Are You Following a Leadership TIL Procedure?
“Tangible, Impactful, Local”—the mantra of the CNX Foundation—is clearly reflected in the $1 million commitment that CNX is making to broadband expansion in Greene County.
"Tangible, Impactful, Local"—or TIL for short—also happens to be a handy leadership mnemonic you can use to determine whether you're...
1) consciously maximizing the potential of EXISTING resources (like a multi-million dollar well or pipeline or compressor station that you simply have to Turn In Line—or TIL for short); or
2) unwittingly abandoning the investments of time, money, and energy you've already made and, in turn, falling victim to some shiny new "leadership" initiative that's actually just a bunch of abstract, irrelevant, generic ideas likely to produce uninspiring and unsustainable results.
To hear more about CNX's efforts to get rural residents "online," the actions you can take to turn existing investments "in line," and some of the ways in which CNX's Nick Deiuliis' go-to themes of "connecting" and "catalyzing" tie in to this "Leadership TIL Report," check out the latest episode of 'The Energy Detox' podcast: of The Energy Detox podcast.
RELATED CONTENT
“Greene commissioners announce $1M broadband expansion project” (Observer-Reporter)
“Pragmatic Pittsburgh People and a New Twist on the Triple Bottom Line” (The Energy Detox)
“CNX Unveils Appalachia-Focused Vision for the Future” (cnx.com)
CNX’s “TIL Report” (cnx.com)
“Marietta College Lecture: A Four-Step Recipe to Ethical Leadership” (NickDeiuliis.com)
Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Tangible, Impactful, Local. Those three words are the guiding principles, the guiding values, if you will, the goals of the CNX Foundation, which is an arm of CNX resources, which is a natural gas producer here in Appalachia, tangible, impactful local, also are clearly reflected in a recent headline this week, where CNN foundation is donating $1 million to support the expansion of broadband in Greene County, which is a rural county here in southwestern Pennsylvania. Tangible, impactful local, also show up on the front of the last two Corporate Responsibility reports for CNX, one of which I'm holding up here, and it's clear that see you next takes these three words seriously. But what's more important for today's conversation here on the energy detox is that tangible, impactful and local are a fantastic leadership framework that you can use to make sure that the results that you are generating actually make a difference, just as CNX wants to make sure that the investments that they're making through their CNX foundation actually make a difference. And so over the next couple of minutes, we're going to look at these three words, we're going to ask you some questions give you some tools that you can employ and your team can employ to again, make sure that you're making a tangible, impactful and local difference, not just in your community, as is the case with the CNX foundation, but in your teams and your families in your community, whatever the case happens to be. And I say this today, not just to give you some generic leadership framework or topic that is going to be applicable everywhere else, so that that is going to be the case, but because tangible, impactful, and local is a perfect, perfect framework for you if you're in the energy industry. And why is that? Why did these three words mirror the energy industry so well? And why do they reflect so many of the hazards that leaders face and so many of the traps that we just fall into? Well, it's because the first letter of each of these three words is what T i L. And again, if you're in the energy space, you know that T i L stands for something stands for tilde, of course, if you were to just read that out phonetically, but it stands for turn in line. And when you have an investment that you've made in a well or group of wells or in a pipeline, what do you do as the last step, you turn those projects in line, you turn that investment that you've already made into positive results. And from a leadership standpoint, many leaders are distracted by so many different things. They're going through so many gyrations, they're constantly trying to hunt for the next tip, or trick or, or wait to fight a fire. And what happens is the investments that they've already made the resources that are already at their disposal, go to waste, or they're not being fully utilized. So instead, you want to embrace this till mentality. And you want to take full advantage of the investments you've already made the wells that you've already drilled, and completed, and the facilities that you've already put in place, and you want to turn that valve. Because in your own world, if you're not taking advantage of the people that are already around you the existing investments that you've already made the natural resources that are already at your disposal, then you're doing yourself a disservice. And you're gonna find yourself investing far more energy moving forward, than you need to, instead of just coming back and turning in line, if you will, everything that is already in place. And that's the message today. Because if you want to produce tangible, impactful local results, and some might say sustainable results, then you want to start by taking advantage, again, of the resources you already have. So let's take a look at the recent headline from CNX. Let's look at some of the work that they're doing. Let's look at some of the work that I do as a coach working with people steering them towards results that actually make a difference. And when we look at tangible what what is that right? It's something something you can touch. It's something real, it's when you can see it's it's actually results and not some abstract idea. And in the world of broadband internet, of course, clearly, they're going to have tangible results. Once this million dollar investment is put to work, you're going to have something like 30 plus miles of line that needs to be laid to get internet access to people that might not otherwise have it. Those are very real results. Those are tangible results. And the world of leadership, you want to be focused on tangible results, not just abstract leadership ideas. And certainly I can ramble on for hours. And if you tune into some other episodes of the energy detox, there are some times where it leans on the abstract. Sometimes it's a little bit rah rah sometimes it's a little bit theoretical, and a little bit of that's okay. But from an efficiency standpoint, from