Is Run-of-the-Mill Coaching Marching Your Team Onward to Mediocrity?

Just as Notre Dame's history and "mystique" alone are no longer enough to bring in top football talent, the oil and gas industry can no longer expect that top talent will be drawn to (or remain in) the industry because of all the things that USED to make it a top destination for recruits for so many decades.

That being said—and drawing upon breaking news regarding ND's head coach's departure to LSU (along with Jack Dorsey's departure from Twitter yesterday)—this LIVE episode of The Energy Detox will help you navigate whatever uncertainty, volatility, and competition is facing your team, whether you work in sports, tech, or energy.

Headline #1: 𝐋𝐒𝐔 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐝𝐝 𝐨𝐢𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐚𝐬 𝐣𝐨𝐛𝐬, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐞-2015 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐥𝐲 (Lafayette Daily Advertiser)

Headline #2: 𝐋𝐒𝐔 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐞'𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐊𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡 (Yahoo Sports)

Former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz once said, “𝐈 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐈 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐈 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬.”

So, drawing upon Lou for inspiration, we encourage you to (𝐆)𝐫𝐨𝐰, (𝐏)𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 (𝐒)𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 success by answering these 3 questions as you go about your day:

💡 How much is your team's identity dependent on a transient & self-serving leader instead of on an enduring & inspirational vision?

💡 In what ways might a seemingly impressive win-loss record be masking issues that could lead to long-term harm?

💡 How might a focus on “sustainability” be leading you to mediocrity?

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Transcript

(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)

Hello and welcome to another Live episode 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 adept at navigating volatility and uncertainty and competition, especially as it relates to their own role. And their own job as a leader and as a coach that in a heartbeat could go away, or as is the case yesterday with some headlines that could change based on their own voluntary decision to step aside or take on a new opportunity. And driving this conversation is one you could argue earlier in the day yesterday, the news from Jack Dorsey who stepped aside as CEO of Twitter for a number of different reasons, but one of which will be to continue his pursuit and focus on Bitcoin on trying to make more money and trying to do something that is perhaps a little bit sexier and more interesting to him. And of course, that will have ramifications on Twitter. It'll have ramifications on the culture and on the employees and on how that business continues to grow and develop. And, again, there'll be plenty of talking heads continuing to opine about the the impacts of that I will not be one of those. I will however, be taking a headline from later in the day regarding Brian Kelly, the head coach at Notre Dame who, based on several reports that seem fairly credible, at least credible enough to dedicate a podcast to this morning, suggests that he will be leaving Notre Dame to go coach at LSU. And again, the reasons for this are many probably the biggest one is the fact that he'll likely be perhaps tripling his salary and bringing in somewhere around 10 to $15 million per year in this new position. So again, what does that mean? Why talk about Brian Kelly? Well, given the energy industry landscape and the intent focus on talent, the retention of talent, the attraction of talent and the necessity of having good talent to continue competing as a company and as an industry against other companies and other industries. Well, there's no shortage of parallels between the energy industry and the oilfield. In fact, the other headline that will point to today is also related to LSU. And it points to the fact that in Louisiana, they do expect oil and gas jobs to rebound, not to the same level that it was years before, but at least they will continuing to come back at least into 2022. And probably plateau in some way, shape, or form. Now, again, from a job standpoint,

