Strive for Mediocrity

"Strive for mediocrity" probably isn't the advice you want your company's mentors giving to new hires.

But without a proper understanding of mentorship, your mentors may—wittingly or unwittingly—be setting future talent up for years of apathy and mediocrity.

So, take a moment during the final few days of National Mentoring Month to check out this mentor-inspired episode of The Energy Detox, which covers:

1 - The key distinctions between mentoring, advising, and coaching;

2 - Why consciously choosing to wear your mentor, advisor, or coach hat matters; and

3 - How quantifying the value of "squishy" things like mentorship and in-person work can create measurable advantages for you and your organization.

By many measures, the energy industry was losing in 2020. It was losing momentum, relevance, and plenty of money.

And despite increasing demand and commodity prices since then, oil & gas companies continue to lose the current and future talent necessary for a sustained recovery.

So the question for current energy leaders today isn’t merely how best to streamline operations, clean up the balance sheet, and capitalize on an uptick in prices. The question is how to help employees—along with investors/boosters/fans—remain engaged, confident, and proud of the positive results that oil & gas can and should continue to produce.

To answer that question, this episode of The Energy Detox encourages you to jump into the shoes of a football coach whose team is losing by two touchdowns at half-time. From there, you’ll ask yourself whether you’re doing things that are helping your team recover from this deficit and emerge victorious…or whether you’re doing things that are more likely to have your star players checked out and thinking about the next game, the next season, or perhaps an entirely different sport.

Transcript

(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)

So 20 years ago, during my first hitch offshore in what used to be called the Gulf of Mexico, I asked my mentor for career advice, and he told me, "Joe, strive for mediocrity."

Strive for mediocrity. That was it. That was the advice. He could have told me anything I was an impressionable young field engineer, looking for some tips and tricks, some some advice that's going to launch me into this long, solid career, and he tells me to strive for mediocrity. Now, where was he going with that? Well, as you may have guessed, he's basically trying to say, Look, you want to fly under the radar. You don't want to draw attention to yourself, either positively or negatively. And if you can do that well, you'll have success, you'll be comfortable, you'll be happy, and you know, that's what you want to do, Joe. And while I didn't exactly take that advice over the last 20 years, I will admit that anytime I hear mentor or mentorship, I immediately think of that anecdote, and quite often share that anecdote. And since I don't think I've shared that yet here on the energy detox and given the fact that we are in the tail end of National Mentoring Month here in January, I thought it'd be good opportunity not just to share the anecdote, but to also take a moment to distinguish between mentorship, advising and coaching, because all three of those things are undoubtedly an element of being a good leader.

01:27

However, there's also plenty of distinctions, and if you as a leader are not aware of those times when you're wearing a mentorship hat versus an advising hat versus a coaching hat, well, you could be setting yourself up and the people that you're advising or mentoring or leading or coaching or managing or whatever, setting them up for either disappointment or, quite frankly, failure. So that being said, that is the number one goal today.

01:53

Well also, if there's time at the end tie in the fact that I'm standing in front of Pittsburgh's federal building now, again, that is not a slight or a knock at all, and suggesting that anyone here working for the federal government is mediocre. There is a more sound, topical, timely reason for that, but we'll share that for the end. But first again, what are those distinctions? Well, first mentorship, what is a mentor? Again, you probably have your own definition of what a mentor is, and at least for me, I would say, by and large a mentor is somebody who is using his or her actual experiences to share with somebody else, saying, Look, I've been here, I've done this, and, you know, this is how I proceeded. Or perhaps, hey, look, I didn't do this, and I regret doing this. And, you know, take that information for what it's worth. That by and large is what a mentor is. Now, again, we're not going to get into semantics here, because that's not the only definition, but that's a pretty good distinction between advising and coaching. We'll talk about why that is here in a moment. But first, I also want to talk about why mentoring also can have a more sort of transactional role, and that is in companies like again, when I was assigned a mentor early on, say, look, hey, here is somebody in a mentor who understands policies, procedures and how the company operates, what's expected of you. And again, that's another good opportunity for a mentor to share those things and perhaps even be an advocate or representative of the company. Now, in the case of me again, my mentor quit the company actually two weeks after he gave me that sound advice. So maybe he wasn't the best person to be there, guiding me and mentoring me, but nevertheless, that's another sort of fundamental functional role of a mentor, distinct from an advisor.

