Is your leadership development program full of manure?
Thanks to soaring natural gas prices around the world, the cost nitrogen-based fertilizers is skyrocketing, which will obviously lead to continued impacts on the expense and availability of certain foods. And while that's bad news for a good chunk of the human population, it's a good excuse for The Energy Detox to help you explore the products you're using (or not using) to yield sustainable results for yourself and your stakeholders.
The headline: 𝐍𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐮𝐭 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐲𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝𝐬 -𝐂𝐅 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 (by Rod Nickel of Reuters)
The goal: to (𝐆)𝐫𝐨𝐰, (𝐏)𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 (𝐒)𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 success by pondering these 3 questions throughout your day:
💡 What are 𝐚𝐥𝐥 of the figurative fertilizers helping you and your team grow?
💡 What's the biggest threat to consistently strong yields?
💡 Is your application of synthetic "leadership development" products sustainable?
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Hello and welcome to a another edition 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. As always, 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 talk about how some of those leaders that are more sustainable than others have an approach to nurturing their people nurturing their companies, that parallels in many ways, the most successful gardeners and farmers out there. And this is certainly an analogy that is ripe for leadership development. Because what happens in farming, what happens in gardening? Well, you're taking a mix of different things, different things that are required for plants to grow and flourish, from sunlight to nutrients in the soil to water to see good spacing. And of course, as controversial as it might be carbon dioxide in the air to help plants grow and develop and, you know, ultimately produce the fruits that are expected of leadership and of stakeholders of investors and whatever the case might be. But we're not going to take today to dive too far into that analogy, because there's plenty of other people out there that have done that, and written books about that. But what we are going to focus on is the fertilizer aspect of growing plants, and farming and gardening and anything else in that in that world of agriculture. And the reason for this is because there are no shortage of headlines, including the one that we'll bring up today to to stem the conversation. And that is the fact that fertilizer prices are going through the roof, particularly nitrogen based fertilizers that rely on natural gas to both serve as the building blocks of these fertilizers and then also to help fuel the process to generate these fertilizers. And this has been going on for a while now. So these headlines aren't necessarily new. But there was a flurry of them in the last 24 hours, particularly as companies that are in the fertilizer world begin to release their quarterly results. And one of those companies overseas is CF industries. And again, they were pretty blunt yesterday, they said, Look, fertilizer prices are going up, we don't know if we're gonna be able to continue producing the amount of fertilizer that we've been producing. If for no other reason, then the fuel required to produce them is skyrocketing as well, natural gas. And so again, we're going to take this opportunity to as always weave in some other themes from the energy industry, but most importantly, focus on leadership and the tools that are required to help lead your team. And so we're going to jump in, as we always do with three questions related to this energy industry theme and this leadership theme, the first of which is what are all of the figurative fertilizers that you're using to help yourself grow and help your team grow. And the reason I'm emphasizing all is because this is one of the first exercises I'll do when I'm working with either an individual or with a company, a first thing to do is figure out well what you're already doing. You don't need me to come in and just start telling you what to do that would be foolish, that would be a waste of time and energy would be ineffective. And for so many different reasons. So the first step is, what what are you already doing? What do you feel that you're doing for yourself or for those around you that's helping them grow? That's helping yourself move forward. That's helping you achieve some progress towards some ultimate goal. And it's a fun exercise because there's no pressure, right? It's it's brainstorming. So what are you doing? Are you sending people to classes? Are you doing luncheon learns, are you sending them to webinars? Are you allowing them to go get formal education? And it's not just education, of course, but
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it's also exposure to other things? Are people going on field trips to get exposure to different parts, perhaps of your company or your industry? Are people volunteering for different organizations within your community, again, to grow as a person not just to amass knowledge, but to also amass a sense of community and a sense of purpose? So what are all the different things that you're doing? Are you bringing in external resources like coaches, like consultants, like speakers, and, you know, build this list, go through it again, there's no pressure to come up with what you're already doing. And in fact, it might reveal, especially if you're the head of a larger company, some of the things that you didn't know were happening within your company, or some of the things you didn't know weren't happening within your company to help people grow and develop. So do this