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the fact that jobs from an oil and gas standpoint will continue to plateau and probably peak next year. Again, that shouldn't come as a surprise. It shouldn't necessarily be doom and gloom considering where we were as an industry only a year and a half or two years ago. But again, coming back to the world of sports, it does speak to teams and organizations and college football teams in particular, that perhaps have plateaued. And it begs the question, well, why? You know, again, in the case of the oil and gas industry, there's no question why things are plateauing, right? There's external forces, there's internal forces, there's increases in efficiency from across the board from a technology standpoint, and from an operational standpoint, but in college football, there's plateaus for some teams because of limitations in money, and access to money to pay coaches, again, three times what Notre Dame is willing to pay in the case of them versus LSU. There's other factors, of course in college football now is the parody if you will, across different colleges. A case of Notre Dame, for example, is a school that used to have lots of differentiators. There used to be lots of things that made Notre Dame special and of course, as an alumnus of Notre Dame, I still contend there are lots of things that makes Notre Dame special but the reality is Notre Dame is no longer guaranteeing kids that they're going to be on TV every week, unlike other schools because virtually every big school is on TV every week. So Notre Dame doesn't have that that national draw that it once had. From a facility standpoint, again, schools are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into their college football programs. And you're not just going to be able to bring in people with a mystique, if you will and with with history and being able to point to all of these things because these college recruits they're not going to be drawn in by that they are looking for something different, something sexier, something more something is going to help lead them to long term success and visibility and championships and dreams of playing on Sundays. And not just going to a school and being a part of a team that, you know, has some history that might sound cute. And that might resonate with certain people, again, including myself, but might not resonate with 17 to 18 year olds who are being asked to be brought in. And again, the parallels to the energy industry in quite frankly, other industries are strong, right? There's lots of competition, especially for top talent, especially when you're talking about technical talent. If you have a technical degree or a technical mind, and you're coming out of a top school, are you going to go and jump into oil and gas because of the the decades of, again, high salaries and opportunities that oil and gas provided? Or you're going to look elsewhere to other industries, like the tech industry, like, you know, the industry that, that Twitter and Jack Dorsey has been a part of, of course, are you going to go to an industry like that, where you might have at least perceived to have more stability, similar salaries, similar opportunities, where you might not have the same number of enemies that the rolling gas industry has, where you might have, again, opportunities to, you know, to move around to work in different environments that might better suit you and what you're looking for whatever the case might be. The reality is oil and gas has lots more competition than it did in the past, just as top tier college football teams have a lot more competition than they did in the past and have more challenges when it comes to differentiating themselves. So all that being said, the goal today in today's episode is to take these these recent headlines regarding jobs in the oil and gas industry regarding the coaching carousel, in not just Notre Dame, but certainly some other oil and gas producing areas of the country, including Oklahoma, who was also on the lookout for a new coach, of course. And we're going to take all of that, and we're going to channel the words of the great coach of Notre Dame Lou Holtz, who said, I never learned anything talking,

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I only learn when I ask questions. And we will ask a series of questions as we do every morning here on the energy detox to help you think through the ways in which you as a leader, and as a coach might be leading you and your organization towards mediocrity and towards a plateau that is going to be unable to continue attracting talent and continue you bringing in people. And the other thing that we're going to weave into this conversation is quite frankly, my own experience, not just as a coach, but also as someone who worked in corporate environments where we saw disruption, where we saw turnover in leaders and figurative coaches, if you will, in fact, in my last job, in a period of two years, I saw four CEO changes. And you can imagine the disruption, that having four CEO changes in two years can cause to an organization, there's no question that it trickles down to really every stakeholder, whether they're employees, certainly whether they're investors, board members, whatever the case might be. Similarly, in my time at Notre Dame, over the course of four years there, I saw four different head coaches, again, you can imagine the disruption that causes to all stakeholders, whether they're fans, whether they're alumni who are who are, you know, used to donating large sums of money and not exactly getting the figurative return, if you will, on those donations when it comes to the performance on the football field. And again, those are disruptive things, and they all point to leaders. And the key is not to make sure that you have a leader that's going to be in place for many, many decades as again, some thought that, you know, might be the case with Brian Kelly, and some thought that he might get to the point where he's there for two decades, which would be eight more years on the heels of the 12 that he's been there and, and would retire there and really make a name for himself. No, instead, you can't just you know, hook yourself to to one individual coach and one into his job leader. Instead, you need to establish a good solid foundation upon which of course, you can continue building your organization and continue building that talent pipeline, if you will, and continue navigating the inevitable disruptions that you're going to see in your industry, whether again, you're in the world of sports and college football, or whether you're in the tech industry, or whether you are in oil and gas. So with all that being said, let's go ahead and let's touch on that first all important question to ensure that your team and your organization can continue to grow despite all of the outside distractions. And that first question today is how much is your team's identity dependent on a transient and self serving leader instead of on an enduring and inspirational vision? And again, this isn't a knock against Brian Kelly, this isn't me calling him self serving. In fact, if I were only making three to $4 million a year at Notre Dame and LSU offered by game which is reported to be on the order of 10 to $15 million per year. I think in the interest of me in my family, I would certainly consider departure there and cashing in on on what you know what I achieved to that point and riding into retirement with you know, an extra nine figures in my bank account, if you will. That being said, the reality is there are leaders who, even if they're not overtly self serving, are all about themselves and are not even conveying a sense that they are responsible for accountable for even terribly interested in their teams. And again, those are extremes, I don't encounter those too much in my current role as a coach or my former life and working in corporate roles, but the reality is, there are signs of that. And in many cases, it's not overt, which is when it's really dangerous. And in the case of Brian Kelly, there were lots of signs that some would say were somewhat overt. In fact, Brian Kelly, when it comes to accountability is somebody who committed quite often the cardinal sin of placing blame, first and foremost and publicly on his players instead of on himself. He did that earlier this year when Notre Dame was was struggling from a performance standpoint, and, you know, and talked about their poor execution, he was even going out of his way to make jokes about you know, executing the team and, and making a poor attempted channeling a famous quote from several decades prior. But again, we'll save that for another day. The reality is, though, that Brian Kelly, and you know, many of the the haters of Brian Kelly, or at least those who, who cast a lot of stones at him, very much pointed to the fact that he was disruptive as a coach and not really the good disruptive, because he will continue to throw his players under the bus and taking instead of taking accountability for his actions. And of course, when you do that, well, what does it do to morale? What does it do? It challenges people, and

