Is your leadership approach de-lighting your stakeholders?
If there's one thing that dropping temperatures and holiday gatherings are good for, it's sitting around a fireplace and talking about the parallels between building a fire and leading energy industry teams, right?
The headline: 𝐒𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐑𝐮𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐀𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐔.𝐒. (by Maxwell Adler of Bloomberg)
The goal: to (𝐆)𝐫𝐨𝐰, (𝐏)𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 (𝐒)𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 success by pondering these 3 burning questions throughout your day:
💡 What elements of your leadership "fire triangle" are in highest demand (or shortest supply)?
💡 What percentage of your stakeholders are merely going through the motions during (figurative) fire drills?
💡 In what ways is the attractive fire you've built inefficient and unsustainable?
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Hello and welcome to another live rendition 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. 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 those leaders are very good at building and maintaining fires. And of course, we're not going to be talking about the literal fires that are burning throughout the world in various parts of our country here as people build fires in their fireplaces more and more, especially due to the increase in home heating fuels. And what generates this conversation today is the article here that we look at from Bloomberg, where we see that soaring fuel prices are leading to a rush in the purchase of firewood. And again, this is not terribly surprising, as we hear about, you know, the energy crisis, if you will, or at least the increase in again, home heating oil and natural gas prices. But it does at least give us an excuse to build upon this weekend's article and talk about the ways in which leaders use the different elements that are needed to build a fire to maintain a fire in much the same way that they need to build energy within the organization. And enjoy enjoy, you know, increased morale and sustainability when it comes to building their their audience of people and keeping them on board. So all that being said, we're going to use today's article to ask you three questions that are going to help you build grow sustained success for you and your organization. And the first question today is what elements of your leadership fire triangle are in highest demand, or if you will, the shortest supply, because of course, to build a fire, you need a couple of different things here. And if you're happen to be watching on the screen here, we'll bring up the fire triangle, oxygen, heat, and fuel right? The three things that are needed for a fire, oxygen, heat fuel, and someone's throwing a fourth, which is the chemical reactions needed to sustain the fire. But either way, we'll keep things simple today. And last year, the question of what elements of your leadership fire triangle are in highest demand? What is it that you know, people are clamoring for from you? Is it the fuel that's needed to maintain a fire? Is it in the case of the article that we're looking at today from Bloomberg? Is it the firewood? Is it natural gas? Is it something else that is being burned in order to generate heat, or in some cases merely generate a nice looking fire whatever the case might be? And for you as a leader? Again, if that's what's in highest demand, if it's that fuel, the question then is, Are you the fuel? Is it simply upon you to provide the the thing that is being burned? And if so, is that sustainable, because as a leader, one would argue that really your role should be more as the fire is the spark, you're helping to use other fuel sources and generate something that is burning and is generating energy and is releasing energy. Whereas if you alone are the fuel, and again, you are certainly at risk of being, you know, burnt up at some point and, and being cast aside, because what happens when you burn firewood? Well, at some point, it turns to ashes, right? So again, ask yourself from a leadership standpoint, is that that where you're at? Is that where you're headed that the next thing that is needed, of course, is oxygen, and what is oxygen? Well, of course, it's
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it's colorless, odorless, you can't see it. But if it goes away in a fire situation while you don't have a fire anymore, which is why again, many extinguishing approaches, of course, are meant to remove oxygen from the system so that the fire goes out. And again, ask yourself, what are some of those unseen elements there that are necessary to keep the fire burning within your organization? One of these elements, certainly in the conversations that I have with people could be summed up as human resources, right? In many ways Human Resources is behind the scenes. They're there, they're necessary. They're maybe putting out some figures of fires at times, but games of the day, they are there to help provide support, provide one of the many elements that is needed in order for that fire to keep on burning. And if you're not leaning on resources later Human Resources or other leadership development resources, then you are again at risk of your fire going out. Because you might be introducing unnecessary risk, you might not realize that the people that you're supporting the people that you're supposed to be leading, again, have things that are going on in their worlds professional and personnel that maybe you can't deal with directly, or you're not aware of. And so at least if you can lean on those extra sort of unseen behind the scenes resources, to help fuel them to