exercise, I encourage you to come up with the biggest list possible. And this applies not just if you're leading an organization, but also if you're in career change, right? What are the things you're doing to help grow your prospects of future employment? And again, it's a pretty open ended question. And, and there's a standard number of answers that I usually get from people. Obviously, I'm working on my resume, I'm going to networking events. I'm getting myself out there on LinkedIn, those things are helping me grow my presence. Sure. But then once you have that list, it's very easy to then go ask second level questions, well, which ones are working? Which ones aren't working? Which are more effective? Do you know how much time and energy and money you're spending on this? Again, going back to the leader of a company? This is a very important question. Does the leader understand how much time and energy and money is being on invested in certain leadership development programs and tools and outsiders and coaches? And if so, is that money worth it? Is that time worth it? Is that energy worth it? And the flip side to that is, which of those are so critical and yielding the most impact that if they went away, you would have some negative consequences? Which brings us to the second question today, which is, what's the biggest threat to consistently strong yields? And there's two ways to answer this. The first is going back to the initial question of all the positive things that are happening of all the positive investments that you're making, either in yourself or your company, or your stakeholders, or even on the personal side, and your family, if any of those went away, which would be the most impactful, which is the one that you couldn't live without, because again, going back to the world of agriculture, there are certain prerequisites, right, you need light, you need air, you need space, you need water, you need nutrients. And many of those are sort of a given right? There are certain basics when it comes to running a company or to to conducting a job search, right, there's certain basic things you need to do. And you know what those are, right, and treating people with respect, and paying them a fair wage, and, you know, giving them benefits, giving them some time and attention. And on the career side, again, putting together your resume and cover letters and some bare bones and your LinkedIn profile, those things are pretty standard, right? You don't need somebody like me to come in and tell you those things that you need to be doing. But what are the things that maybe you're doing a little bit differently, that are really working for you that if somebody pulled them away, you know, you'd be in a lurch. What are those things? What are the things that you think differentiate you and your company and your approach to leadership development that is working better than your competitors, when you can identify those things? Now, those are the things that are worth protecting? Yeah, these are the prerequisites, people are working on those years. There's culture, concerts, consultants coming in, and they're going to help you to, you know, do all these things and energize all the normal feedback loops, and all those things that you can be doing. And yes, those are necessary. But if you're trying to differentiate yourself, as an individual and a company, what are the things that are helping you grow? Or have helped you grow to this point that are different from everyone else? Do you have some secret blend of fertilizers? Do you have some secret approach to dealing with people that maybe others do not? Those are the type of questions that if you ask yourself, here, you're going to avoid the temptation to just go down the path of the standard tips and tricks and tools that everyone else is using, right? If you're a gardener, you know, you can go down the aisle and grab a bag of Miracle Gro, and
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that's going to help your tomatoes be you know, as big as possible. But you know, what is your neighbor doing? That's a little bit different. You know, maybe he or she has some, I don't know, maybe she has a beehive next door. And that, that extra pollination is the difference that Miracle Gro can can achieve. I don't know what the answer is for you, of course, but you need to ask yourself that question, what is that secret recipe that you have that secret blend of figurative fertilization technology that differentiates you, and that if it went away, your company wouldn't be what it is, and you wouldn't be who you are, figure that out, and then identify how you can protect that. Because there's certain things that, you know, you might not be able to do much about, you might not be able to handle skyrocketing fertilizer prices. If you happen to be in agriculture. Obviously, from a weather standpoint, there's certain things you can't do to to mitigate the impact of drought, and floods and heat and cold and all of that, yes, that's part of farming, that's part of gardening, those are things you deal with. But from a positive standpoint, I guarantee that there's some things that you're doing differently, identify what those are, and help protect those. And you're going to be able to differentiate yourself, your leadership development programs, your company, your talent, your people from the competition, and allow you to continue sustaining solid yields long into the future, regardless of what other disruptions happen to occur. And then with that being said, we'll move on to the third and final question of today of the week, which is, is your application of synthetic leadership development products sustainable? And this is a meaningful question for several reasons. Because when you talk about fertilizer, when you talk about the skyrocketing prices of