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it makes them question why they want to be there and why they want to be, you know, reporting to or are working for playing for someone like Brian Kelly. And so too, for your organization, it's one thing to have a handful of leaders that might not be as as accountable and might not have all of the the soft skills and the emotional intelligence needed to lead teams. But you need to look at yourself, if you're the head of that organization, and you see yourself as a great leader, whether or not the real problem is that your organization depends on those leaders to pull people forward, above everything else. In other words, if your organization doesn't have some sort of strong foundation, some sort of strong identity that you can point to that you can lean on some sort of clear mission that transcends all the individual leaders within your organization, or perhaps that transcends you as a leader, then you're asking for trouble. Because if it all comes down to one leader, who again, at any moment can quit, can be fired, can you know do something stupid, especially in this canceled culture that that reduces his credibility? Well, again, you're asking for trouble. Because then what, what are your players? Where do your teammates? Where do your employees gonna do? If you have this, this cult personality? In some cases that people are following that is no longer there? Are they going to have to follow him or her elsewhere? Are they going to lose morale? Are they going to lose focus? Or are you building an organization and a team that has a clear, defined mission that isn't solely dependent on leaders? Yes, clearly, we need effective leaders to to move people along and to help point people towards a given mission. But if you don't have that mission in place, if you don't have this, this bigger goal that people can point to, then again, you're asking for trouble. Now, in the case of Notre Dame, I like to believe that there are bigger purposes. And there is more to that organization, if you will, and that university, then just the football team, and just the coach and assistant coaches that Brian Kelly has put in place, I do firmly believe that there is more to it, and credit to Brian Kelly, because he has helped establish perhaps a stronger foundation that is more competitive with some of the other top tier programs out there. But at the end of the day, how many players are going to say, I came here for Brian Kelly, again, my guess is that there's really not that many that would say that, but in some organizations it is and they will follow him out the door. And if you're setting yourself up as an organization, for a situation like that, then again, you're asking for trouble. And coming back to my role. Now again, as a coach, or even as a leader before I moved into coaching, one of the best things you can do is make sure that you're crystal clear about the identity of your individual stakeholders of your players of your teammates, because the more clear you are about their role, and their connection to a larger mission and a larger goal, the easier it will be for you to navigate volatility and uncertainty. And again, in an industry like oil and gas, you will continue to see volatility and uncertainty, no matter how much it seems like things are plateauing. There's going to be disruptions, there's going to be turnover, there's going to be changes in management. And if you don't have crystal clarity, if you will, on that identity, again, you're asking for trouble, and you're going to find it incredibly difficult to continue growing and moving forward and competing with other industries and other organizations. Moving on to the next question, in what ways might a seemingly impressive win loss record be masking issues that could lead to long term harm? And again, we're talking about Brian Kelly here who is the winningest coach in Notre Dame's history. But of course, what the headlines might not point to is the fact that Brian Kelly is also the losing trust coach. Yes. He has the most wins, but he also has the most losses. And in fact, if we continue digging deeper 21 of Brian Kelly's wins were actually vacated by the NCAA because of some violations and some inappropriate academic assistance. Eight years or so ago. And again, if you start taking into it, then you can take out those wins and he's no longer the winningest coach and his winning percentage maybe isn't as good as it was. And again, we're nitpicking here at the end of the day, you could argue that results speak for themselves. And you know, over the last five years, Notre Dame has had, you know, five straight 10 win seasons. And, again, those