help move them forward, then you're going to be more likely to keep that fire burning, if you will. And the third element, again, of course, is heat. And in many cases, this is what we think of when we think of leaders, right is this ability to generate heat to figuratively light a fire under people's butts to to be there front and center, in some cases, some rah rah, to help keep people moving along. But again, is that sustainable? Are you the type of leader who relies on heat and being that spark and being that energy? Or again, are you more laid back? Are you content, allowing other people to generate sparks and ideas, and you're there to help fanned the flames, if you will, and keep things moving forward? And maybe go help gather additional firewood, if you will, whatever the case might be in whatever role you are used to having? Question is, do you have all of these elements in place? Because if you don't, well, again, it's very simple. The fire triangle is very simple. If you take any one of those elements out of the equation, you no longer have a fire. And when it comes to companies and company cultures, if you take any one of these elements out, or if any one of these elements is not in the right proportion, again, you no longer have a fire. So ask yourself, which of these elements might be missing? Which of these elements are you not leaning on fully, and which of these elements is something that you could work on, so that you can grow the fire if need be, or at least so you can sustain it so we can keep on burning? The next question for you today from this article is regarding protection. And of course, you can't think about fire and not think about fire safety. Right. So the question is, what percentage of your stakeholders are merely going through the motions during figurative fire drills? Now obviously, with more and more people working from home, the number of fire drills that are occurring in buildings is probably less than it used to be, or maybe the fire drills are still occurring, but the number of people that are walking down stairwells to get to safety is obviously less than it used to be. So again, we're talking about figurative fire drills, we're talking about how many people in your organization or in your purview, are ignoring all of the the different, you know, risk elements that you're throwing at them. And you're talking about, you know, you might still start every meeting, or even remote meeting with some sort of safety moment, and that's great. But are people being desensitized to that? Are they just going through the motions? Are they getting complacent when it comes to, again, either their physical safety or when it's probably more important at times for companies, again, with with lots of remote workers, the fingertips safety and security of their company, particularly when it comes to cybersecurity issues? Are you going through the motions in terms of, you know, letting people know to be on guard against cybersecurity threats and other threats like that to the point where they're desensitized, and they're not paying attention, and their guard is down. So again, whether we're talking about physical safety, and you know, which again, for many companies is the number one priority, or we're talking about, again, safety regarding cybersecurity and other issues or other threats to company's ability to operate securely and safely and to govern themselves in a way that reduces the amount of risk from outside influences,
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whatever the case might be, ask yourself, are people letting their guards down? Are there you know, little fires that maybe you think you put out from a personnel standpoint that are still festering? Are there still embers there that are glowing a little bit that, again, you feel like you addressed you feel like you addressed enough, but you didn't, maybe there's second, third, fourth degree impacts of some flare up between a manager and his or her employee, or between you and a customer? Whatever the case might be? It's a simple exercise to ask yourself, alright, well, where my some of the these underlying issues be? Where might some of these things be festering and brewing, that could turn into a much bigger issue down the road? So again, it's a simple question. And it's one you can ask yourself today, as you go through the day, whether or not the people that are again, within your sphere of influence are actually taking seriously some of the threats that you've shared with them, and you've taken the time to alert them to or, you know, maybe they're going the other direction, maybe they're over protective, maybe they're spending too much time worried about the impacts of, you know, an ember flying up and causing harm, and it's preventing them from doing their jobs and preventing them from doing things effectively. So again, whether they're on one end of the spectrum or the other, the reality is, it could be costing you and your company and your stakeholders, energy time money. So again, ask yourself that question today. And then the final question today is In what ways is the attractive fire you've built, inefficient and unsustainable. And again, if you go ahead and read this article from Bloomberg, it talks about how a lot of the demand for firewood comes from people who are building fires and their fireplaces. If for no other reason, then it looks cool. It's nice, it's decorative, basically. But, of course, it doesn't actually provide much heat. And quite the contrary, right, I mean, it could actually, you know, suck heat out of your home, if, depending on the setup of your fireplace, and the way that you're using it, and all those things. Additionally, of course, if you're not careful, it could also introduce toxins and