to induce confusion. And again, if you look at his face there multiple times throughout the 92nd clip, you will see lots of confusion because the questions were not really questions, they were intended to one boost the ego of a politician. Not that that's anything surprising, and to fuel a narrative and a talking point that she already had in mind. And she wanted to get out there. So again, ask yourself, are you just feeding your ego and a narrative? Or are you actually asking questions that might unlock something valuable? And the third question for you today to ask as you go about your day is, how much time and energy are you wasting on fruitless dialogue, fruitless attempts to have a q&a with with an individual or perhaps with a group, if you're in that position, where the dialogue isn't really a dialogue? Again, it's a bunch of yelling. And yesterday's committee hearing is no different from many other committee hearings in Congress where, again, it's a lot of yelling, it's a lot of questions that aren't questions, and it's far from a dialogue. So as you go throughout your day, today, ask yourself, are you engaging in a dialogue? Or if you feel like you're preparing for q&a or something like that? Are you actually just preparing for talking points and single answers, not the normal back and forth that represents a good, deep, conscious human conversation. And again, I speak to this, and I'm passionate about this, because one of the things I've enjoyed most about my career is helping leaders helping executives prepare for earnings calls and prepare for conversations with investors and other stakeholders. And of course, as we find ourselves here in the midst of earnings call season, it's interesting listening to some of these q&a sessions of leaders who, again, are tasked with providing insights and answers. And obviously, in some cases, they're bound by the rules of SEC regulations. And not divulging more than they're allowed to. But in many cases, you know, they're stuck with talking points and single answers to common questions, but in helping leaders prepare for Q and A's and my experience, and now as an executive coach, helping people again prepare for dialogues with their stakeholders with employees, for those who are in career transition, helping them prepare for interviews, I don't just help them prepare single answers to a single question. But we go through dialogue,
07:50
we go multiple questions deep, we practice what it would be like to actually go back and forth and not either answer a question with a defined 62nd monologue, but to actually answer a question with some good solid information, and maybe ask a follow up question that allows you to get deeper and allows you to ultimately convey your ability to think and be conscious and be aware, which is the goal of the energy detox, which is the goal of what I do as a coach, and what should be the goal for you as a leader. Again, regardless of what industry you're in, regardless of what your role is, it's to be conscious of the ways that you are working with others to extract better answers, fuller answers, more complete answers that demonstrate, again, your intellect and demonstrate what it is that you and your organization are able to contribute to the world. And going back to yesterday's conversation, there are at least were some conversations intended to be on the side of the aisle that did not call for the hearing. And they at least elicited the fact that, hey, these companies are not there with a primary goal of poisoning the world as again, you can you can hear referenced in that short clip that's linked as part of the show notes here. That is not the intent, clearly, of these energy industries. The intent of the energy industries is to produce hydrocarbons that in turn, help fuel empower the world that lift people out of poverty, that allow people to have better education and more time to, again, contribute to the world instead of living like they were 150 years ago, at least in in, you know, Western civilization, and allowing people who don't have access to what we enjoy here in most of the developed world, giving them that opportunity, giving them that and again, I could talk for hours about the positive things that the energy industry does, of course, to fuel the world. But there's no shortage of people out there that are already doing a fine job of that. And again, me talking to you this morning, and sharing all those details is not the intent of today. The intent of the energy detox is to help you ask questions and hopefully the questions that we asked today, and hopefully the questions that we shared with you throughout this week, and encourage you to ask throughout each and every day that you go through are valuable to you. And if you're interested in hearing an expanded conversation about some of these questions, I Welcome you to also click on the other link that expands upon this conversation with a previous episode of the energy detox, where we took the Colonial Pipeline hack from several months ago and talked about communication barriers, talked about corrosion, talked about bottlenecks in your communications approach, and how you can overcome them. And how if you are the leader of an energy industry, energy industry company today, communication couldn't be more important. So even if you're not sitting on Capitol Hill, I welcome you to take a listen to that expanded conversation to help you think through the ways that you might be inhibiting your ability to effectively and productively communicate your message. So with all that being said, I thank you as always, for listening. I welcome your comments and your feedback or your observations of your your favorite examples of dialogue that isn't quite dialogue from yesterday's hearing, and I certainly hope that you have a safe, enjoyable, warm weekend. Thanks again for listening and take care