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are those are laudable achievements, if you will, but at the end of the day, is that win loss record or some of the accolades that are out there masking some problems that were within the team? Are they masking the fact that Brian Kelly has been unable to win a national championship, let alone win any big games other than his one overtime victory last year against a Clemson team that didn't even have its starting quarterback. And again, this isn't to nitpick against Brian Kelly, I wish him well is his next destination, of course. But it is to help you understand that sometimes the record the win loss record, if you will, or perhaps the results that you and your team and your company are spitting out aren't indicative of the true performance and the true potential of individual leaders and of the team. And again, that can work both ways. A three and nine team perhaps has a ton of talent and a ton of potential and can come out of the gates the following year and compete for a national championship doesn't happen often, but it can happen. But the question for you today is, is your win loss record? Is everything that's on your resume? Or is everything that your team has produced really indicative of the results that your team can be and should be producing? Or is it masking other problems that could cause long term harm and cause long term instability and unsustainability, if you will? And the third question today is how might a focus on sustainability be leading you to mediocrity? And that's really the overriding conversation about Brian Kelly and his legacy and really the last 30 years of Notre Dame football, which is why have they been relatively mediocre compared to other top tier programs like Clemson, like Alabama, like Ohio State, and, and perhaps again, like Georgia, that number one team this year? And the question again, is, is complicated? Because it is masked by what we just talked about? In the previous question, the fact that over the last five years, at least, they have had a lot of wins Notre Dame, and they have had three, you know, close calls, if you will, in terms of getting the elusive national championship that they haven't had since 1988. But the reality is, are they plateauing, just as we talked about at the outset, where, you know, the oil and gas industry in some ways you could say is is plateauing. And there are some people who are contend with that other people are saying, well, no, the oil and gas industry needs to continue growing, to continue advancing in terms of technology, and its contributions to society and doing all of the things that it's done over the last 160 years. And so too, with Notre Dame and other college football player programs, are you if you are a fan of Notre Dame or any other school, are you content plateaued with 10 win seasons that don't result in a national championship? And is that your definition of success? Do you believe that consistency is something to be lauded, and something that you should pat yourself on the back for? And if so, why? Why are you settling? And again, this certainly comes back to individual companies and organizations and teams and leaders. Are you settling? Are you settling for sustainability and mediocrity, instead of true success, long term success, sustainable success and continued growth of you, your organization, your team, in terms of talent in terms of motivation, in terms of morale and engagement? So that's the question to end on today is are you too focused on sustainability and consistency? And is that leading to long term mediocrity that is going to continue chipping away at your credibility and at the excitement, if you will, of your fan base of your investors of your board members, whatever the case might be. And in closing here, again, the the inspiration for this conversation isn't just yesterday's headlines, and isn't just, you know, this news out of LSU, not just regarding their coaching, but also regarding the oil and gas industry where experts there are predicting an uptick in employment, at least for Louisiana into 2022. And again, probably leveling off there. Part of it is my own experience in oil and gas industry, where again, I like Brian Kelly came from a northern state and came down to southern Louisiana and was engrossed in the culture and found things to be very different. And well, you know, found different challenges that I had overcome, probably not the same challenge that Brian Kelly will have to overcome now and facing a regular SEC schedule. But again, you recognize these challenges and you recognize these threats, if you will to growing and building a career and building success. And I'm very fortunate to have had that foundation and to have been down in southern Louisiana and I'm very fortunate to have it The advice of my first mentor when I got out of school, it was working offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. And that mentor told me that the key to success was to strive for mediocrity. He literally told that to me when I was offshore, I remember asking him, hey, you know, what advice do you have here? I'm looking to this person, I'm, I'm brand new, I'm fresh, I'm green. And I'm saying, Well, what