smoked and hazards and harm and all that too. So again, a nice beautiful looking fire built within a fireplace within a home, you know, can be you know, can be great and warm and, and engender all kinds of nice snuggly feelings there, especially as we head into the holidays. But the reality is, might not be very efficient, and it certainly might not be sustainable. And of course, I can go on a five or 10 minute tangent about the sustainability of natural gas fireplaces that yes, have some sort of trade off, they might not have the same feel and the same look as a real fireplace. But obviously, from a sustainability standpoint, it means less gathering of firewood or purchasing of firewood, it means cleaner burning fuels, it means a situation where natural gas is probably more likely to continue flowing into your home on a regular basis and be easier and more likely to sustain then you having to constantly go out and buy cords of firewood for you know, an increasing amount of money in keep feeding that you know fire and, and making sure that if you have to go away for some period of time that again, the fire keeps burning or otherwise, you're gonna have to start up again, again, there's a lot of elements that come with a wood burning stove or with a fireplace, whatever the case might be. And as natural as that might be as again, as nice as it might be to look at as renewable as firewood might be. The reality is it might not be sustainable for your purposes, especially if your purposes is to provide heat, because from an efficiency standpoint, in many cases, you're simply not going to get the same bang for your buck with firewood. And with you know, wood burning stoves and fireplaces that still make up about 1% of home heating in the United States at least. And certainly a higher percentage around the world. Well, again,
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you're not gonna get the most bang for your buck. So coming back from a leadership standpoint, the question is, are you doing things that might appear good, that might sound good, that might take a little bit extra effort, like going out and gathering firewood, but that aren't sustainable. And that really, in some cases your stakeholders aren't even clamoring for. And some of this can be captured in sort of the you know, the the false choice, if you will, between this, this hustle mentality and this, you know, work 80 hour week mentality, and perhaps the flip side, which is maybe a little bit more relaxed, and come and go as you please and you know, just get your job done. Again, there's some false choices in there. But the reality is, the one side can be sexier can be grander, it can be, hey, look, go work your butt off. That's what I did. I worked for years, you know, you were in the trenches, and and you develop these results. And that's what we want to see. But again, we all know that that's not sustainable. And in some cases, it's not necessary is good to have that foundation. Yes, it's it's good to hang up there for perhaps younger people that are entering the workforce that might need to be pushed a little bit more of that might need to be, you know, going out figuratively, and gathering firewood and chopping firewood and splitting firewood, whatever the case might be. But again, you need to ask yourself in the situation that you're in, is that necessary? And is it sustainable? Or are you risking going above and beyond for the sake of a nice optics, if you will, in a way that is going to cost you in the long run? And again, those are questions that you need to ask, it's certainly going to be dependent on your situation on your company on the individuals involved. But for many people that I work with, again, you get into that false choice, right? Where you're either need to be crazy, natural fire, yes, you did it yourself. Heck, you don't even have a lighter, you know, maybe you're you take pride in the fact that you built a fire rubbing two sticks together, there is a time and a place for that. But the time and a place is not necessarily for a company that is trying to move forward and sustain momentum and build momentum. There are times where you need to, you know, maybe rest on your laurels a bit say yes, we were there, we we've evolved a bit now. And now here we are in a situation where we can rely on more sustainable fuels and sustainable practices. We can build a pipeline to our organization figuratively, to fuel the fire, instead of having to continually gather firewood and go through all those agitations and, and again, be at risk for the cost increases that we're seeing with firewood because, again, inflation is inflation is going to touch every element of things. But are you in a position where you know, at least you can sustain the fire, if you will, you can sustain the energy you can sustain momentum, and you can do it in a much more predictable way. Then say, you know, going back and turning back the clock for something that again might look good optically that might feel good, but that doesn't generate results. So those three questions out of the way. Again, I continue to thank you for taking the time and the energy to listen to and engage with the energy detox. i As always, I welcome your questions, your feedback, your recommendations, your critiques, whatever the case might be. And I encourage you to go to the energy detox comm where you can find more of these timely topical energy theme conversations that are all aimed at helping you become a better leader, to fuel yourself to fuel your teams to fuel your companies and to keep on producing the results that you know you expect of yourself and your stakeholders have come to expect from you. So with all that being said, I hope you have an excellent rest of the day and thank you again