03:37

So what is an advisor? Well, again, if we want to try to try to force in some distinct definitions, and we do, because I said, that's one of the goals today. Well, it's an advisor coming in and saying, Look, I have expertise in this area. Forget about my own personal experience. I've studied this. I understand this deeply. And I'm going to tell you what I think you might want to do if you want to have success, if you want to be more profitable, whatever the case might be. Now, again, it doesn't necessarily mean the advisor has lived that experience, but it also means that the advisor is coming in and almost has the pressure to tell you what he or she thinks. And there's a time and a place for that. There's a time and a place for expertise. There's a time and place for somebody to say, look, Joe, this is what you should do. You have this problem, and I think you should do this. I'm not sure if it's gonna work from firsthand experience, but again, I'm an expert. I understand this deeply, and hey, maybe you're gonna pay me a couple dollars to tell me what to do. That's the role. I'm an advisor. And again, in all sort of circumstances, not just third party advisors to clients, but internally, there are times when leaders need to wear that hat and say, Look, this is what you should do. I know this. I understand this better than you, and here's what you should do that is very distinct from a coach.

04:59

And I say this, of course. As a coach, where a coach is coming in and doesn't necessarily have expertise, doesn't necessarily have the experience that a mentor would, but a coach is coming in with a skill and asking questions and saying, Look, I am here to help you unlock your potential. I'm going to assume that you may actually be an expert in what you do. I'm going to assume that you have had these experiences and you just need somebody to help unlock those experiences, unlock those answers, get out of your own way, remove those hurts, remove those roadblocks. That's what a coach does. And again, in a corporate environment, there's a time and a place to be that coach. You're looking to give ownership to your people. You're looking to demonstrate that you trust their opinions and their ability to think and to again choose Path A over path B. Well, telling them path A or telling them path B is obviously not the way to do that. The way to do that is to ask questions. Help them say, hey, what have you done before? Where are you leaning? What resources have you tapped into already. I might be there and you know what, I might have the right answer. I might be able to put on that advisor hat and tell you basically what you should do. But when it comes to growth and development, there's a time and a place to put on your coaching hat instead slow things down and say, You know what, I'm going to help this person unlock the answer. Now, again, that was a very oversimplified distinction between those three things. If you're looking for more information, there's plenty of books and plenty of people who have articulated those distinctions much better than I, including Michael Stanier. He wrote two books on the topic, actually, the first of which is the Coaching Habit, where, again, he really lays out that distinction between coaching and advising.

06:38

But again, here, as we stand, a couple days remaining in mentorship month. It's also important that there's a time and a place to simply be a mentor, not be there to try to solve these grand problems, not be there to make the other person kind of hunt for answers and grow and develop again. There's a time and a place for that, but perhaps to say, look, here's an example of what I've done. Follow me or not, but here's the example. So with that being said, Why am I harping on this? Why do we spend five minutes diving into this? Well, it's because far too many leaders find themselves in a position where they feel forced to be an advisor. Far too many leaders put too much stock in being a mentor and feeling like they need to constantly set an example, whereas more leaders, if they put on their coaching hat more often, can find themselves in a position where they're not as stressed. They don't feel the same pressure. And again, it's an opportunity to help unlock the potential of their people. Now that being said, one more caveat here, before we start winding things down, you can go overboard on the coaching. And perhaps the best example of that is the you know, an opportunity. If somebody comes to you and says, Hey, you know, I need to use the bathroom, can you tell me where the bathroom is? And a pure coach would say, Well, the last time you needed to use a bathroom, where did you find one? We're on a scale of one to 10, you know, how badly do you need to use the restroom? Clearly, there's a time and a place to take off your coaching hat and put on your advising hat, put on your mentorship hat, and say, look the bathrooms down the hall. Go ahead, you know, hang a left and two doors down, you'll find what you need and move on with life. But again, if you're not aware of the times when you need to put on the right hat, you're not going to have long term sustainable success, and that's the message today. So be aware when you go into meetings, when you go into conversations, ask yourself which hat is appropriate. And even in the middle of a conversation, ask your hat which wearing, and again, you know whether you should take that off and don a different hat. That being said, Why am I here in front of the federal building in Pittsburgh, and what does that have to do with mentorship? Well, one of the questions when it comes to mentorship, or really any of those sort of fluffy, difficult to quantify things in business, is, well, what is the value? What is the value of having a great mentor?