fertilizer, and in turn, the negative impacts that will occur on the price of food, the availability of food around the world. There's a lot of naysayers who are very quick to point out that we shouldn't be as reliant on synthetic fertilizers as we are around the world. And of course, you can go on the other side of people who say, Well, if it weren't for synthetic fertilizers, we wouldn't be able to have anywhere near the the yield of food that we have. It's just it's not Practical for the entire world rely on organic farming practices. And as with most cases, the know the answer is somewhere in between, right? Yes, synthetic fertilizers, if not applied properly, if too much is applied if there's too much nitrogen, and it runs off into streams and rivers, and, you know, the long term impacts, you know, on the world on ecology can be, can be harmful. There's no question about that. But on the flip side, an over reliance on traditional farming practices simply cannot sustain nearly 8 billion people in the world. From a land standpoint, there is no question that on a per acre standpoint, on a per crop or per calorie standpoint, synthetic fertilizers have, you know, have a huge advantage. And again, we need to be aware of the fact that synthetic fertilizers, if not used properly, if not used efficiently, can cause harm. But the bigger question isn't, you know, A versus B organic versus inorganic or conventional. The bigger question is, are you efficiently applying whatever is at your disposal, so that you can sustain momentum and sustain progress? And so that's the question for you. It's okay to bring in some synthetic leadership development programs, and some approaches to building morale and a little bit of rah rah within your organization, it's okay to bring in some of those resources. But if they're not applied correctly, then you're not going to be able to sustain yields, you're going to damage the soil, if you will, you're not gonna be able to have year after year of solid growth. Because, you know, another great analogy that's out there for culture is soil from a gardening standpoint, if the soil begins to degrade, if you're removing nutrients, if you're removing some of the, you know, the good bacteria and organisms that are in the soil, because of your farming practices, again, you might have a couple of years of solid growth, but over time, that soil is going to degrade much as many companies who have experienced tremendous growth, begin to have a degradation of their culture over time, it's not sustainable. So again, don't focus on the fact that yes, some of these these leadership development programs and books and tips and tricks and webinars, and coaches, and consultants, and all that don't focus as much on the fact that yes, some of these might not feel right, they might feel artificial, no focus on the fact that in the right doses, they can be far more effective per unit per dollar
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pour, you know, amount of time that you and your leadership teams are putting into it, they can be far more effective than so called organic methods than relying just on your internal resources and your existing success. And you know, everything that you know, you're capable of that got you to this point, understand that, in reality, in this world that we live in, when it comes to growing food, or growing livestock or whatever, whatever you're looking at, very often, there is a balance between inorganic, synthetic approaches, and more traditional organic approaches, find that balance, find that mix, and you're going to have good soil, you're going to have sustainable results, you're going to be able to put some of the the naysayers and the extremists, you know, push them off to the side, if you will. And you will continue fueling yourself fueling your team in a way that is again, more sustainable than those who focus too much on, you know, polarized approaches to either leadership development, to farming, to gardening, whatever the case might be. And so with all that being said, as always, I welcome your feedback on any of these topics. While I don't claim to be an expert, when it comes to agriculture, I do enjoy eating food, I enjoy sharing meals with others, and I enjoy sharing these leadership conversations with you. And hopefully these questions are helpful. And if they're not, let me know if there's questions that I'm missing. When it comes to these conversations. Please let me know whether you're watching or listening live and you want to comment here, I'd be happy to address them. Again, during these conversations, or after the fact feel free to reach out to me directly on LinkedIn or if you're watching on Facebook, or YouTube or any of those, feel free to go over to the energy detox comm where you can find more of these conversations, feel free to reach out to me if you're interested in how I help to enjoy the fruits of the labors that that you and your teams are putting together by helping them grow stronger, grow more sustainable products move forward. And if you're interested in having conversations about some of the the approaches that you might be taking that in you feel are unsustainable. Reach out, have the conversation, even if not with me with another farmer out there with somebody else who can help you identify the products that are necessary to help you continue producing solid results. And with that, as always, I appreciate the time and energy that you put into listening to the energy detox. I welcome you back next week as we'll kick off week three of these daily detox Morning episodes, where we'll continue taking topical energy related headlines tying them into leadership. opportunities and challenges that you might be facing and continuing to ask you questions that will help you and your teams grow, protect and sustain success.