a result standpoint, you need to focus on things that are tangible, that are real, and dated and other way you need to connect to those abstract ideas to something that actually matters. And so with this tangible idea comes the idea of connections. And if you happen to tune into some of Nicki releases podcast, Nick being the CEO of CNX resources, you'll find that each episode focuses on connecting the dots, as he says, channeling James Burke, who had a series several decades ago called connections. And what that does is it takes different ideas, sometimes disparate ideas, and brings them back to something that is relevant that connects the dots. And you need to be able to do that, as a leader, why do these abstract ideas matter? Why do these corporate initiatives that are thrown out there actually make a difference to the individual employees, if you can hone in on that and make it real for people and show how the work that they're doing or should be doing connects to the bottom line? Well, you're much more likely to help them produce tangible results, and you're much more likely to produce sustainable results, which is your job as a leader. Moving on to the next word here, impactful. Again, you can do all these things, you could talk about connecting to the bottom line and producing results and talking about all of the things that you've done and patting yourself on the back. But your job as a leader is to ask, so what what is the impact? Why does it matter? You can invest 1000s of man hours or woman hours or machine hours or any kind of hours. But at the end of the day, is it moving the needle? Does it make a difference? Again, going back to the broadband example, clearly, this investment will make a difference in real have an impact is going to allow people to take full advantage of telemedicine or as the article stated that we'll put in the show notes allow people to work for a company based in New York City, while enjoying life in the rural surroundings of Greene County is going to have a very real impact from an education standpoint, from a workforce standpoint, from a health standpoint. And that's what you need to be focused on as a leader in your company, you need to be asking, So what are you doing things that are actually going to be built upon? Or they want off? Things are going to fade? Are you doing things that are just checking the box? Or are you putting in place initiatives that are actually a catalyst and again, we'll have a nod back to Nick Julius again, because he talks a lot about how natural gas is a catalyst and not a bridge full not just a connection, not just something to get us to the next step. But something that actually empowers something new, something grand, something innovative, something that's really going to move the needle, and you need to be asking that question, are you spending time and energy on things that are actually going to make a difference that are going to catalyze future ideas and grow and expand again, some of the words that were used in the article referencing this million dollar donation, talking about the continued growth and development and expansion of Greene County, not just making it to another day or another decade and and settling for the status quo. That's what you need to be asking as a leader. Now, moving on to the third and final word here, local. And obviously, from broadband standpoint, from a green county standpoint, the local aspect is front and center, Greene County, tucked again in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania is in the heart of the Marcellus, it is in the heart of this tremendous asset to tremendous natural resources that we're blessed with here in Appalachia. And it makes sense that of course CNX continues to support Greene County continues to support that community. But what does that mean for you, again, as a leader, what are the local mean, for you? Well, it means that you need to be mindful of your audience, who are you actually speaking to? Who does it matter? You know, when you actually achieve some of the results up here, who are the individual stakeholders that are actually going to be impacted. And in this sort of local phase, you need to put on your coaching hat. And again, this is somewhat self serving here as a coach. But in the world that I exist in now I have the privilege of working with people one on one. Again, I don't just tout generic leadership things, I don't just throw theories of people or frameworks like this, again, on a podcast, obviously, I'm kind of speaking to the camera here, but still mindful of that audience. But in your setting, as a coach, and as a leader, you need to hone in on that one person, one person at a time. Who cares, who cares about everything that you're doing, who cares about the investments, it's those individual people, it's those human resources, if you will, and those are the people that again, you want to take full advantage of not in a in a negative way. And taking advantage of people has negative connotations. But you want to maximize their potential, just as your maximize the potential of the millions of dollars of investments that you may have put into a well or in some cases, the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of investments that you would have put into a pipeline, you want to take full advantage of those investments first, before you look elsewhere. That's the idea of turning in vinyl well. And that's the idea of putting some of the residents in southwestern Pennsylvania online, if you will, giving them access to resources that are already there. They just need to be connected to them so that they can make a bigger impact. And so that they as local constituents, if you will, can continue fueling the things that
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to feed your mission, future purpose. So with that, I implore you, as you go throughout your day, and you invest time you invest energy. And if you're in a position to invest money, ask yourself, is it tangible? Does it actually make a difference? And if so, what is that difference? And most importantly, who is it impacting? And so with that, I thank you, the audience for tuning in today and listening to this conversation. I hope that it encouraged you to ask these questions to make differences that actually matter. And of course, to invest your time wisely and to take full advantage of the investments that you've already made in yourself and in your stakeholders. With that, take care. Have an excellent rest of the day and thanks again.