09:06

And certainly, you know, in business, you can read all kinds of biographies of Highly Successful People who will tout having great men mentors. And how, you know, billionaires who give much of their credit to mentors. Now, does that mean that was a billion dollar mentor, perhaps. But in more practical terms, how do you quantify the value of things like mentorship? That might be a little squishy, that might have long term paybacks, if you will. Well the first answer, or perhaps related anecdote comes to us from the building that's hidden behind me at the moment by this bus, and that is the federal building.

09:48

And why? Well, because one of the first executive orders that President Trump signed was to send federal workers back to the office the old RTO return to office. Yeah. And, you know, with that executive order, obviously plenty of conversation ensued regarding, you know, whether it makes sense or not, how much value is really locked up in sending large swaths of federal workers back to the office and reducing the amount of time that they're spending working from home. And you know, my goal today is not to weigh in on that debate, but to use that as another example of when companies or federal governments, in this case, when they miss opportunities to quantify squishy things like working in the office. Because many companies, rightly so, and many individuals are very quick to point out the quantifiable benefits of working from home.

10:41

Many companies, many individuals, are very quick to say how much they save on commuting, like all these busses here behind me, or toll or driving or gas money. Many people will be quick to point out how much less money they have to spend on things like clothing, right? So they're not going to the office as much well, you know, they don't have to spend as much on those cans. Maybe they still need tops, but maybe they don't need much dry cleaning, because doesn't matter whether they sink or not. Anyway, we don't have to go down all that path the world of storage. You can add those things up, right? But when it comes to the other direction, quantifying the value of being in the office, that's where a lot of companies that I work with fall short. Quite frankly, that's where a lot of companies ignore. Maybe it's my advice in this case, and not coaching, but my advice to say,

11:23

Well, why not quantify the benefits of being in the office? If that's important to you, quantify the impact of having an in person mentor. Quantify the benefits of being in person in offices, being able to learn how to read body language, especially early on in a career. Get to the point where you say, hey, look, if you come and work for us in the first five years of your career, working for us in our culture and our environment, versus working somebody somewhere else, where you're only working remotely, or mostly working remotely, we believe that your earnings over the next 2030, years of Your career will be pick a number, seven figures, maybe millions of dollars more by working in person, in the office with us, because of our mentorship, because of our attention to detail, because of all those things that you're not going to get elsewhere. You can quantify those things. It would be difficult, don't get me wrong. Might be difficult to support, might not fit nicely in an Excel model, but I will tell you that companies and individuals and teams who can quantify the upside of their work environment, well, they have a leg up, because, again, they're competing against people who are, you know, have no problem quantifying the other direction. So think about that. Think about that. If you're a leader in the federal government, if you feel like you know that you run the risk of losing some talent because of this executive order? Are you taking the time to actually try to quantify the benefits, not just the benefits of again, in general, working for the federal government, which many people are quick to do, and again, tout the long term benefits of stability and the long term benefits of benefits and things of that nature. Take it a step further. If there's truly value in working in person, put a number to it.

13:07

So that being said, wrapping up this episode again, as always, I hope that you found value, even if it's difficult to quantify. In checking out this latest episode of the energy detox, as always, if you have suggestions on how to increase the value of these podcasts by all means, please let me know. And with that, as always, I hope you have a great rest of the day and a great rest of National Mentoring Month.

Leadership, Management, Coaching, Energy, Envronment, ESG, SustainabilityJoe SinnottLeadership, CoachingComment