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is your what is your key to success? And his statement point blank was strive for mediocrity. And again, we could digest the reasons for that part of his argument is that you want to, you know, lay low and kind of fly under the radar and keep moving forward. And And interestingly enough, this mentor of mine was relatively short lived as he wound up leaving the company, probably about a month after he uttered those inspiring words to me. When all that being said, I don't think that you and I don't think that those that you're leading, have an interest in striving for mediocrity. So that I encourage you then to, to ask the questions and to re ask the questions that we posed today, to identify those situations where your identity isn't crystal clear. And that could cause you to have mediocre performance to identify those times where maybe you're patting yourself on your back for achievements that your team has have achieved. But in reality, the the victories that you've had are masking, underlying problems. And then finally, again, ask yourself if your focus or your company's focus on sustainability, and consistency, and all these things that on their surface sound good is actually leading you to a place of mediocrity. And so with all that being said, again, as always, I appreciate you tuning in. I appreciate you chiming in. I appreciate one live comment here we have from Jim conkel, who says Joe Sinnott, I'm thinking of who are the best in leadership that we're self serving. I'm influenced with leaders with vision and mission and purpose as their motivators. Great topic today. And again, it's it's a good question to ponder. And it's not one to cast stones at people. But again, think through who in leadership, who are some of the best leaders that have been self serving. And again, it's sort of a double edged sword, because having a self serving leader is not inherently bad, having a leader who has you know, in his or her heart, a desire to grow his or her influence and power and money and bring people along with them. That's not inherently bad. It's called incentives in some cases. But where it's really bad is where in some cases, people are not overt about it, or they tried to pretend to be one with their team. And they tried to pretend to be a team player or a team coach, or, you know, an inspiration and somebody who is pretending to give credit where credit is due, when in fact, all they're doing is placing blame and throwing people under the bus. And again, those are the things that sometimes are not overt. And it comes across in meetings and in conversations. And in many cases, it comes across in one on ones. And if you're having a conversation with an individual, not in a group setting, not in a group setting where you might embarrass somebody, but if you're having a conversation with an individual, and you find the way in which they're talking about their teammates, and their colleagues, and even their competition, and they're, you know, again, pushing them down, that is some evidence of a self serving leader who is not serving his constituents in a good fashion. And again, we can close here. There's no other comments. And again, I appreciate the feedback from Jim as always, but again, we'll close here on the heels of Jim's comment by talking about a leader who did an excellent job of kind of going the opposite of being self serving, and that was Lou Holtz. Yes, Lou Holtz also did a good job of being self promoting and capturing all of his thoughts and all of his leadership ideas over the years. And I recommend you read his autobiography, if you haven't, it's it's a great read. It's a funny read, as you would expect, you know, if you're familiar with Lou Holtz, but again, we hosted an excellent job of building up in fact, over building the hype around his competition to help motivate his own team. He did an excellent job of leading with the positive and building people up and if you've heard him speak, from, you know, from a motivational speaker standpoint, or from a keynote standpoint, you know, since he he left coaching many years ago, again, you'll find his words not just be inspiring in the generic sense, but you'll find in Lou Holtz, someone who one had the the likeability and the personality and the sense of humor that quite frankly, other leaders and other coaches, and again, not to cast stones of Brian Kelly, but like Brian Kelly, didn't quite have people like Lou Holtz players wanted to follow Lou Holtz, you know, they still want to follow Lou Holtz. I like one suggestion late last night from somebody who said at Notre Dame should actually just bring in Lou Holtz, to serve as an official head coach until he's able to surpass Brian Kelly in the win column. You know, while the other systems do all the work is just sort of a smite against Brian Kelly and again, clearly, you can tell where that person was coming from regarding their their like or dislike of Brian Kelly but all that being said, I continue to thank you for for listening and for engaging here on the energy detox. I

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encourage you to continue listening each morning as we continue weaving together, energy industry headlines, current events and leadership challenges that you are facing and then I am helping leaders like you navigate and I hope that you have an excellent rest of the day and excellent rest of the week. And of course, you know, at the at the expense of perhaps alienating some of my, you know, Southern audience there, I would be remiss not to end this with a riveting endorsement of Notre Dame and a cheer of go Irish